We will be doing a three-part blog series that explores smart ways to filter your task links in a OnePager chart. This first article will discuss how to display dependencies for only the tasks that are on the critical path. We will use the Microsoft Project example below, where Site 1 and all of its subtasks are on the critical path, and all of the tasks underneath Site 2 are non-critical:
Projects are comprised of many moving parts, but one of the most important aspects are the resources. Many would argue that you cannot complete a project without resources, since they are the ones doing the work. Managing work hours for your resources can be crucial to a project. In this blog post, we will go over how to create a view that allows you to show resource usage.
In Microsoft Project, a resource usage view will show you each resource and the hours associated with each of their tasks. However, this view is very limited in its visual effectiveness.
If you use OnePager with Microsoft Project Online, take note: Project Online’s days are numbered. Although Microsoft has not committed to a firm date, it intends at some point to sunset Project Online in favor of Project for the web, a fully cloud-resident PPM offering that is built on the Microsoft Dataverse rather than on SharePoint.
OnePager will introduce an integration with Project for the web in its 7.2 release in 2023. Theoretically, when Microsoft flips the switch, OnePager users who previously brought in their data from Project Online will be able to instead bring in their data from Project for the web.
I say “theoretically” because Project for the web is far from a finished product, as I wrote in a recent MPUG article. That article detailed numerous deficiencies of Project for the web — the most important of which, for OnePager users, is the lack of third-party application support for custom fields.
Project Online has over 400 predefined fields; at last count, Project for the web has 16. That means a project of any complexity will require heavy use of custom fields to get the same information across. The good news is, Project for the web has a custom field capability that will look familiar to Project Online users. For instance, you can define a Yes/No field named “Flag20” and put “Yes” and “No” values in the column.
The bad news is, custom fields from Project for the web cannot be read by third-party applications like OnePager, and we need your help asking Microsoft to make these fields available.
Continue readingEarlier this year, after years of focusing primarily on the Microsoft Project user base, we announced two new connections to Smartsheet and Oracle Primavera P6 as a part of our 7.1 release. We’re continuing to evaluate new connections, and would like feedback from our existing customers as to which would be helpful:
In the survey, we’ll ask you which connections you’re using today, and which connections you think might be helpful in the future as your company grows its use of OnePager. If you’re happy with the connections that we offer today and don’t see a need for anything else right now, that would be helpful for us to know as well.
We look forward to your feedback!
If you are a regular user of OnePager Pro with Microsoft Project, you already know about Flag20 and how it’s used to bring over tasks with a Yes value. However, there might be instances where you want to filter your tasks further and exclude tasks once they have finished. When this situation arises, you can use Conditional Import Rules to check not only for Flag20, but also for an incomplete status.
Let’s say we need OnePager to know when a task or milestone finishes so that it can be removed from the chart. Right out of the gate, this sounds like a very tedious task as you would need to not only track the status of each task but also mark them as No in your Flag20 field once they finish. Fear not, though, as there is a much faster and easier way to do this.
When creating a schedule, one thing stands out when presenting to an audience: the percent complete. While it is nice to see the start and finish date for the summary tasks in the schedule, it is essential to show how far along a task is. Most of the time, your project plan’s percent complete values will suffice, but there are other times where the percent complete might seem ahead or behind schedule. In this blog, we will discuss what OnePager has to offer to remedy this issue: a feature called %Complete EV.
Before we begin discussing this exciting feature in OnePager, I want to clarify that this is a OnePager proprietary calculation that only looks at the percent complete for summary tasks. If you find that your issues are with the non-summary tasks, you should check out our blog that covers that issue here.
Microsoft Project averages all the tasks under the summary task, giving you an overall percent complete. However, this calculation can be incorrect due to other factors that Microsoft Project didn’t consider, which is what OnePager %Complete EV fixes. If you look at the example below, you will see that the Summary Task is behind schedule, even though all of its children are right on track.
In my view, among the many great features of OnePager, none beat Conditional Formatting. With Conditional Formatting, you can create rules to change the color, shape, fill, and other properties of tasks and milestones based on specific rules that you set. However, what happens when you have multiple values to which you need the same rule to apply? You could create a bunch of separate rules, but that’s a lot of work. In this article, we will go over how you can create a conditional formatting rule that tests for multiple conditions at once.
Imagine with me, if you will, that you have a schedule with individual resources assigned to different tasks. Each resource is part of a specific team in your organization, and you would like to be able to color tasks based on the team that the people belong to, not based on their individual names.
OnePager offers a Wiki that provides useful and in-depth information on using OnePager to the maximum of its abilities. On the OnePager Wiki’s title page, there are a number of ways to get started
1. Use the search box to quickly find an article
2. Browse articles based on your specific version of OnePager
Most users create their OnePager charts and then export them to PowerPoint or PDF before sharing them. But some people prefer OnePager as their native presentation tool, using the live OnePager chart in their project meetings. Live OnePager charts have always supported Hover Boxes, which are boxes of text that pop up whenever you hover your mouse over a task or milestone:
Much in the same way that we expanded our milestone shapes by adding emojis in OnePager 7.1, we’ve expanded the number of available color palettes as well. While it’s true that users have always been able to create their own custom color palettes to match their own corporate branding, we also understand that not all users have the time or patience to do that. So we thought that making more standard color palettes available would be a welcome addition.
Here are some examples of the new color palettes that are available beginning in OnePager 7.1. All are named after global cities:
