Schedules

An initiative's schedule is its plan of tasks and milestones over time, shown as a Gantt chart. It sets out what needs to be done and when, how tasks depend on each other, and how the work lines up with the initiative's benefits, costs, and stage gates. Open it from Tools > Schedule on the initiative's side menu.

This article covers both the Advanced and Simple Models. The schedule is available where tasks are enabled for the initiative's classification, or for the program — see Managing Tasks. The initiative's tasks can also be viewed as a table or a board, on the Tasks page.

The schedule

The schedule has two panes:

• Task list — on the left, every item in a tree, with columns such as Name, Progress, and Owner.
• Chart — on the right, the same items on a timeline, with a line marking today. Bars are tasks, diamonds are milestones, and lines are dependencies between them. Hover over an item for its details.

Drag the bar between the panes to resize them, or click its arrows to hide one.

The toolbar

Across the top of the schedule:

• Settings — chooses what else is shown on the chart. See Showing more on the chart.
• Views — switches between saved views of the schedule. See Saved views.
• Undo — undoes your last unsaved change.
• Apply Constraints — moves the start and end dates of any tasks that break a dependency, so every dependency is met.
• New Task — adds a task to the schedule.
• Save — saves your changes. See Saving changes.

At the top right, buttons export the schedule to PDF, import a schedule, download the schedule as an Excel template, and expand the schedule to full screen. See Importing and Exporting Schedules.

Down the left of the task list, buttons expand or collapse every item, zoom the timeline in and out, zoom to fit the whole schedule, and open the resource histogram — see Resource Assignment. The timeline starts at a scale of several years, so a short schedule may not be visible until you zoom in.

Columns and item types

The task list's columns are task fields, such as Type, Predecessors, and Successors. Any custom fields mapped to tasks can be added as columns too — see Managing Tasks.

As well as tasks and milestones, the schedule can show the initiative's other items, such as its benefits, costs, goals, resources, and RAID items. Choose which are shown by filtering the Type column.

Building the schedule

To build the schedule in the task list and chart:

• Add a task — click New Task, or right-click a task for options to add, indent, or delete tasks and milestones.
• Edit a cell — double-click it.
• Reschedule a task — drag its bar along the timeline, or drag either end to change its duration.
• Mark progress — drag the handle at the start of a task's bar. Progress is set in steps of 5%.
• Arrange columns — right-click a column header to add, hide, sort, or filter columns, or drag a column to move it.
• Open a task in full — right-click a task or milestone and select Edit Task. See The Edit Task window.

A schedule can also be built in Excel, Microsoft Project, or Primavera and imported — see Importing and Exporting Schedules. In the Advanced Model, a schedule template can add a standard set of tasks and milestones in one go, from the Templates button — see Schedule Templates.

The Edit Task window

Right-click a task or milestone on the schedule and select Edit Task to open it in full. This is a different window from the Edit Task side sheet on the Tasks page. Make your changes on any of its tabs, then click Update, or Cancel to close without changing anything. Only tasks and milestones can be opened this way.

General

• Name, Owner, and Type — what the task is, who's responsible for it, and whether it's a task or a milestone.
• Start Date, End Date, and Duration — when the task runs. Duration is in days.
• Constraint Type and Constraint Date — fix when the task can start or finish, regardless of its dependencies. Leave the constraint as None to let dependencies decide.
• Progress — how far through the task is.
• Display on Dashboard — shows the task on the initiative's dashboards.
• Rollup — shows the task on its summary task's row, where Rollup is turned on in the Settings menu.
• Assigned Resources — the people working on the task, each with their Effort.

Custom fields mapped to tasks appear at the bottom of the tab.

Benefits

The benefits that depend on the task, listed under Associated Benefits. Link a task to a benefit with a Finish-to-Start dependency on the chart, where finishing the task is what lets the benefit start — such as a system going live before its savings begin. Where the benefit's classification allows it, delays to the task then push back the benefit's forecast. To remove a link, click its delete button.

Process

Makes the milestone a stage gate milestone, which marks when a stage of the process will be completed. Select the stage from Assign to a Stage.

Predecessors and Successors

The task's schedule dependencies — the tasks it waits for, and the tasks that wait for it. For each one, choose the task, its Type, and its Lag in days, and click Add. Click the delete button next to a dependency to remove it. See Dependencies.

Dependencies

Dependency RAID items that link the task to another project. See Dependency RAID items.

Dependencies

A dependency links two tasks or milestones, so that one can't start or finish until the other has. The task that comes first is the predecessor; the task that depends on it is the successor. Chained together, dependencies build the order of the work, so that moving one task shows what it affects.

A dependency can be one of four types:

• Finish To Start — the successor can't start until the predecessor finishes. The most common type, and the default.
• Start To Start — the successor can't start until the predecessor starts.
• Finish To Finish — the successor can't finish until the predecessor finishes.
• Start To Finish — the successor can't finish until the predecessor starts.

A dependency can also have a lag: a number of days to wait after the predecessor before the successor. For example, a Finish To Start dependency with a two-day lag means the successor starts two days after the predecessor finishes. A negative lag, called a lead, lets the successor start before the predecessor finishes.

Adding and removing dependencies

Dependencies can be added and removed in three places:

• On the chart — drag from the end of one task's bar to the start of another to add a Finish To Start dependency.
• In the Edit Task window — add or remove dependencies, of any type and with a lag, on the Predecessors and Successors tabs.
• In the task list — where the Predecessors and Successors columns are shown, click a task's cell to see its dependencies, and add or remove them there.

Dependencies can only be removed in the Edit Task window or the Predecessors and Successors columns.

Dependencies link tasks and milestones. The one exception is a Finish To Start link from a task to a benefit, which shows the benefit depends on the task — see Benefits, above. Other items, such as costs, goals, resources, and RAID items, can't have dependencies.

Click Apply Constraints to move any tasks that don't meet their dependencies. Dependencies can't loop back on themselves: where they do, saving shows Cyclic Dependencies Detected, listing the dependencies involved. Delete one of them to break the loop, and save again.

Dependency RAID items

A schedule dependency isn't the same as a Dependency RAID item. A schedule dependency sets the order of two tasks in a schedule. A Dependency RAID item records that the work relies on another project, so it can be tracked and managed with the initiative's other RAID items.

Where the initiative's classification allows Dependency RAID items, they can be created in two ways:

• On the schedule, on the Dependencies tab of a task's Edit Task window. Click Add Dependency to link the task to another project and its schedule. The tab also lists, read-only, the dependencies that rely on this task.
• From the RAID Register, like any other RAID item — see Managing RAID and Action Items.

Working with other items on the schedule

Each type of item can be changed in different ways — by dragging its bar on the chart, by editing its cells in the task list, or both.

• Tasks — drag and resize the bar, and edit every cell.
• Milestones — drag the diamond to move it. Edit every cell except the end date, as a milestone is a single point in time. Progress is either 0% or 100%.
• Summary tasks — a task with tasks beneath it. Its bar can't be dragged or resized, and its dates, duration, type, and progress cells can't be edited, because they're worked out from the tasks beneath it. Its other cells, such as its name, can be edited.
• Initiatives — initiatives and projects at the levels below are shown for context. They're read-only, and their bars can't be dragged.
• Benefits — drag and resize the bar. Only the Start Date, End Date, and reporting milestone cells can be edited. Dates move to the start or end of a reporting period.
• Costs, goals, and resource capacity — drag and resize the bar. Only the Start Date and End Date cells can be edited. Dates move to the start or end of a reporting period.
• Resource demand — drag and resize the bar. Its cells can't be edited in the task list; change its details on the demand itself — see Resource Demand.
• RAID items — shown as orange diamonds on their review date. Drag the diamond, or edit the start date cell, to change the review date. No other cells can be edited.
• Action items — tasks created under a RAID item. They can be dragged and edited like tasks, except for their progress, which isn't counted towards their summary task's progress either.
• Integrated tasks — tasks synced from Jira or Azure DevOps are read-only. Their bars can't be dragged or resized; change them in the system they come from.

How progress rolls up

Only tasks and milestones have progress. A summary task's progress is the average of the tasks and milestones beneath it, so progress can only be edited on tasks and milestones with nothing beneath them. Initiatives, deleted tasks, and action items aren't counted.

Depending on your organization's settings, the average is either weighted by each task's length, or counts every task equally. For example, a summary task has two tasks beneath it: a 10-day task that's 100% done, and a 2-day task that's 0% done.

• Weighted — longer tasks count for more, so the summary task shows 79%: most of its work, by length, is done.
• Unweighted — every task counts the same, so the summary task shows 50%: one of its two tasks is done.

Showing more on the chart

The Settings menu turns these on or off:

• Baseline — shows each task's baselined dates as a grey bar underneath it, and how far ahead or behind the baseline each item is.
• Critical Path — highlights in red the tasks that affect the schedule's start and end dates.
• Dependencies — shows the lines between dependent tasks.
• Rollup — shows tasks and milestones that have Rollup checked as bars or diamonds on their summary task's row, so the summary task shows its key dates when it's collapsed.
• Item Labels — shows each item's name next to its bar on the chart.
• Stage Milestones — shows the initiative's stage gate milestones, on the dates the stage gates are due.
• Child Initiatives — shows the initiatives at the levels below this one.

Saving changes

Changes to the schedule aren't kept until you click Save. Save before changing views or filters, or importing or exporting the schedule.

Where baselines are recorded for the initiative, Save Schedule & Update Baseline saves your changes and updates the baseline at the same time — see Taking and Updating Baselines.

Where your administrator has set a delete confirmation threshold, saving a change that deletes that many items or more shows Confirmation Threshold Exceeded. Choose Save & Delete to save everything, including the deletions, or Save Only to save everything except them. See Site Settings.

Saved views

A view stores the schedule's columns, filters, and Settings selections, so you can come back to them. Click Views to switch between views. For saving, sharing, and managing views, see Register Views.

Permissions

The schedule checks each item against your permissions, so you can only change what you're allowed to. Items you can't change are read-only.

• Tasks and milestones — editable with permission to update the schedule, set by the Tasks permission in your team role. You can also edit tasks you own, even without it.
• Benefits — editable with permission to update that benefit.
• Costs, goals, and RAID items — editable with permission to update costs, goals, or RAID items.
• Resource demand and resource capacity — only shown to users with permission to update them.
• Initiatives — always read-only on the schedule.

The whole schedule is read-only where you can't update the schedule and don't own any of its tasks, and while it's managed in Excel, Microsoft Project, or Primavera — see Importing and Exporting Schedules. Updating its baseline needs the Schedule Baseline permission — see Configuring Baselines.

For working with individual tasks, see Managing Tasks. For the Tasks page's table and board, see Table View and Board View.