Gantt – Summary Tasks

PM3 Cloud now has a definition of a Summary Task on the Plan > Delivery > Gantt Chart screen. This has come with many rule changes to this screen. A summary task is a new item type on the Gantt Chart screen. It is rendered as a horizontal blue bar. The text for a summary task in the left pane is also blue. Summary tasks allow you to group related tasks and milestones under a common parent task. The Summary task line will extend to span the time width of all of its child items. Summary tasks can then be expanded and collapsed, to help with viewing only the information you wish to see. Ordering of Milestones In previous versions, the order of Milestones on the Gantt page was the same as that on the MilestonePlan page. Now however, order on the Gantt page is controlled by Summary Tasks and by the newly available dragdrop in the table pane at the left. So GanttOrder is now separate from MilestonePlan order. (For legacy plans, the order on the two pages will initially match but will change as you move items round on either page). The Gantt page toolbar has 2 new icons o Milestone View allows you to order the page in legacy order to match that on the MilestonePlan page. • Summary Tasks are meaningless in this view and so are hidden This is a view only. You cannot save this order. You cannot move drag-drop items vertically whilst in this view. o Summary Task Order Reverts the view to the last Summary Task view. This is the default view of the page. You can drag-drop items around in this view, and changes made here are auto-saved to the database. When you RefreshGateways (Tools menu) or Reset the Current GatewaySet (dropdown in Milestone Plan), the new Gateways will now be guaranteed to be initially placed at the top (rather than be interspersed between existing milestones. In any case, on either page, you can drag-drop rows to place them where ever you want. You may nest Summary tasks within one another, allowing you to form a hierarchy of tasks. Items can be moved up/down the hierarchy using the new indent buttons in the tool ribbon. There are a few points to keep in mind whilst in/outdenting: If you indent/outdent a Summary Task, it will bring its subtree of items with it. You can indent/outdent multiple rows at a time provided o The selected rows are contiguous o There is no selected item indented left of the first selected item If you indent a Milestone or Task, it is treated individually even if the Milestone has associated Tasks. All the descendents of a Summary Task are indented under it, and appear in sequential rows below it. Any row which is not indented under a Summary Task (i.e. whose indent is less than or equal to that to that Summary Task) must appear either before it or after the last of the Summary Task descendents. o If you try to in/outdent a row which breaks this rule, PM3 will advise of the error. Of course, you cannot indent or outdent where there are no Summary Tasks to go into. Vertical drag-drop - You can now drag-drop rows vertically in the Gantt page Table: You can only drag-drop rows when the page is in Standard Summary Task order (see 1-2-3 icon in Toolbar) and rows are fully expanded without filters. If you drag-drop a Summary Task, it will bring its whole subtree of items with it. You can mult-select rows, and drag-drop them provided o The selected rows are contiguous o There is no selected item indented left of the first selected item Dropped items will inherit the Summary Task and indent level of the item at the insertion point (the row where the mouse is, appearing blue as you drop the dragged item). A dropped item will always appear after the insertion point. To insert an item in first position, drag it to second position, then drag the first one after it. You can now move milestone tasks away from their associated milestones and put them in different Summary Tasks if you want. You can always see which Tasks are associated with a milestone by selecting that milestone, and with right mouse, selecting Show Linked Tasks which will mark them with a grey background cell. Adding Tasks, Milestones, Summary Tasks You can only add these items when the page is in Standard Summary Task order (see 1-2-3 icon in Toolbar) and rows are fully expanded without filters. This is because inserted items inherit properties (such as Summary Task, indent level, GanttOrder and dates) from the insertion point. The insertion point is the row selected at the time of the Add. If you have multiple rows selected, the top one is considered the insertion point. When you add a new item to the page, it will appear adjacent to the insertion point. Whether it is before or after depends on the type of item being added and the type of item at the insertion point. When adding a new Task, it will be a Plan Task unless the insertion point is a Milestone, in which case it will be a Milestone Task linked to that milestones. The newly added item will inherit properties derived from the insertion point: o Summary Task, indent level, GanttOrder and dates There are two new accompanying view settings (in the cog toolbar item): Show Milestone Bars: Shows or hides the Milestone duration lines that would draw beneath a milestone to relay the duration of the Milestone’s tasks: Show Summary Separator Lines: Determines whether or not the horizontal separator lines / row groupings are drawn between Summary task groups (when turned on) or between milestone groups (when turned off; as per legacy):