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Plan Page

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Diana Su

In this article, you will learn the basic functionalities of the Plan page in ALICE Core. The Plan page is where users can build a schedule from scratch or make edits to an existing imported schedule.

The key topics covered in this article will teach you how to navigate the Plan page:

Types of Information Available

Below are the types of information available for each task in the Gantt schedule. The information can be  displayed as additional columns in the Gantt schedule.

  • ID
  • Name
  • Status
  • Planned duration (workhours)
  • Actual duration (workhours)
  • Remaining duration (workhours)
  • Budgeted labor units
  • Start, Finish, Start time, Finish time
  • Planned start, Planned finish, Planned start time, Planned finish time
  • Actual start, Actual finish, Actual start time, Actual finish time
  • Suspend, Resume, Suspend time, Resume time
  • Early start, Early finish, Early start time, Early finish time
  • Constraint 
  • Calendar
  • Crews
  • Workforce
  • Materials
  • Equipment
  • Predecessors
  • Successors
  • Total float (workdays), Total float (workhours)
  • Free float (workdays), Free float (workhours)
  • Late start, Late finish
  • All Custom Properties (or User Defined Fields, UDFs)

Customize your View

The Plan page can be modified to show you the information that is most relevant to your needs.

  1. To modify the columns that appear on the Plan page, you can right click and select 'Edit Table View'. From this view you may select, hide and drag to re-order your visible columns.
    1. To show duration and float in workdays or workhours, go to the settings tab within Edit table view and select your preference.
    2. To customize date columns to show date only or date and time, go to the settings tab within Edit table view and select your preference.
  2. To resize the width of the columns, you can click on the line that separates two cells in the header row to adjust the size, similar to how you would adjust a column width in Excel.
  3. To expand the table view and minimize the Gantt view, click 'show all columns' or hover your mouse over the vertical divider and drag to customize where the two views split.
  4. To visually mark-up critical tasks or the longest path on the Gantt view, use the Display toggles above the Gantt view. 

All these settings will be auto-saved by ALICE and appear next time you open the Plan page.

 

Tip: hover your mouse over an area for a tooltip on functionality 

 

Custom Group and Sort

The tasks in a plan may be grouped and sorted by 4 different categories:

  • WBS - native WBS structure imported from Primavera P6 or Microsoft Project
  • Sorted - grouping by chronological order
  • Crews - grouping by crew type 
  • Custom - grouping by any combination of resources or custom Properties (UDFs)

Tip: Tasks can also be dragged and dropped to different WBS sections if the schedule is sorted by the WBS view or the Crews view. For example, by dragging a task into a different Crew section, you will assign that crew to that task. This can be a very fast and easy way to assign crews to tasks that don't yet have them assigned, especially when combined with filters. 

For a more hands-on experience, navigate through the player for an interactive walk-through, or if you prefer a more detailed approach, scroll down for a step-by-step guide:

 

 

Gantt Grouping:

  1. In the Gantt chart, open the Group Gantt by dropdown list from the upper-left side of the page.
  2. Select the grouping category desired.

Custom Grouping:

  1. From the dropdown list, select Custom.
  2. In the window, click on the blank field to open the list of available Custom Properties/UDFs to use for custom grouping.
    • To select multiple properties, use the + button to add one after the other
    • The order in which the properties are added determines the Gantt grouping
  3. Select one or multiple properties/UDFs and click OK to apply the grouping.

Create Filters and View Select Information

The Plan page comes with a powerful filter tool that allows you to find the right information in your schedule. Filters are helpful for schedule analysis, resource assignment, and bulk removal of preferential logic. 

Click the filter builder to filter data by many different categories, as shown below. The filter builder supports AND/OR logic.

For a more hands-on experience, navigate through the player for an interactive walk-through, or if you prefer a more detailed approach, scroll down for a step-by-step guide:

 

Filters:

  1. On the Gantt Chart, click on Select to Filter on the upper-left side of the page.
  2. ALICE allows the use of the following categories to filter the Gantt:
    • Crew
    • Criticality: Critical Tasks and Longest Path
    • Custom Properties / UDFs
    • Equipment
    • Material
    • Task Name/Codes
    • Task Status: Not Started / In Progress / Completed
    • Task Type: Task, Start Milestone, Finish Milestone, Level of Effort
  3. After selecting the categories, define the filter logic:
    • OR logic filters the activities that at least have one of the selected items
    • AND logic filters the activities that have all selected items
  4. Click Done to apply the filter. 
  5. To remove the filter, click on the X next to the filter name.

How to Collapse and Expand WBS

To collapse or expand to the desired level of your WBS, right-click anywhere in the Plan page and make your selection. You can also collapse or expand all from the menu below.

Additionally, this menu can also be used to add new tasks, duplicate existing tasks, or delete tasks. 


Modify your Plan

On the Plan page you can add, edit or remove tasks, WBS, LOE and milestones (rows), and input data about them (columns).

Add New WBS, Level of Effort (LOE), Tasks, and Milestones

  1. Right click on the row or area where you wish to add the new data
  2. Click Add New
  3. Select desired data type and input a name
  4. The new WBS will appear at the bottom of the list

right click to select Add new

Add/Edit Calendars or Custom Properties

  1. To add or edit tasks one row at a time, right click the desired row and select add/edit.
  2. To add or edit multiple rows at once, select the checkbox next to each task that you wish to edit and then select add/edit. You can select the checkbox next to a grouping to select all rows within that grouping.

Add/Edit Logic Relationships between Tasks and Milestones

  1. Predecessors and Successors can be defined from the plan page via the predecessor or successor columns.
  2. Relationships can also be drawn via click and drag on the Gantt view. ALICE will assume relationship type based on how it is drawn (IE from the finish of one task to the start of another will be a finish to start relationship), but it can always be modified by the user.
  3. Contained relationships can be added or removed in bulk my multi-selecting the desired rows and right clicking to access the contained relationship menu.
  4.  Read this article for a deep dive on working with logic ties in ALICE.

Add/Edit Constraints to Tasks/Milestones

  1. Constraints can be added to rows on the plan page via the constraint column. Constraints may include a data and a time.
  2. Read this article for a deed dive on constraints in ALICE. 

Keyboard Shortcuts 

The Plan page supports keyboard shortcuts to make navigation easier.

  • Left, right, up and down keyboard arrows move to different cells
  • Enter will select a cell and open it for editing
  • When editing a cell, up and down arrows can be used to increment values or choose from a drop-down.
  • After editing a cell, Enter will save changes
  • In the cell edit window, Esc will exit without saving changes
  • Left and right keyboard arrows move inside the current cell, if a cell is selected

Edit Data Via Excel Export/Import

Bulk editing of data via Excel is supported by ALICE Core. Click the "Edit Data in Excel" button in the top right of the Plan page in order to use this feature. For a deeper dive into how to use this feature, click here.

Navigate the Schedule

Use tools in ALICE to navigate and understand your schedule at a deeper level.

Task Relationship Details Panel

Click on any task to open the task relationship details panel, located at the bottom of the screen. This powerful view shows everything you need to know about the task and how it drives the schedule. You can view predecessor and successor information, time gap, free float, total float and criticality.


How to Isolate Path for an Activity

Using the Isolate Path functionality for an activity is helpful to review all predecessor and successor tasks and milestones that are directly and indirectly associated with the selected task.

For a more hands-on experience, navigate through the player for an interactive walk-through, or if you prefer a more detailed approach, scroll down for a step-by-step guide:

 

 

Isolate Path:

  1. In the Gantt chart, hover the mouse courses on the task and "right-click" to open task settings.
    • You can hover the mouse cursor on the task name or on the timeline bar
  2. In the settings window, click Isolate path
  3. Isolate Path will filter all predecessor and successor tasks and milestones, directly and indirectly associated with the selected task.
  4. Click on the "X" to remove the isolate path filter.

 

Critical Tasks and Longest Path

  1. From the settings menu, you can toggle to view critical tasks and the longest path.
  2. To view near-critical tasks, you can filter to bound a minimum and maximum for total float and show tasks within that bound.




Please see this article to learn more about how to work with critical tasks and longest path in ALICE.

Zoom In/Out, Toggle Relationship Arrows in Gantt View

The icons at the bottom of the Plan page allow the user to control:

  • Magnify glass icons: Level of zoom on the Gantt view
  • Arrow icon: Toggle to show or hide relationship logic arrows
  • Up arrow icon: is a shortcut to scroll to the top of the page

 



 

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