Field Mappings Tab for OnePager Express for Version 7.0
Contents
About the Field Mappings Tab
What Is Unlimited Field Mapping?
1) The Unlimited Field Mapping feature lets you use a source plan field that was not already available to you in the Chart Editor,
2) The feature allows you to avoid going back to the Template form to map additional field for the specific purpose you need without having to recreate a new chart.
3) Having to recreate a new chart is cumbersome and inefficient, especially if you already invested time editing the original chart before you realized that you needed another source plan field.
4) The Unlimited Field Mapping (UFM) is a vastly more efficient way to bring additional source plan fields into the Chart Editor after you've created and edited your chart.
5) Previously, OnePager only had access to Microsoft Project or Excel source plan fields that were specifically mentioned in the OnePager Template.
6) With UFM, the Chart Editor can access all source plan fields.
7) Field Mapping is defined as the use of a source plan field for a particular OnePager purpose.
8) There are more than 25 OnePager purposes from Baseline Finish Date to Unique task/milestone identifier.
9) You can easily refer back to your source plan and access changed fields from the Chart Editor.
10) For example, you can populate a text field in Microsoft Excel and then use that field to present data in an Text Column after the chart is first created.
11) Further, OnePager Express gives you a more efficient way to change the field mapping for seven (7) of the most frequently used OnePager Express presentation purposes.
12) For OnePager Express there are seven (7) such purposes because it omits display of critical path information.
13) For more information on Field Mapping, please consult the Frequently Asked Questions topics at this link: [Field Mapping]
The Field Mapping Tab
14) The Unlimited Field Mapping feature, is implemented as a change to the Other Columns tab on the Template Properties and an added tab on the Chart Properties forms.
15) Previously, the Other Columns tab was only present on the Template Properties form.
16) For more information on the Unlimited Column Mapping feature, please see the article at: Unlimited Field Mapping. 7.19.1-70
17) The name of the new tab is the Field Mappings tab.
18) Since the Unlimited Field Mapping feature allows you to access all fields from Microsoft Excel source plans at any time in the life cycle of a chart, the Field Mappings tab no longer needs to map fields to extra purposes that are just carried along in case you need them.
19) The Field Mapping tab focuses on common OnePager purposes that users can map to Microsoft Excel fields after a chart is created.
20) Note, however, that other important OnePager purposes are on Rows/Swimlanes, Task Bars and Milestones tabs.
21) Some purposes such as Task Name and Percent-Complete appear both on the Field Mapping tab and on the Task Bars and Milestones tabs.
22) For OnePager Express there are seven (7) purposes named in the Field Mappings tab: (1) Percent-complete, (2) Task-name, (3) Start date, (4) Finish date, (5) Baseline start date, (6) Baseline finish date, (7) Deadline date.
23) The Field Mappings tab for the Chart Properties form is shown below:
Field Splitting Feature
24) As in the Other Columns tab in previous versions, OnePager Express supports Field Splitting with the control on the Field Mappings tab in the Template form and Chart Properties forms.
25) Field Splitting can be performed on any source plan string type field with comma-separated components imported before the chart is created.
26) It cannot be changed once a chart is created, though its value is shown in the Chart Properties form to remind you of the splitting that is active in the chart.
Task/Milestone Identity Mapping Feature
27) Finally, the Field Mappings tab shows the Microsoft Excel field currently being used for the Task/Milestone Identity Mapping feature.
28) In the Chart Properties form, the Task/Milestone Identity Mapping is disabled but tells you which Microsoft Excel field is being used.
29) The Task/Milestone Identity Mapping field being used is specified in the Template Properties form to act as a designated alternate Unique ID field for OnePager Excel UPDATE operations.
30) You can change it to whatever field you want, but it is your responsibility to make sure that the chosen field has a unique value for each task you plan to import and display in OnePager.
31) Having duplicate values in the Unique ID field causes tasks to be omitted and/or misidentified later on when you are doing updates of the chart.
Field Mappings
1) There are four (4) controls groups found on the Field Mappings tab.
Basic Mappings
2) Within the Basic Mappings control group there are two (2) basic columns already established that can be remapped.
3) You can use any Microsoft Excel field of the appropriate type corresponding to the Basic Mapping field named for the dropdown.
4) The dropdown list for the Percent complete field is shown in the example below:
5) Selecting a different Microsoft Excel field from the dropdown list tells OnePager to go back to the Microsoft Excel source plan, retrieve the data for that field, and use that data for the purpose of the chart.
6) This re-acquisition of Microsoft Excel source plan data is done when you click Apply on the Chart Properties form which keeps the Chart Properties form visible or when you click OK which closes the Chart Properties form.
7) The current chart is updated accordingly in the Chart Editor.
8) The process for the other Basic Mapping field for Task labels is the same as shown above for Percent complete.
Date Mappings
9) There are five (5) Date Mappings purposes in this control group that are available to be remapped.
10) You can use any Microsoft Excel date type field that can be accessed in the individual dropdown lists as shown in the example below:
11) As with the selections in the Basic Mappings control group, selecting a different Microsoft Excel field from the dropdown list tells OnePager to go back to the Microsoft Excel source plan, retrieve the data for that field, and use that data for the designated the OnePager Express purpose in the chart.
12) This re-acquisition of Microsoft Excel source plan data is done when you click Apply on the Chart Properties form which keeps the Chart Properties form visible or when you click OK which closes the Chart Properties form.
13) The current chart is updated accordingly in the Chart Editor.
Task/Milestone Identity Mapping
Task/Milestone Identity Mapping for OnePager Express Add-in and Desktop
1) In the Chart Properties form, this control group is informational.
2) The control group is disabled in the Chart Properties form but the Unique Id window shows the setting previously or currently set in the Template form’s Field Mappings tab.
3) As such, the window is for information purposes only and cannot be changed.
4) The Task/Milestone Identity Mapping control group is shown below:
5) The Unique Id field shows the Microsoft Excel field that OnePager Express used when it first created the chart.
6) This feature is provided to assist advanced OnePager Express users update charts that were created from source plans where portions of one Microsoft Excel source plan were copied into another.
7) When OnePager updates a chart, it needs to identify each task and milestone shape that is being imported and find out if it already exists in chart.
8) This is how OnePager preserves the formatting of the task/milestone shapes and places them in the same row/swimlane where they resided before the update.
9) When the data in the source plan are a .xls file, OnePager has traditionally used the Microsoft Excel designated Task ID field for this purpose as the default in distributed OnePager Express Template forms.
10) However, you have no control over what values of Unique ID appear in the .xls file when you copy data into that file.
11) As a result, .xls files that had data copied into them can have problems preserving OnePager Express' formatting and row/swimlane positioning.
12) To solve this problem, OnePager Express lets you define and use a substitute Microsoft Excel field as an alternative designated Unique ID for uniquely identifying tasks.
13) You are then responsible for guaranteeing that these field values are preserved when data is copied from one .xls file to another.
14) You are also responsible for making sure that there are no duplicate values in the field designated for his alternative Unique ID usage.
15) The designated alternate Unique ID can be set in one of two places:
- a) In the Template form's Field Mappings tab and
- b) In the OnePager Choices form's second page by clicking the Edit current template... button.
16) We strongly recommend that you set the designated alternate Unique ID in the Template form rather than with the OnePager Choices form because this ensures that all charts use a consistent designated alternative Unique ID field.
17) See the section in the article at this link: Advanced Tab for OnePager Express - Warn Of Merging Tasks. 21.14.1-70
18) This section of the linked article provides guidance on the care that needs to be taken when merging tasks so that OnePager Express can properly perform chart update in the future.
Field Splitting
1) As with the control group discussed previously, the Field Splitting control group is disabled but shows the Microsoft Excel field currently set in the Template form as the field participating in field splitting.
2) As such, the window is for information purposes only and cannot be changed.
3) The Field Splitting control group is shown below:
4) The Field Splitting control group in the Field Mappings tab of the OnePager Excel Chart Properties form works in the same way as it did in the Other Columns tab of previous versions.
5) See the article at: Splitting and Parsing Fields-OnePager Express 24.5.1-70 for more information.
Related Links
Unlimited Column Mapping 7.19.1-70
Splitting and Parsing Columns-OnePager Excel 24.5.1-70
(21.16.1-70)
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