Introduction to the Barchart Editor

The Barchart Editor

The Safran Project Barchart Editor is a feature-rich, interactive Gantt entry/review screen with complete, real-time CPM analysis. Activities may be moved, and durations changed interactively. The schedule impact of such changes and its changes to resource loading are visible immediately. Among the editor’s facilities is the ability to create and delete activities, move and stretch them, add or modify logic, and add, modify, or delete resource requirements. You can customize the Barchart Editor display to detailed activity information, resource entry and load information, logic information, and a customizable user-definable histogram.

Data may be copied within the editor or added by copy and paste from other software, such as Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Project, other scheduling tools, and more. Safran Project gives you control over the Barchart layout and presentation display. Configurable symbol options and activity annotation may be added to your layout. You can configure each activity's size, format, color, start and end symbols, and connector bars. You can draw multiple bars for each activity and define conditional bars. Safran Project also allows you to define summaries, grouping, and outlining flexibly to organize your schedule to best suit your needs. All customizations can be saved to named layouts for reuse, and you may switch between different layouts to display additional highlights.

You can use the Barchart Editor and the Safran Project Alternative Scheduling feature to evaluate different scenarios, alternative schedules, ‘what if’ analyses, and schedule impact analyses. The Barchart view is not only a means of adding, updating, and viewing project information. Due to its extensive flexibility, formatting, and printing capabilities, it may also serve as your favorite schedule-reporting tool. The Barchart Editor contains a complete Page Setup utility that allows you to format the pages of a professional-looking report, and together with the formatting capabilities of the editor workspace and layouts, this gives you complete control over the Barchart Editor reporting tool. The Barchart Editor layouts and the layouts for the customizable editor histogram may be included in the Report Package tool. The Barchart Editor may also be used to update Actual Progress and Expenditure. When studying this section, you should also look to the “Working with Logic” and “Specifying Resource Requirements” areas for details on adding logic and relations. It would be best to study the “Customizing and Printing Barchart Editor Histograms and S-Curves” section for more information on the histogram view and its features.

The screenshot below shows the Barchart Editor with the Logic Navigator information pane:

Barchart Editor Workspace

When opening a project, Safran Project automatically directs you to the Barchart Editor’s working environment.

The Barchart Editor workspace contains a quick-access toolbar, tabs, ribbons, a sheet bar, short-cut menus, layout options, a column or table area, a Gantt area, five different information panes, and two Barchart Editor views.

The five information panes allow you to view, enter, and update detailed activity information, link information and resources with a graphical display, and define a histogram display or report. Use the information options from the View ribbon, or select any information panes from the short-cut menu.

Depending on your license, a fifth pane—Schedule Risk—may be available.

The Activity Information, Link Information, Resource, and Histogram panes allow you to review detailed activity and project information in subsidiary windows. Once a subsidiary window is displayed, the information shown is synchronized with the activity selected in the barchart. The subsidiary windows may be used not only to display data but also to update or add information. This style of operation means that a user wishing to query project data only needs to select the appropriate information panel, select the windows containing the required data, and 'browse' through the plan by pointing and clicking on the relevant activities. The detailed information panel set with your Barchart Editor view is part of your layout, and layouts may be saved with a unique name and later used again. For more details on the Barchart Editor layouts, please look up Layouts. The detailed panes are not part of the Barchart Editor preview and printout, but the resource and histogram pane allow you to configure, preview, and print histograms independently. The histogram pane will even enable you to save its layouts as reports.

Choosing a View

The two views available for the Barchart Editor are the Group View and the Outline View.

These two views share most of the functionality available for the Barchart Editor. However, they differ in two areas: how the schedule is organized and how logic can be added and displayed.

Using the Group View in Safran, you can organize and group activities by standard code. Grouping enables you to focus on activities that have something in common. The activities within each group are organized into clusters. Organizing activities is helpful for project analysis and reporting while creating the project. Changing how activities are grouped and sorted allows you to focus on a project's different but equally important aspects.

You can build a non-coded hierarchy into your schedule using the outline view. An outline subdivides your plan into increasingly smaller amounts of work. The groups of work segments can represent phases in a project, rooms within a building, or specific buildings in a large construction site. When you outline a schedule, the Barchart schedule becomes more accessible to read, and you can locate individual activities quickly. An outline looks similar to Activity Grouping because it is hierarchical. However, unlike grouping, no codes are associated with titles or descriptions, and actual activities are used. In addition, you do not specifically assign outline codes to activities in an outline.

Selecting Information Panels

You may alternate between any of the six available information panels at any time by selecting the desired information from the ‘Information’ options in the View ribbon or the shortcut menu in the legend area.

The information panels contain a multitude of activity information fields that are all available as columns in the Barchart column area. Many fields are also available for symbol information in the bar area.

Any Information Panes are, by default, deployed at the bottom of your Barchart Editor workspace unless you open them in a new window, as described below.

Open in New Window

The shortcut menu (right-click) in all panels contains a practical option called ‘Open In New Window,’ which allows you to detach the current panel from the Barchart Editor window and work with multiple panels simultaneously, potentially across multiple screens.

The 'Open in New Window' feature is accessible as shown above or directly from the shortcut menu (right-click) on the symbol legend:

A third quick option for the 'Open in New Window' feature is to double-click on an activity, and it will take you to the 'Status' tab in Activity information. From there, you may select a different tab or a different Information pane:

Activity Information

The Activity information panel is a tab-separated window that allows you to view, add, and modify an activity’s information.

Constraints/Schedule Options

For more information on constraints, see Appendix A.

Status

For more information on constraints, see Appendix A.

Scheduled

For more information on constraints, see Appendix A.

Link Information

Safran Project can present predecessor and successor information and the Gantt view. A go-to operation is performed by double-clicking one of the predecessor or successor links. Keep in mind that the requested activity must be included in the selection criteria if this is used.

Select the Barchart Editor Options window (Project tab > Options) to check if the ‘Use default calendar on new links’ has been marked.

Resources

Displays a two-paned window with resource records for the selected activity on the left and a configurable/dynamic resource histogram on the right. The resource histogram dynamically shows the current resource requirements loading.

The histogram may be configured by choosing Histogram Properties from the shortcut menu to show the entire schedule span, a shorter span by adding user-defined dates, or for a single activity only. You can apply a filter and select to display quantities, cost, or manpower.

Colors and patterns for the various graphic elements may also be selected. You might find rotating the dates and table values helpful if many periods are presented. You may also specify the number of decimals to be displayed for increased accuracy.

Keep in mind that by changing Histogram Properties, the configuration will be valid for all your Barchart Layouts. The changes will, however, not affect the layouts of any other users.

By choosing Print Preview/Print from the short-cut menu, you may also save to file/print a copy of the histogram.

Displaying the User-Configurable Histogram

If you select VIEW>Histogram, Safran provides a flexible and configurable histogram in the lower pane. The histogram view gives you more flexibility to customize and prepare striking presentation graphs.

You cannot use the Histogram pane for data entry. It is an interactive, graphical view of periodic and cumulative data. For printed output, the histogram includes page setup features similar to the Barchart Editor page setup.

As such, it is a powerful reporting tool. You can save your definitions as unique report names for later use. The histogram graphs also let you create curves and bars for numerical values other than quantity or cost. This allows you to create histograms and curves from user-defined data.

Details on configuring and customizing the Barchart Editor Histogram can be found in the Barchart Editor Histograms and S-Curves section.

Logic Navigator

Logic Navigator is an efficient way to review your activity data, especially for the project logic. This option allows you to scan through a logic path in either direction or directly to a specific activity and display all proceeding and succeeding relationships.

You can add and delete relationships. As you work with the logic navigator, Safran Project runs a complete CPM time analysis on your project following every change.

The Logic Navigator panel comprises a central activity window and two multi-predecessor/ successor windows. The screen presents an activity and all of its preceding and succeeding activities.

The predecessor/successor schedule data displayed pertains to the uppermost activity in the window; schedule data for the other links (if any) may be indicated by clicking the arrow on the activity in question.

If more than one predecessor/successor exists for an activity, the preceding/succeeding activity displayed is, by default, the uppermost in the window. Navigating any linked activities, either predecessors or successors, is done by double-clicking the activity in the appropriate view.

Start Browsing from any Activity.

Using the Go to Activity option in the activity shortcut menu, you may jump straight to any activity in your plan to view the activity or start browsing in any direction from the activity selected. Enter the Activity ID or choose from the drop-down list box.

Tracing Logic

You can examine any path, a sequence of activities, by moving forward or backward through the schedule. Move from an activity to its successor, then to its successor, or move from an activity to its predecessor, then to its predecessor.

You can use the Barchart Editor or Logic Navigator to scan through the project logic, go directly to a specific activity, and display all preceding and succeeding relationships.

You move from one activity to the next simply by double-clicking the activity in the predecessor or successor window of the Logic Navigator or the Link Information View of the Barchart Editor.

Adding Logic Using the Logic Navigator

Define relationships in the Logic Navigator by choosing either the new Predecessor or New Successor option. The options are available in shortcut menus in both predecessors and successors. Safran Project gives you identical windows for assigning logic in the Barchart Editor’s Link Information View.

Removing Logic Using the Logic Navigator

Select the activity logic you want to remove from the Predecessor or Successor windows, and then select the delete option from the shortcut menu. Safran will give you a delete warning before deleting the logic.

Column Lists in Information Panes

Safran Project allows you to save your own personal 'Column Lists' that your user may use on any layout in the database.

Column lists are available in:

• Resource Information
• Link Information
• Logic Navigator

Resource Information Column Lists

The default list contains all available fields:

To create and modify your lists, use the quick access shortcut (right-click) when standing in the resource information.

You may access the list from two places:

1:

2:

To create a new list, click 'New' and give it a name:

Drag and drop the columns you do not need in your new Column List from right to left and press OK.

Below, you see a few examples of lists that you may create for your usage:

Notice that the column width is saved with each Column List.

Link Information Column Lists

These column lists are created and modified like the Resource Information Column Lists described earlier.

The only difference, besides the content, is that the default columns you tick and untick on top (ref. blue square below), while if you would like any extra columns, you drag and drop from left to right:

If you are working with Project Groups and interface links, these fields might be of interest:

Notice that you may use two different column lists on your Predecessor and Successor list:

Link Logic Navigator Column Lists

These column lists are created and modified like the Resource Information Column Lists described earlier.