7. Schedule
Welcome to step seven of the getting started guide, Schedule. If you missed part six feel to search 6. Adding Scope Elements
This guide pertains to creating a project schedule using the scope elements you created and the gantt chart.
When you first log in to InScope you will likely land on the projects screen. If you're not already there locate the Projects tab in the top navigation bar as highlighted below.
Once on the projects tab you will land on your list of projects. Select the demo project you created in the previous starter guides or any project you want to work with. This will take you into the project into the grid view. Go ahead and navigate to the Gantt chart tab in the top right corner as highlighted below.
Now you'll be in the scheduling screen of your project which contains schedule data and your project Gantt chart.
On the left side of the sheet you have the three project scope columns (ROW #, WBS, NAME) and additional columns for you to enter schedule information such as start and finish dates, duration, predecessor, and baseline data. On the right side of the screen you have your Gantt chart. You can view and edit the schedule data on the left or right side of the screen. While they allow you to view and edit the same information, they are two different ways of displaying and reviewing the information input.
Lets start by adding some dates for scope elements we have created. Start is the date you you plan to start your work. Note you can not choose a start date for a parent scope element the parent scope element's start date is auto populated after you enter all the child elements start dates. This is the same for the other date options.
To add a start date, click into the empty cell to use either the calendar selector or manually enter the date in standard month-day-year format.
Now we have a start date entered on a child element, you can see how it auto populates the parent element.
To enter the Finish date and other dates we will use an alternative way of modifying the dates. Highlight the empty cell in the finish column next to the date you just entered, and select the edit button in the top left corner as highlighted below.
As you can see it pops up a Task Information editor window where you will be able to modify all the information in the cells shown.
The task information editor window contains three tabs - General, Dependency, and Custom Columns where you can enter the below schedule data:
Start is the start date for your scope element, when the work will begin.
Finish is the end date for a scope element, when the work will end.
Duration is how long the task will actually take, entered in days.
Predecessor is for entering any dependency from another scope element. Example being a scope element that can not start until another scope element is finished. In the Dependency tab of the Task Information editor you can choose the dependency type - Finish to start, Finish to finish, etc., by double clicking the type cell. You can also add offset data in the dependency tab.
Work % Complete is linked to the project Work % Complete in the project Details socket. You can edit Work % Complete from the left side of the Gantt screen or the details socket in the project screen.
Baseline Start and Finish is the set planned start and finish for a scope element. You can set the baseline at the beginning of the project and then track and compare how far on or off your scope element schedule is to the original baseline.
Actual Start is when the scope element actually started vs when you planned for it to start.
Actual Finish is when the scope element actually finished vs when you planned for it to finish.
Now that you have entered these items for your scope elements, we can see how they look fully entered.
If you're not seeing dates in the Gantt chart on the right you can hit the Zoom to fit or Zoom Out/Zoom In buttons in the gray navigation bar just above your schedule. With these buttons you can have the Gantt focus on the time frame you want to see. Zoom to fit shows all scope elements fit in the Gantt frame as best as possible. You can also scroll left or right to look ahead or behind in schedule.
The gray navigation bar just above your schedule contains a few other important features. With the Excel export and CSV export buttons you can export your schedule in a Excel or CSV format for quick review or reporting.
Save Baseline will automatically take your planned starts and finishes and make them the Baseline dates or revise your baseline dates to the plan dates without any need to update them manually. Note that you will lose your original baseline dates; therefore, you will not want to re-save the baseline if you want to be comparing to the original baseline.
Toggle Baseline toggles the baseline from view on the Gantt chart. When the baseline is toggled on, you will see the baseline schedule as a blue bar just below your scope elements. This provides a visual display of your baseline vs actual schedule.
Expand All / Collapse All expands or hides all child elements to their parents.
That's it. You are now able to create and manage the schedule for your existing scope elements. Whether you're putting in actual starts and finishes for tasks in progress or managing/monitoring the baseline this is where you will track and monitor schedule elements at a glance.
Our next recommendation is that you continue on to, Getting Started 8. Budget. Budget is where we will create budgets for scope elements and use them to manage costs and create forecasts with our newly set scope and schedule.