Creating Relationships Between Planning Elements
Links in Innovation Planning show there is a relationship between two planning elements. With the appropriate roles and rights, planning element team members that have the Planner role can create relationships between available elements by dragging a line from one planning element to the other within a view, or by dragging a line between projects when using Quick Search. Details about existing links are available within each element's details.
Creating Links Between Planning Elements in Any Level
Using the Accolade Quick Search, you can search for projects that exist throughout Accolade (to which you have visibility) and create a link to any planning element or project that displays in any Innovation Planning view. You can also create links between projects that are returned in the search directly within the search results. Creating links in this manner allows you to create links between planning elements across the company without having to create views within Innovation Planning.
Note: The link option from Quick Search is only available when using Quick Search while in the planning board or a view in Innovation Planning.
To create a link between planning elements in any level:
- From the Planning menu, select Planning Board.
- With the Planning Board displayed, enter text into Quick Search in the Accolade title bar.
In Gantt views, you must be in Link mode (click 
in the upper right corner of the page, and select Create) prior to entering your search criteria.
- Within the returned results, click
next to a project and drag to another project within the Quick Search window, or to a planning element displayed in a view in Innovation Planning.
To create a dependency that an element starts after another element finishes, or that have a date-before-date dependency, drag the line from the source element to the target element. For example, if project A must finish before project B can start, you would draw the line from the source element project A to the target element project B, and select the relationship type Finish - Start. For other kinds of dependencies, it does not matter which direction you drag the line.
You can also create links from a planning element in a view to a project in the Quick Search results. Click and hold on an element until your cursor changes to 
, then drag the line to a project result within the Quick Search.
- In the Link Types dialog, select the relationship type to create.
For Date - Date link types, click the link in the relationship description to select the date that the dependency is based on, such as the project's start date, end date, a gate date, or a date metric available within the element.
- Click OK to create the link.
To create multiple links without the Quick Search window closing, click 
in the top right corner of the Quick Search display to pin the display to the main window. When you are finished creating links, click the icon again to close Quick Search.
Creating Links in Planning Views
Creating links between planning elements within views creates the same types of links as are available when using Quick Search; however, you can only create links between the elements that are displayed within the view.
To create a link between planning elements within a planning view:
- From the Planning menu, select Planning Board.
In Gantt views, you must be in Link mode (click in the upper right corner of the page, and select Create) in order to create links. If necessary, display existing relationships to include enough levels to display the elements you want to link.
- Click and hold on an element until your cursor changes to , then drag the line to another element.
To create a dependency that an element starts after another element finishes, or that have a date-before-date dependency, drag the line from the source element to the target element. For example, if project A must finish before project B can start, you would draw the line from the source element project A to the target element project B, and select the relationship type Finish - Start. For other kinds of dependencies, it does not matter which direction you drag the line.
If the element you are dragging towards is off screen, the view starts to scroll.
- In the Link Types dialog, select the relationship type to create.
For Date - Date link types, click the link in the relationship description to select the date that the dependency is based on, such as the project's start date, end date, a gate date, or a date metric available within the element.
To show relationships between milestones, the start and end milestone metrics must first be set as visible in Roadmapping.
Important! If you create a link between two elements whose dates are in violation of the dependency set in the link type, or you change dates within linked elements that are in violation of the dependency, the system alerts you that there is a conflict with the relationship. You can select to break the relationship before continuing with the date change, or change the date even though there is a conflict.
If you choose to ignore the relationship conflict, the conflict status is indicated by the 
icon displayed next to the element's name within the view. Clicking on the icon will open a dialog that displays the details and options for resolving the conflict.
- Click OK to create the link.
To confirm the creation of the link or view information about it without displaying the relationship lines, hover over the element and click to view the element's relationship links. Information about an element's links can also be viewed on the Related Projects
page of the associated project.
Using Auto-Linking Rules to Create Relationships
You can use the Accolade auto-linking feature to define rules based on a metric selection that establishes dependency relationships automatically between planning elements.
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Notes:
Relationship links can also be deleted by clicking on the source element and drag a link line to the target element again. In the Link Types dialog, clear the check box of the link type you want to delete and click OK. All links of that type between the two elements are deleted.
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to remove the link. If you delete the link in error, click 
while in the dialog to reapply the relationship link to the projects.