Viewing Project Time View

Project Time View is a pod which provides a comprehensive, visual overview to view and manage a project using time, durations and dates of all the work necessary to complete a project. From this pod, users can view and manage work organized by process, status, function or team member ownership.

By default, users have access to a layout called Project Time View, which contains only the Time View pod. The pod can also be added to other custom layouts in order to display other information alongside Time View.

A layout with the Time View pod needs to be associated to a process model in order to be visible on the project. Once it has been associated, clicking the respective layout from the project navigation pane will display the Time View.

Note:  If your company uses the Accolade Innovation Planning component, the Time View layout for a project can also be accessed through the Planning Board elements.

Elements of Project Time View

The Time View pod is divided into three sections – the Time View Toolbar, the Time View Grid, and the Time View Chart. The Toolbar, at the top of the pod, contains icons and buttons for controlling the data below. The Grid, on the left, has important details about each stage, gate, deliverable, activity, and ad-hoc activity in the project. The Chart, on the right, provides a visual representation of the project’s timeline. Each section is described in more detail in the corresponding section below.

Time View Toolbar

The Time View toolbar contains icons and buttons for controlling what data to display.

• Collapse All – Hides all the deliverables and activities, displaying only project, stage, and gate information.
• Expand All – Displays all the deliverable and activities, displaying information about the entire project.
• Individual stages and deliverables can be expanded and collapsed with the +/- icons to their left.
• Undo – Undo the previous action.
• Redo – Redo an action that was previously undone.
• Clicking Apply or Reset will remove the ability to undo or redo any prior actions.
• Hide/Show – A menu to hide or show any of the columns on the grid side of Project Time View based on user preference.
• Group By – Organizes the tasks according to one of several properties. Only one of the following grouping criteria can be applied at once:
• By Stage – The default state of Project Time View. Displays the deliverables and activities in the same order as they are defined on the process model, with extra rows showing the length of each stage, the gate dates and icons, and the length of the entire project.
• By Function – Organizes the tasks according to function. This view is useful for highlighting when certain functions get involved in the project.
• By Owner – Organizes the tasks according to owner. This view is useful for finding unassigned tasks, team members without enough work, or incomplete tasks assigned to former team members.
• By Status – Organizes the tasks according to status. This view is useful for quickly identifying if too many tasks are Not Started.

• Reset Project Start and End Dates - Sets the project start date to the earliest start date of a project task, and sets the project end date to the latest finish date on a task.

• Reschedule dependent tasks - Automatically schedules tasks based on predefined dependencies, adjusting the dependencies so that they all are in sync across the project.
• Show critical path -Alternately enables and disables the display of the critical path. Tasks on the critical path display in red in the project time view when Show critical path is enabled. Critical path is the defined sequence of tasks that can't be delayed, otherwise the whole project would be delayed. The critical path also determines the shortest time the project can take.
  
• Zoom In – Increases the zoom level.
• Zoom Out – Decreases the zoom level.
• Zoom To Fit – Selects the zoom level that best fits the project.

Time View Grid

The Time View grid has important details about each stage, gate, deliverable, activity, ad-hoc deliverable, and ad-hoc activity in the project.

The following columns are displayed in the grid by default. Each column can be displayed or hidden using the Hide/Show drop-down menu in the header bar. Double clicking on the deliverable or activity name within this grid will open the related project task details.

• Name – The name of the task.
• Function – The function associated with the task.
• Owner – The team member who owns the task.
• Status – The current status of the task.
• Start – The date on which the task will begin.
• Finish – The date by which the task is planned to be finished.
• Deadline – The date by which the task must be finished.
• Duration – The number of physical days between the start date and finish date for the task. This calculation includes weekend and non-working days within the date range.
• More – This column will display a unique icon next to stages, deliverables, activities, and gates when a special action is available.
• Add Deliverable – When a user has permission to add an ad-hoc deliverable to a stage, a will appear in this column. Click the icon to insert a new row representing the new ad-hoc deliverable. Deliverables can be repositioned by dragging and dropping across the Time View grid as needed.
• Add Activity – When a user has permission to add an ad-hoc activity to a deliverable, a will appear in this column. Click the icon to insert a new row representing the new ad-hoc activity. Activities can be repositioned by dragging and dropping them across the Time View grid as needed.
• The user must give the activity a name before saving.
• The user cannot add a dependency to an ad-hoc activity until the activity has been saved.
• In Trouble – To set an activity or deliverable to In Trouble, click on the icon.
• Delete Activity – When a user has permission to delete an activity, a will appear in this column. Click the icon to delete the unwanted activity.
• Invalid Dependency in Stage – When a dependency has invalid dates, a will appear in this column. The tasks causing the warning will also display next to the task name, and the dependency line will be red. These warnings will not prevent the user from saving the project, but the user must adjust the dates to follow the dependency rules or delete the dependency in order to clear the warnings.
• Gate at risk - A gate is at risk if the gate date is set before all tasks are scheduled to finish. The will appear when the gate date is at risk. If reason codes are defined, the reason code () will appear in place of , until a reason code is entered.
• Set Gate Date Change Reason – Certain classes of process models require a reason for changing an existing gate meeting date. If the project belongs to one of those classes, when a user changes a gate date in Time View a will appear in the action column. The user must click the icon and select a reason from the drop-down menu before the gate date change can be saved.

A user who has Project Manager rights or a user who is the owner of the task can quickly set the dates, functions, owners, or statuses for a deliverable or activity.

Time View Chart

The Time View chart illustrates the project’s schedule using several different elements. With the chart, the team can visually see how long each task should take, when each task begins and ends, and the relationships among tasks.

• Today's Date – A red line shows today's date in relation to the project task dates.
• Stages – Stages are represented by a horizontal bar at the top of each set of related deliverables and activities. The stage start date is determined by the earliest date assigned to the stage's tasks, and its finish date is determined by the latest date assigned to the stage's tasks. These dates update automatically if deliverable and/or activity dates are changed.
• Gates – Symbol turns red if the gate date is before the tasks are scheduled to finish.
• Deliverables and Activities – Each deliverable and activity is represented by a horizontal bar drawn from its start date to its planned finish date. If the task only has one of the two dates defined, it will display as a solid line on the chart at the defined date. If a task does not have any assigned dates, it will not display on the chart.
• The dates on the task can be changed by dragging either end of each horizontal bar, or by sliding the entire task bar in either direction.
• A solid line will display on the task's line if there is a deadline for the task. This line will be black if the deadline is in the future, and will display in red if the deadline has passed and the deliverable or activity is incomplete.
• If the project has any dependencies between deliverables or activities, those dependencies will be represented as arrows drawn between the related tasks.
• Double clicking on the deliverable or activity task bar will open the related project task details.

Dependencies in Time View

When a new project is created, it will inherit all of the stage task dependencies defined on the process model and display them on Time View. Dependencies for a single project can also be added and deleted from Time View.

• To add a new dependency in Time View - When the user hovers the mouse over a task's bar on the page, a small grey circle representing the task's start and finish will appear on either side of the bar. Click on the circle representing the source of the dependency and drag the cursor to the target of the dependency. The page will then draw an arrow representing the new dependency.
• To delete an existing dependency in Time View - Double click the unwanted dependency and select "delete" on the dialog that appears.

Note:  When a user sets a date that violates a dependency, the dependency line will turn red and a will display next to the stages and tasks that have invalid dates. Hovering the mouse over a red dependency line will display a tool-tip to indicate to the user which dates are in violation. The user is still able to save Time View when a project has invalid dependencies, but the warnings and red dependency lines will remain until the user changes the relevant dates to fix the dependency.