Difference between revisions of "Template Only Features for Version 6.0 (OnePager Pro)"

Revision as of 14:41, 12 May 2017

About Template Only Features

1) Because the Template Properties and Project-View Properties (PVP) forms are similar, this article only covers the areas of the former that are different from the later.

2) If you are unclear on the differences between a Template and a PVP, please review the explanation in the Core Concepts (Portal) and Templates versus Project Views articles.

3) You should familiarize yourself with the PVP form before reading this article.

4) Please see the article at this link: Editing with the Project-View Properties form (Portal) for more information and access to more detailed articles.

A Few Words On Templates

1) Permanent Template. Chronicle Graphics, Inc. ships OPP with one pre-defined permanent Template that you cannot accidentally delete.

a) The permanent Template has the word Permanent in its name.

b) The permanent Template cannot be modified hence all the control features on each tab are disabled (ghosted).

2) Metric versus Non-Metric. Within a Template there are settings which are measures that must be considered when building the project view.

a) These include the height of individual rows, the height of the percent-complete bar within a task bar, and the like.

b) OnePager supports two measurement conventions: (1) English (inches) and (2) Metric (centimeters). For convenience, you can identify a Metric based Template because the word (metric) is included in the title. And these two sets of Templates are separated by default into English and a Metric sub-folder of the default Templates folder.

3) In addition to the English and Metric folders in the Template folder there is a Legacy folder containing Templates from versions of OPP prior to version 5.3.

4) Ideally, you will use one of the Templates provided one time and then from there you will customize your project views using your own customer Template.

a) Once a project view is customized it may be transformed into a Template using the Copy to Template button on the ribbon's Home tab.

b) Distributed Templates give you a starting point, but to maximize your efficiency, we recommend you learn how to create and update your own Templates.

Main Template Tab

1) The Main tab of the Template Properties form differs slightly from the PVP form.

a) The Template does not have entry positions for the Start date, and End date, or project view title, because dates are systematically produced by OnePager based on the earliest start date and latest finish dates in your source plan data.

b) The Title is something you designate as you create the new project view with the OnePager choices (OPC) form.

Advanced Template Tab

2) The Advanced tab is shown below. Most of these parameters in the Template are identical to those appearing in the PVP form.

a) In the Template’s Advanced tab there is no Lock background checkbox in the Display options group. This is an option available after the project view is created.

b) One key difference between the Template Properties form and PVP form is the ability to use the Template to configure a multi-project import without the use of some sort of Microsoft Project Integrated Master Schedule (IMS). The next sub-section explains this further.

c) For more information on creating multi-project project views please visit these two articles:

Safely Combine Tasks From Different Files

3) Checking this checkbox puts any project views created with this Template into the multi-file multi-project mode.

4) This mode is specifically designed to support users who want to create multi-project project views from independent Microsoft Project source plans without creating a Microsoft Project IMS prior to creating the project view.

5) This is an advanced feature and when used, OnePager will number tasks and milestones imported from the various Microsoft Project source plans accessed differently than when only a single project source plan is imported.

6) This is done so that OnePager can establish a means to support your creation of subsequent snapshots for the multi-file multi-project project view in the future.

7) Once you adopted this scheme for the project view being created, it is not possible to update the project view in the future in the default single-file single-project mode.

8) To enforce this requirement, the OPP’s PVP form’s Advance tab shows the Safely combine tasks from different files checkbox but the command is ghosted.

Field Mappings Template Tab

1) The new Field Mappings tab in the Template form for OnePager Pro looks like this:

Basic and Data Field Mappings

a) The eight dropdown lists shown in the form above are the most common fields that our customers tell us they use.

b) The new Field Mappings tab in the Template, which is also available in the OnePager Pro PVP form, provides a convenient and shortcut way to change the meaning of the source plan fields as they will appear in the project view.

c) Each dropdown list contains the source plan fields by data type available for OnePager Pro and Express.

i) For example, in the Basic Fields group, the Critical-path field dropdown contains Boolean and Numeric fields from Microsoft Project.

ii) For the dropdown lists in the Date Fields group, the lists are composed of date type fields used by Microsoft Project.

d) For more detailed information on the use of this feature please go to article with starting section link: Field Mappings Tab for OnePager Pro - Basic Fields

Task/Milestone Identity Feature

2) The Task/Milestone Identity group in the Field Mappings tab of the OnePager Pro Template form provides the means for you to select a Microsoft Project field that can be used to uniquely identify tasks.

a) This is especially useful when you are creating a Microsoft Project source plan by combining task/milestones from different Microsoft Project source plan files.

i) OnePager Pro uses the Unique Id field you specified to properly manage the updates of project views built from these combined Microsoft Project source plan files.

ii) You are responsible for populating the field's contents with unique numbers prior to creating the first project view. This is an advanced function of OnePager Pro.

b) To select an alternate Unique Id, use the dropdown menu shown in the illustration below to select the desired Microsoft Project field you wish to use:

c) For more detailed information on this feature please go to the article at this section link: Field Mappings Tab for OnePager Pro - Task/Milestone Identity

3) The Field Splitting group in the Field Mappings tab of the OnePager Pro Template form works in the same way as it did in the Other Columns tab of previous versions.

4) See the article at: Splitting and Parsing Columns-OnePager Pro for more information.

5) Additionally, you can change the standard Microsoft Project source plan usage for any of the fields mentioned in the Date Fields group shown on the right side of the Field Mappings tab. This is useful if your standard field usage differs and you want to avoid having to constantly make the changes on the second page of OPC form shown below:

6) Please note that the implementation of the Retroactive Column Mapping feature necessitated that the Field Mappings tab be implemented on the Project-View Properties form as well as the Template form for version 6.0. Nevertheless, we are documenting the Field Mappings tab for the Template form here although the tab is not truly at Template only tab.

7) For more detailed usage information on the Field Mappings Tab see the article at this link: Field Mappings Tab for OnePager Pro .

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