Working the Structured View

When the page first opens, it shows all top-level tasks for the project or task. You can expand the list to show a specific level of subtasks by clicking the "+" in the tree listing. Expanding "All" or on levels does not include subprojects. To expand a subproject, click its "+" icon. On a summary task, you can right-click and select "Expand - All" to display all child tasks. Click a task name to open it in a new tab with the task as the top node in the structure; the left pane displays the parent structure of the task to show its context. You can switch the left panel between the structure view and the category to display commands.

Clicking the right mouse button on a task displays possible actions that you can take on that task. For information about task ID sequencing, see Task ID. For information about critical tasks and critical paths, see About the Task Schedule.

Depending on the filter and view selected in the lists above the toolbar, this page lists these details for each task:

Name. The name of the task. Critical tasks (those if delayed affect the project finish date) display in red. Summary tasks display in bold. You can hover over the name to see its description. The Name field is editable across all rows for projects, concept projects, and templates.

Type. For a project, the type is Project Space. The type for a top-level node can also be Project Concept or Project Template. You could also see Task, Phase, Gate, or Milestone as the type. The type is Task for all tasks and subtasks. Your installation may have additional task types.

The following columns are shown only in the context of "Design Project" or "Design Project Template" types:

• Out of Sync DHF Content . This icon shows for a DHF folder that is out of sync with any task deliverables. Click the icon to sync task deliverables to associated bookmarks. For example, for a Design Plan, this syncs any document deliverables.
• DHF Volume. The controlled bookmarks for the task into which the task deliverables are synced when a task completes. You can also manually sync task deliverables into the selected controlled bookmarks before task completion. Once the controlled bookmark is mapped to the task, the DHF element classification of the selected bookmark is automatically displayed in the "DHF Element" column. If the selected bookmark is the sub bookmark, the DHF element classification of the parent bookmark is displayed in the "DHF Element" column.
  Note: If you have already manually synced deliverables for the task into a controlled bookmark and the bookmark is edited, the deliverables already synced into the old bookmark remain and you need to remove them manually if the deliverables are not required.
• DHF Element. For controlled bookmarks, this is the DHF classification. Values are Design Changes, Design Input, Design Output, Design Plan, Design Review, Design Transfer, Design Validation, and Design Verification.

Id. An integer that represents the task for identifying dependencies. Unlike the task number, the ID does not represent the task's level in the hierarchy. Because it is an integer, the ID is a more concise way to identify the tasks.

Critical Task. Indicates whether a task is critical.

Predecessor. Lists any dependencies defined for the task. Shows only in Task View. The dependencies are abbreviated using this convention:

Task ID: [Dependency Type] [Number of Slack Days, if any]

Multiple dependencies display with a comma separator.

Successor. All successors tasks from the same and different projects. If the project is scheduled from the Finish Date, successors drive predecessors. Available only in the Planning view.

Deliverables. The deliverables column shows the deliverables/documents, bookmark URLs, bookmark folders, and controlled bookmarks attached to a task. The number represents the total number of deliverables attached. Click the number to see the entire deliverables list in the Deliverables PowerView. A zero (0) indicates that there are no deliverables. In addition, a maximum of three deliverable icons can display in descending order of their modified date. (The last modified document is displayed first.) Click an icon to download its document. (If a document has multiple files, a ZIP file contains the individual files.) The icon indicates a bookmark URL. Click the icon to access the URL location. The icon indicates that a higher revision of a document exists.

Actions. Available in the "Passive Tasks" filter, "Task Schedule View," and "Planning View." In the "Task Schedule View," when you select the "Passive Tasks" filter, the "Status" column is replaced by the "Actions" column. Actions are:

• Sync. You can sync attributes from the passive project to its parent if you have modify access on the parent object. Hover over this icon to see whether a tooltip states whether the estimated dates are out of sync.
  • The attributes "Estimated Start Date," "Estimated End Date," "Actual Start Date," "Actual End Date," and "Percent Complete" will be synced from the passive project to the parent task. Estimated and actual durations are also synced if the passive project and parent have the same calendar. Otherwise, the duration may vary based on the calendar.
  • To maintain the dates, constraints are applied on parent tasks. Existing constraint types and dates of the parent task will be overwritten. For a forward scheduled project, the "Start No Earlier Than" constraint type and the estimated start date of the passive project are applied as the "Constraint Date." For a reverse scheduled project, the "Finish No Later Than" constraint type and the estimated finish date of the passive project are applied as the "Constraint Date."
  • If the parent task is in the "Completed" state, the sync operation is not allowed.
  • If the parent task has dependencies or a different calendar connected to it, even after a sync there may be differences in the attribute values and therefore the sync icon is displayed.
  • If all attributes involved in syncing have the same values, a check mark displays in the "Actions" column. This indicates that attributes are in sync.
• Switch to Active. Switches a passive task to active.
• Remove. Removes the passive project.

Status. The status flags indicate whether the project or task is behind schedule. The exact number of days for a status to be yellow or red is configurable and may be different for your system.

Status is as follows:

• None: the project or task is not complete but there are more than 5 days remaining before the estimated finish date.
• Green: the project or task is complete.
• Yellow: the project or task is not complete and there are less than 5 days remaining before the estimated finish date.
• Red: the project or task is not complete and the current date is after the project/task's estimated finish date.

State. A task can be in one of the following states.

• Draft. The task is new and an assignee specified. When a Project Lead is ready for work to begin on a task, the Lead promotes it to To Do.
• To Do. The system notifies assignees.
• In Work. The assignees have begun work on the task. The system automatically promotes a task to In Work when the % Complete is changed from 0% to any percentage less than 100.
• In Approval. Project members are reviewing and approving the task and its deliverables. When 100% is entered for % Complete, the system automatically promotes the task to In Approval. Typically, an assignee creates a route to have route members review the task.
• Completed. The task is completed. The system automatically promotes a task to Completed when an assignee or Project Lead enters an Actual Finish Date. If a task in a Design Project is associated with a DHF Element, the check trigger blocks promotion to the Completed state if the task does not have a deliverable attached. You cannot demote a Completed task or phase when the "Prevent demotion of completed task" trigger is activated.

Not editable for a summary task. You can promote a summary task on the Lifecycle page, if all its requirements are fulfilled.

A parent task cannot be promoted from "In Work" to "In Approval" until all subtasks of the parent are in the "In Approval" state.

% Complete. The percentage of work that has been done for the task, as estimated by the task assignee. Shown only in the Task and Effort views. Not editable for a summary task. If "Needs Approval" is set to "No" in a summary task's properties, and all its leaf tasks are promoted to the "Completed" state, the summary state is also promoted to "Completed." If "Needs Approval" is "Yes" for a summary task and all its leaf tasks are "Completed," the summary task goes to the "In Approval" state.

Estimated

Duration / Start Date / End Date. The dates on which you expect the task to start and end. The duration is the number of days (d) or hours (h) between the start and end dates. You cannot edit the estimated duration for a summary task.

Actual

Duration / Start Date / End Date. The actual start date is the date the task was promoted to In Work. When a task's % Complete value is set to anything above 0%, the task is automatically promoted to In Work. The actual start and end dates are not editable for a summary task.

The task assignee or Project Lead can enter an Actual End Date for the task after reviewers approve it. When you enter an end date, the system promotes the task to Completed. If you manually promote the task to Completed, the system automatically enters the current date as the Actual End Date. In addition, a route can be created to get approval from reviewers and then the task promoted when the route finishes.

If you select a past date (earlier than the current date) as the actual finish date, the duration of the task is determined in this way: If the actual finish date is after the estimated finish date or between the estimated start and finish dates, the estimated start date is taken as the actual start date and the duration of the task is calculated accordingly. Otherwise, the actual finish date is considered as the actual start date and the task duration is set to one day.

When working the schedule of tasks, if all tasks in the project/summary task are in the Completed state, the project/summary task is automatically in the Review state. The actual end date is set with the date when the tasks completed.

The Actual Duration is the number of days between the actual start and end dates. It is a whole number and its default unit is days. The actual duration for a gate or milestone is always zero.

Duration Estimate. The duration estimate for the task, which is expressed in days or hours.

Constraint Type. The type of constraint for this task, which specifies when the task is expected to complete within the project. Shown only in the Schedule Planning View.

For non-summary tasks, values can be "As Late as Possible," "As Soon as Possible," "Start No Earlier Than," "Finish No Earlier Than," "Start No Later Than," "Finish No Later Than," "Must Finish On," or "Must Start On."

For summary tasks, values depend on whether the project schedule is from the start date or finish date.

For example, for forward scheduling a project, the value can be "As Soon as Possible," "Finish No Later Than," or "Start No Earlier Than." For backward scheduling a project, the value can be "As Late as Possible," "Finish No Later Than," or "Start No Earlier Than."

For a leaf task, which becomes a summary task after adding a task under it, the Constraint Type changes according to project scheduling. For example, if the project is scheduled from the start date, the Constraint Type becomes "As Soon As Possible." If the project is scheduled from its finish date, the Constraint Type becomes "As Late As Possible."

Constraint Date. Constraint Types other than "As Soon as Possible" or "As Late as Possible" have a constraint date. Shown only in the Schedule Planning View. In the Planning View, the value for the "Task Constraint Date" displays under this column for each object.

Float / Total / Free. Total float is the amount of time permissible to delay the task without delaying the project. Total Float = LS (Late Start) – ES (Early Start). Its calculation is LF (Late Finish) – EF (Early Finish).

Free float is the amount of time permissible to delay the task without delaying the early start date of a successor task or violating a schedule constraint. Free Float = Lowest ES (Early Start) of successors – EF (Early Finish) of the task.

Float displays only in Planning View.

Level. The task's order in the hierarchy. Integers represent top-level tasks. Second-level tasks have one decimal, third level tasks have two decimals, and so on.

Description. The description of the task.

Effort View. Shows the effort, in hours or days, for each task in the project along with weekly details.

The values shown in the Total column depend on the "Status" filter:

• "All" displays the total (Approved + Submitted + Rejected) against the task.
• "Approved" displays the total of all approved efforts against the task.
• "Submitted" displays the total of all submitted efforts against the task.
• "Rejected" displays the total of all rejected efforts against the task.

The Remain column calculates the remaining effort planned for the task. Following are the algorithms for calculating the remaining effort:

• The initial calculation of the remain effort for an assignee = plan effort for an assignee.
• The subsequent calculation of remain effort for an assignee = previous remain effort for an assignee - assignee submitted/approved effort.
• Total remain effort = sum of all assignees' remain efforts.

Forecast View. Displays a "Forecast" section at the end of the table that includes columns for the forecast duration, forecast start date, and forecast end date. The section heading displays the date and time of the last calculated forecast. Forecast dates are calculated based on the current progress of tasks. To calculate the forecast, click on the toolbar.

Planning View. In addition to allowing you to view and perform actions on basic schedule information, this view also provides task constraint information. This view also displays "Total Float," "Free Float," and overall "Critical Task" information.

Task Schedule View. Displays estimated and actual schedule information for the selected filter. Allows you to perform all the actions described below.

All Tasks. Displays all scheduled tasks.

Members Task Assignments. Displays the tasks based on the person to which it is assigned. Subtasks are not shown in this view.

Passive Tasks. Displays all passive projects and their tasks under the root project. The rows showing passive projects are read-only. Actions from the toolbar are not available for a passive project. However, the Actions column allows you to sync, switch to active, or remove a passive project.

Tasks. Displays all the tasks.

For a Task and Milestone:

Properties. Opens the Properties page for the task or milestone in a new window. See Task Properties Page.

Lifecycle. Opens the Lifecycle page for the task or milestone.

Delete Selected. Deletes selected tasks and milestones. Click OK to confirm. This option is only for tasks and milestones, not projects, and tasks/milestones must be in the Draft state. You cannot view these tasks/milestones using the Schedule Deleted Tasks filter. To delete a task/milestone from a schedule, you must be a Project Lead, owner, or task owner. Task assignees cannot delete their top-level task but can delete subtasks that they create.

Add to Collection. Adds the task or milestone to the clipboard or to collections.

Expand All. Expands the task/milestones to display all child objects.

For a Gate:

Delete Selected. Deletes the selected gate.

Add to Collection. Adds the gate to the clipboard or to collections.

Expand All. Expands the gate to display all child objects.

For a Subproject:

Properties. Opens the Properties page for the subproject in a new window. See Project Properties Page.

Lifecycle. Opens the Lifecycle page for the subproject.

Remove Project. Removes the selected subproject from the structure.

Add to Collection. Adds the subproject to the clipboard or to collections.

Expand All. Expands the subproject to display all child objects.

Create Task. Creates a task in the content of the selected project or task. During creation, you specify whether the new task is inserted above or below. See Creating a Task from Scratch.

When the task is created, its default values are as follows:

Deliverables Report. Opens an online report of task deliverables. See Deliverables Report.

Indents the selected tasks or projects one level to the left.

Indents the selected tasks or projects one level to the right.

Moves a single selected task or project one level up. You can move a task up/down only within its parent object.

Moves a single selected task or project one level down. You can move a task up/down only within its parent object.

Link Tasks links the selected tasks.

The tasks are linked with each other with a default dependency, in a sequence. The new dependencies are added to the selected tasks in the Dependency column. If a task already has dependencies on it, those are kept, and the new dependency is added.

Delete Selected. Deletes the selected tasks; click OK to confirm. This option is only for tasks, not projects, and tasks must be in the Draft or To Do state. You cannot view these tasks using the Schedule Deleted Tasks filter. When you delete a task, the connected Opportunity is deleted. A connected risk gets disconnected if it has other affected items with it; otherwise, it is deleted. To delete a task from a schedule, you must be a Project Lead, owner, or task owner. Task assignees cannot delete their top-level task but can delete subtasks that they create.

Promote Ready Tasks

Enable/Disable Edit. See the step below about editing.

Expand All. Expands the structure to display all child objects. sub-projects do expand.

Expand n levels. Expands the structure the number of levels you specify. You can expand sub-projects.

Add to clipboard. Adds the selected objects to the clipboard or to collections.