Swimlane Timeline Compared to OnePager

View OnePager Sample >

View Swimlane Timeline Sample >

Description

OnePager is a leading project reporting application that interfaces with Microsoft Project, Project Server, Project Online, or Excel. OnePager creates presentation-ready Gantt charts and timelines that can easily be shared in PowerPoint, PDF, or SharePoint.

Swimlane Timeline is a Visio plug-in that can import data from different Office applications such as Project or Excel. Swimlane Timeline's project reports are created as Visio diagrams.

Standalone Application

OnePager can be run as a standalone application and can launch independently from Project or Excel. This is increasingly the preference of corporate IT departments, since certain add-ins can pose security risks.

Organizations that prefer add-ins may continue to use OnePager as an add-in.

Swimlane Timeline only works as an add-in. While not a security risk itself, IT departments often blanket-disable add-ins for security reasons, which blocks Swimlane Timeline from running.

Easy Upgrades

When a new version of OnePager is installed, all reports are automatically converted to the new version without any work required by the end user.

When upgrading Swimlane Timeline, users must manually create custom Visio styles to protect each and every timeline from corruption. For multi-page reports, this process must be performed for each page.

Single Small Project (50 lines)

7 seconds to create a new timeline

40 seconds to create a timeline from the same data, more than five times slower than OnePager.

Multiple Small Projects (3 plans at 25 lines each)

12 seconds to create a new multi-project timeline

62 seconds to create a timeline from the same three files, more than five times slower than OnePager.

Professional Support Ticketing

Submit a support ticket by phone, by e-mail, or online and receive a confirmed case number within minutes. All tickets have a guaranteed response time.

Not offered.

Wiki Documentation

Searchable wiki with hundreds of in-depth articles covering basic to advanced features.

Not offered.

FAQs

Searchable FAQs updated with each release.

Not offered.

Microsoft Project

Import one or more Microsoft Project schedules quickly and easily. No need to pre-load anything into Microsoft Project first.

OnePager does its import behind-the-scenes, so that users don't have to see the inner-workings of the application.

Swimlane Timeline requires that documents be opened in Microsoft Project before they can be read. This means that you either need to open your Microsoft Project plan(s) before starting Swimlane Timeline, or that Swimlane Timeline needs to do it for you.

When Swimlane Timeline opens and imports plans from Microsoft Project, there is a lot of flashing of different windows open and closed, which can be jarring to end users.

Seamless Multi-Project Support

Quickly and easily build a timeline from multiple Excel or Project plans. OnePager can import multiple files simultaneously with minimal disruption to the end user.

While multi-file reporting is technically supported, each file must be opened individually in Microsoft Project or Excel, which can take considerable time and system resources. In some cases, this can cause Project or Excel to crash because it runs out of memory due to having opened and closed too many files in rapid succession.

Swimlane Timeline's need to read data through an active Microsoft Project/Excel session also means that windows are popping open and closed on the user's screen, which can be quite disruptive.

Project Online

Direct connection to Project Online, just like Project Server. No local Microsoft Project installation is required.

Only reads Project Online data through Microsoft Project. This often requires a paid upgrade to later versions of Microsoft Project, since most earlier Project versions do not support Project Online connections, and therefore cannot be used by Swimlane Timeline.

Multi-Page Reports

Create multi-page project reports with an unlimited number of tasks. OnePager will automatically insert page breaks as needed, or you can customize where page breaks appear with an easy drag-and-drop interface. Advanced page scaling and fitting are also supported.

Swimlane Timeline dumps everything into a single-page Visio document. Users must export from Visio to another format in order to paginate a large document. Unfortunately, this means that:

• Users have no control over where page breaks appear
• Users cannot edit a multi-page document after it has been paginated, since it is no longer in Visio after exporting.

Templates

Supported

Supported

Instant Timeline Updates

With a single button click, OnePager will reimport data from Project or Excel and update any changes to the timeline in real-time. All updates are done quickly and seamlessly, so that the end user gets updates instantaneously.

Swimlane Timeline does allow for updating, but it is more involved than OnePager. As is the case with building a new Swimlane Timeline report, individual data files have to be reopened back in Microsoft Project or Excel before any updates can be made. This causes a good amount of back and forth between Visio and Project/Excel before updates are visible.

Custom Milestone Shapes

Custom milestone shapes can be designed to meet end user specifications. Custom milestones can be added to OnePager at any time, and do not not require a major release cycle.

Not available

Export to PowerPoint, E-mail, PDF, etc.

Yes

Yes

Guaranteed reporting accuracy out of Microsoft Project and Excel

Yes

• Microsoft Project and Excel are the only data source driving a OnePager chart and cannot be corrupted.
• Task/milestone dates are always be based on real data.
• Percent complete values are always be based on real data.

No

• Visio documents can be unlocked and edited free-form, creating room for inaccuracies in the timeline.
• Percent complete values can be dragged out of sync with the project plan.
• The time axis can be overwritten manually instead of adhering to a strict calendar.