Grouping and Sorting

Grouping and Sorting

Grouping and sorting, along with the filter and layout functions, are the primary ways of organizing and presenting your plan. The grouping and sorting tools in the Barchart Editor offer a high degree of flexibility, empowering you to tailor your plan presentation to your specific needs.

Group Properties

Properly grouping a plan requires the use of userfields or system-defined fields. Understanding the quality of the information stored in these fields and the extent of their use is key to successful grouping. This knowledge will empower you to make informed decisions when grouping your plan.

To manage grouping, you must be in Group View (check the View menu) and enter Group Properties in the Grouping section of the VIEW ribbon menu.

You will find three tabs inside the Group Properties: General, Appearance and Fonts.

General

Under the General tab, you set up the grouping fields. The maximum number of grouping levels is 10 (there is one line for each level). However, it is up to the user to decide how many levels to use to get the optimal plan presentation. This depends on the project's size and complexity and the plan's audience.

To choose which field to group on, click on the drop-down list for the Group Field and choose the field (userfield or system field) you want to group on.

To get the correct sorting of the values in the group, you can set the sorting in the 'Sort On' drop-down list. If the field used for grouping is a Reference field, you can choose between:

• Sort on Short – sorting on the short-code in the reference field values
• Sort on Sort field – sorting on the sort field configured in the reference field values

If the userfield used for grouping is an Outline code, you must choose if you want to group on all levels or just one level in the 'Level' drop-down menu. If you select individual levels, you can add a group line per level to go into the sort algorithm just as you would if you wanted to create any other multiline sorting. Individual levels of outline codes are always sorted by short code; selecting all levels also lets you sort by sort field from the outline code.

If the grouping is on a text field, it is always sorted alphabetically.

The plan is grouped by the order of the group fields you have selected. If you have set the plan to group by multiple fields, you can easily change the order by selecting the field you want to move and clicking the Move Up or Move Down button.

The General tab also holds several options designed to improve formatting when printing the plan:

Page Break is only available for the first group level*.* By checking this box, you will get the Barchart Editor printed report to start a new page for each value of the chosen group field, for example, one page per project phase.

By selecting "Indentation" (and specifying an amount), activities will be indented accordingly for every group level in the plan.

Selecting "Create NONE groups" will place activities that don't have a value assigned for the group fields under a NONE group. This is very useful if you want to focus on activities lacking important information before running reports, baselines, etc.

"Always sort groups by ID/Sort Field" will sort the groups based on the sorting chosen in the Level/Sort on column. If this box is unchecked, groups will be sorted by the sorting setup in 'Define Sort'. More on this later.

Appearance

The Appearance tab offers presentation options for each grouping field. You can choose if you want the grouping fields to open, explode or collapse when you open the plan. In addition, you can set the plan to open with the groups presented the way they were when you last saved the plan.

Checking "Sum dates" and "Sum Numbers" will show summed values in the group headings of date and number columns. "Draw Frontline" will draw the Frontline for the group headings in the Gantt chart and the activities.

If you select 'Filtered activities', the sums on the summary/heading level will be calculated only for the activities shown. If you have a filter present, the activities that are filtered out won't be considered. On the other hand, choosing 'All activities' provides summed values at the summary/heading level for all activities, even the ones filtered out.

For example, if you filter out all completed activities in the group and have a look at the Planned QTY column in the Barchart Editor. If you choose "Filtered activities," the Planned QTY column will only sum up the Planned QTY for the activities that haven't been finished. If you choose "All activities" while still using the same filter, the Planned QTY column will show the total amount, including Planned QTY values for the filtered activities.

Fonts

From the Fonts tab, you can change the Font, Text colour, Background Color, and text size and set Bold, Italic or Underlined for the group-level headings of the plan.

Sorting

Sorting in Safran Project is user-defined and varies from simple one-liners to complex multiline algorithms. Go to VIEW > Grouping > Sort > Define Sort to set up sorting.

The left side of the Define Sort window lists all the fields that can be used for sorting. The right side lists the fields that are currently selected to sort on.

Clicking the 'Sort now' icon in the Grouping section of the VIEW menu will instantly refresh the sorting of your activities. This convenient feature is particularly useful when you've manually moved activities or added new data, allowing you to maintain an efficient and productive workflow.

Using the sort algorithm

For a simple sort, just drag the field(s) you want to sort on from the left side to the right side of the Define Sort window. The default setting is to sort in ascending order. To change this, simply deselect the check box.

Keep adding fields from the left column to the right for a more complex sort. In a multiline algorithm, the sorting order will follow the order of the fields in the right column. If you want to sort on Early Start and the Activity ID, add Early Start to the right column before you add Activity ID. To remove a sort criterion, drag it back to the left side, or if you want to change the order of the sorting, just drag it and drop it up or down in your list of selected fields.

Sorting on outline codes

There are two options for sorting on outline codes. Select the outline code from the list on the left. Notice that there is, for outline code 1, one entry marked (Outline Code 1) and entries marked (Outline Code 1) / Level 1 and (Outline Code 1) / Level 2. Using the first entry (Outline Code 1), you will sort your plan based on the outline code structure, while the two others will be sorted by the specific level you choose.

Another essential feature is the "Always sort groups by ID/Sort Field" checkbox at the bottom of the Define Sort window. This box will sort the groups by ID or the values set in the sort field of the userfield. Your sort definition in Define Sort will sort the activities in every group.

If you uncheck the "Always sort groups by ID/Sort Field" checkbox, your groups will be sorted by the sorting you have defined in Define Sort.

The checkbox is the same one found in the Group Properties window, and checking it in Group Properties affects the setting of the checkbox in the Define Sort window and vice versa.

Saving your group and sorting configurations

The grouping and sorting configurations are saved in the current Barchart Editor layout. With symbols and other visual settings, Barchart Editor layouts offer a powerful way to create workspaces that suit many tasks, reports or workflows needed in your day-to-day planning job.