TS. Periods
- iarmstrong
Overview
In the Periods step you can create the time intervals to be used in the scheduling calendar.
You can create and name your periods manually or using the Generate Period Wizard, as well as you can assign specific colours to each period individually or use the Colour Selected Period Range tool for the entire duration. Generated periods can also be exported for backup or transfer, and imported into a project from a previously saved ".periods" file.
The main tools for generating and working with periods are described below.
Adding periods manually
You can manually add periods to be used in the scheduling.
To manually add periods:
Press the blue plus icon to add a new period.
The added periods will be named "Period 1/Period 2/Period 3" etc. by default. Rename them in the Period Name column.
The added periods have a default duration of one calendar month. You can change the start date of the period in the Start Date column.
The number of days in the Duration column is calculated automatically based on the start date of the next period. To change the duration of a particular period, adjust the start date of the following one.
The colour of each manually added period is set automatically and randomly. These colours will be used in the Animation of the Calendar for the visual delimitation of periods (you can see the colour coding of periods in the Animation tab via the Legend button) and in the Gantt Reports. To change the colour coding of the periods, click on the colour field and select the desired one. You can also use the automatic Colour Range generation tool (see the section below for details).
Creating periods through the Create Periods Wizard
To create periods for a longer-term plan and with different scheduling interval durations, you can use the tool - Generate Periods Wizard.
Click on the wizard icon to open the Generate Periods Wizard.
The main items of the Period Wizard are described in the table below.
Item | Description |
|---|---|
Icons for adding and deleting periods | To add new groups of periods and delete existing ones. |
Granularity and Duration columns | In the Granularity column, select the scheduling interval, and in the Duration column, specify for how long you want to stick with it. Use the dropdowns to set repeating time intervals and overall duration. With the default setting, as shown in the image on the left, the first year will be planned by months (12 periods of 1 month), the next three years will be planned by quarters (4 quarters x 3 years = 12 quarters), and the next 10 years will be planned by year. This results in a 14 years plan. |
Options panel
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Note that this is not the day of the week your plan starts, but the day of the calendar week start in your region.
Note that in some countries, the financial year is different from the calendar one. Therefore, if you are numbering quarters from the beginning of the calendar year (first quarter = January, February and March, not July, August and September), do not check this option.
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Naming panel |
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Preview Results | Inspect the results in the Preview Results table on the right and make adjustments to the settings, if necessary. |
Confirming settings | Click OK to confirm your changes and return to the main screen. |
Colouring Periods Range
Besides an option of using the default colours and selecting a colour for each period manually (see here for details), you can also use the tool to automatically generate a colour range for all the periods you have added.
Click the Colour Selected Period Range icon in the top toolbar.
Specify the start and end colours.
To facilitate the visual delineation of periods, you can alternate the brightness of the generated period colours. To do that, tick the Alternating Brightness checkbox.
Click OK to confirm and preview the results.
Notes
If you are modifying an existing schedule, remember to update the calendar values for new or modified periods.