PROJECT COMMANDER PROFESSIONAL - PLATINUM Version 1
Project Commander HINTS & TIPS
Summary Bars
It is possible to roll individual tasks bars up to a summary level/s.
Summary bars roll up task bar dates/durations and numeric data (costs, resource working hours and % complete)
HOW TO USE ..
Regard Summary bars like headings under which tasks are grouped in a work package.
Creating summary tasks
It is possible to create special tasks that summarise information and bars in a hierarchical manner.
Click on the task name Task A and then drag the mouse down over Task B
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Click on the RIGHT ARROW in the BARCHART | TASK | INDENT
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This will indent the names Task A and Task B in the column. The heading Planning Phase will now be displayed in bold and the start and finish date columns are calculated automatically from the bars below – the START DATE is the start of Task A and the FINISH DATE is the end of Task B. On the chart area, the bars are summarised also on the Planning Phase summary task.
Click on the task name Task C and then drag the mouse down over Task D
Click on the RIGHT ARROW in the Toolbar again
Creating sub tasks
It is possible to break tasks down into sub levels.
Enter further 3 tasks D1 to D3 from row 7
Click on the task name D1 and then drag the mouse down over D3
Click on the RIGHT ARROW (INDENT)
Summary tasks cannot be edited or moved – as they are created from the tasks below them.
This will mean Task D now becomes a summary task and the link between TASK C & D is deleted automatically. All the information is recalculated as follows (with the information flowing up to the DESIGN summary level too….
By making TASK D now a summary bar, it loses the link to TASK C (as summary bars are not allowed to be linked)
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It is not possible to link summary bars to any bar. You can only link task bars and milestone symbols.
The benefit of summary levels is that detail below can be hidden on-screen.
Double click on the task name Planning Phase – this hides the 2 tasks below.
Double click on the task name Planning Phase again – this displays the 2 tasks.
Double click on the task name Design – this hides all the tasks below.
Double click on the task name Design again – this shows the next level down.
Double click on the task name Task D – this shows all the tasks below this level.
Summary bar colouring
At the summary levels, the colour of the sub level bars are rolled up to the levels above….
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(If colours overlap at the sub task level, the bar at the SUMMARY level is split into a maximum of 5 colours. If at the SUMMARY level, there are more than 5 colours overlapping at any one point, then that part of the bar overlapping is shown in a white (default) colour).
As an option, all summary bars can be shown globally as a standard default bar by clicking on the BARCHART | FORMAT | USE SUMMARY SYMBOL
- Five colour Summary bars
As before, if more than 5 colours overlap, then the rollup colour is shown as white (only for that period).
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