Help

Manual for The PlanMinder.

Some features described in this manual was introduced in release 27 (V2R27B220) of The PlanMinder.

The Video Reference symbol ▶ is used in some places to link to a relevant timestamp in one of the introduction videos. This does not replace the more detailed help text, but can give you a quick illustrated overview of the subject.

Overview

▶ Video reference Introduction @ 0:06

The PlanMinder is a project planning tool that uses automatic scheduling to convert your plan into a gantt chart schedule. It uses the uncertainties in your time estimates to predict when activities will be done, and how likely it is that you will reach deadlines on time.

You create your plan as interdependent activities, connected to a milestone. Project team members report the work they do in The PlanMinder, and updates estimates as they learn more. The schedule is kept up to date with the automatic scheduler.

Use the report functionalities to explore the history and create project reports.

When you start The PlanMinder you are met by a login screen. All your project data is stored in a database, and The PlanMinder needs information to access the database you are using.

You will find help on how to log in on this page here. If you need to set up a database, start by reading this article.

At the bottom of the login screen there is a button to start a demo version. This uses a local database with some project examples that you can play around with.

When setting up a new database for The PlanMinder, there are a few things to configure before you and your team start using it. There is a guide on what you should do here.

Main pages

The PlanMinder has eight main pages:

Home – This is an overview page that presents the most important information. An attention list, latest updates, a note pad and a calendar.

Report Time – Use this page to report work you do, and update status and estimates for activities you are working on.

Work Schedule – Calendar with holidays and vacations. Here you define when you are working, and when you are not available for scheduled project work.

Kairos – Kairos is an old Greek word for time as in opportune time. This is the project view where you define projects with activities and their relations.

Chronos – Chronos is the old Greek word for time as on a timeline. Here you can see the activities laid out as a Gantt chart, and when things are likely to be done. You can see milestones and deadlines, when people are working, and when they are available for new activities.

Priolist – This is where you set priorities between projects and individual milestones (prio points), and get an overview of the future on a project level.

Reports – Here you can find out what has happened in projects, and write and read project reports. You can also explore project data from both the recorded past and the planned future.

Settings – This is a page with a collection of tools for managing The PlanMinder. Here you can change passwords, create new users, and handle all customizable settings for The PlanMinder. This is also where you handle registration and license keys.

Main interactions

On all pages there are green round buttons in the top left corner. Some pages has two, others have four. From right to left these are:

Update: Read data from the database, including all changes made by other users. Also used to refresh data on a page.

Run Scheduler: Runs the automatic scheduler updating dates and probabilities. This may take a few seconds, and progress is indicated by dots in the middle of the top row.

Copy image to clipboard: Creates an image of the active graphical area in the clipboard. Paste in another document using Ctrl-v.

Print: Sends an image of the active graphical area to a printer. The copy and print buttons are only shown on pages with a graphical area that can be printed.

Sometimes the reload and the run scheduler buttons have a pulsing purple background. For the update button this signals that someone else has made changes that you should load. The run scheduler button pulses when you have made changes that will affect the schedule.

It is a good practice to press the reload button before making changes. Otherwise there is a small risk that you may overwrite changes made by someone else. Not all changes triggers the reload button to pulse, and it does not happen immediately.

Someone should run the scheduler every day, to make sure the schedule is up to date. Even if the button is not pulsing.

If the scheduler fails to schedule all tasks, a warning triangle will appear above the button. Click on the triangle to open a dialog with more information.

User classifications

There are three levels of user privileges. They decide what you as a user can do in The PlanMinder. Some buttons are grayed out and unavailable to you if you are not authorized use them. On the settings page you can see what privileges you have.

Developer – You can be assigned to activities, and can report work. You can update status and estimates for activities that has been assigned to you.
Manager – You can be assigned as project manager. You can edit projects assigned to you, and you can create new projects.
Admin – You can edit all projects, create new users and have full access to all settings on the settings pages.

If you have none of the above privileges you are an observer. You can read reports and check the status of projects, but not change anything.

Being a manager or admin does not automatically make you a developer. To run the scheduler you need to have license keys matching the number of developers. You can read more about licensing here, and more about managing users here.

Home

▶ Video reference Developer @ 5:50

The home page is designed to give you an overview of the information most important to you. You can click on an area to expand it and reveal more information.

Reported Time

The top area of the page is an overview of your reported time. It shows you how much time you have committed for the last five weeks, and a summary in red of time that has been reported but is not yet committed.

If you click to expand you will see committed time for all developers.

Attention

On the left is the Attention area. Here is a list of activities, deadlines, checkpoints, discrete risks and external activities that needs your attention. Click to expand it and show more information. What information is shown, and why they are in the list depends on the type of item. It may be that they need, or are likely to need a status update, or for deadlines, that you are likely to, or already have, missed them.

You can click on the symbols in the list to open a dialog. Right click to open the description overlay.

This list may be empty, and it is limited to 25 items.

Latest Updates

This list shows the latest status updates for activities you are responsible for, and activities in projects where you are the assigned manager. Click to expand and see the comments for each update.

Three different symbols are used:

Time estimate updated

Activity completed

Activity completed, but there may be some unscheduled work left for later.

Older posts are shown with gray symbols. The list is limited to 25 items. Right click on the symbol to open the description overlay.

Shared Notes

The shared notes area is a simple text field where you can write text. You can select another person in the drop down list, and read and edit their notes too. It is a bit like the whiteboard you have in the office, or on you office door. Shared notes uses markdown code for formatting just as descriptions do.

You can use it for ToDo-notes, or whatever you find it convenient for.

Calendar

On the right side there is a calendar. It shows what activities The PlanMinder has scheduled for you each day. You will also see your work schedule entries, like vacations and reserved days.

You can use the drop down list to select another developer and see their calendar.

The team button on the right switches to a team view mode, where you see all developers, but one date at a time. This gives you a quick overview of what everybody is supposed to be working on today (or some day in the future).

You can drag the divider to make the calendar view wider, and potentially reveal more information.

If there are multiple activities scheduled on the same day, they are shown in order of most scheduled time. There is a limit of five activities per day.

Click on an activity name or milestone symbol to open the description overlay.

Report Time

▶ Video reference Developer @ 0:29

The Report Time page is where you inform The PlanMinder what you actually has been working on, and also where you can report the completion of activities, or update time estimates. The page has two tabs, Report Time, and Update Activity Status.

Report Time

On this tab you report how much you have worked on an activity. This is used by The PlanMinder to calculate how much work remains, so that a new more accurate schedule can be generated. This way the schedule can be kept up to date all the time. Your entries are also stored so that you can later go back to see how much work the activity actually took, and what was actually done. This will help you make better time estimates the next time you are to do something similar.

Time reports must be committed to be visible to others and to be used in calculations by The PlanMinder.

Page overview

The central area of the page is the week overview. Here you have a matrix of days and activities, with sums. You can enter time directly in the matrix.

Below the week overview is the list of all work report entries. You can move the divider to adjust how much space is used for the overview and the list.

Above overview is an activity information area. It shows information about the selected activity.

On the left is the project tree view. Here you can find all activities in all projects.

How to report time

There are many ways to create a new time report entry. Find a way that fits your personal preferences.

The week overview lists activities you are scheduled to work on, activities you have marked as favorites and activities you already have reported time on this week. If the activity you are looking for is there, you can simply type the number of hours in the corresponding field in the matrix. This will also create a new entry in the list below, where you can access more details.

If the activity is not in your overview, you need to add it. This can be done in several ways.

From the project tree view you can

Double click on an activity
Drag and drop an activity
Select and activity in the tree view and then clicking the add from tree button

All these methods will create a new entry for the marked day in the overview and in the report list. Click on a day above the week overview to change which day is marked.

The top row in the overview is and empty row with a plus symbol. You can start typing the name in the “select an activity” field to start a search for an activity you know the name of.

Using the timer function

All rows in the week overview for the current week, and all entries in the list for today's date has a timer symbol. Click on the timer to measure time as you work. Time will be added to the corresponding report entry, or a new will be created if it does not exist. Click again to stop the timer, or on another activity timer to switch task.

Time report comments

Adding a short comment to each time report provides a lot of value. For one, without a comment it is very difficult to correct a report with errors. When reviewing project history, comments will help you understand what did take time, what did not, and why.

In the week overview matrix there is a little text icon next to every time entry. You can click on it and enter a comment. If the entry has a comment, the icon gets a green check mark.

In the report entry list, comments has their own column.

Committing time report entries

You need to commit your time reports to signal that they are complete. They will not be visible to others, nor be used by The PlanMinder scheduler, until they are.

To the right of each row there is a button to commit entries corresponding to the row. There is also a commit all button in the week overview.

Only reports with a non zero time, and a selected activity can be committed. A dialog box will tell you how many reports will be committed, and if any of them are missing a comment. You can commit entries without a comment, but you really should write comments.

Committing entries does not prevent you from continue to edit them. Committed entries get a green check mark in place of the button. Uncommittable entries gets a red minus symbol.

Time entry tricks

Time is displayed in decimal hours, but when you enter time you can do it either as decimal hours or hours:minutes. You can also do addition and subtractions, and use time ranges, like 13:00 – 14:15. If you do a help display will pop up, showing you what syntax you can use, if your syntax is correct and what the result will be.

Week overview

The week overview will by default show the current week. You can change weeks one step at a time with the green arrows, or select a week with the date selector. The double right arrows will take you back to the current week.

The week days are color coded with information from the work schedule. Current day is marked by a circle, and active day is marked as a tab. Active day is the day new entries are created for.

Yellow stars marks favorites. Click on a star to toggle favorite status. Favorite activities will be listed in the week overview for new weeks, even if they are not scheduled.

The X button on each row lets you delete all entries corresponding to this row.

Time report list

The time report list shows every entry as a list element, sorted and color coded by day. It is linked to the week overview, so any change is reflected in both places.

To the right of the comment is a field for type of work. It has a default value based on the value set for the activity, but sometimes you need to change it to match what you have done. This value is used to track what type of work the team is doing across all projects. What work types you can select is up to your organization to define.

The first button on the right side lets you copy a time report. A new report entry with the same activity, comment and work type is created for the active day. The time will not be copied.

The X button deletes the entry.

Clicking on the day circle for an entry lets you move the entry to a new day.

Anonymous entries

Sometimes you do work without knowing what activity it should be reported on. You can create a report for work without selecting an activity. You can click the (+) button in the week overview, enter a time on the first row in the week overview, or start the timer for the first row,

You can not commit the report until you have selected an activity for the report. You can do this by starting to type in the activity field to search for a named activity, or you can find the activity in the project tree view and drag and drop it on the report, either in the week overview or the report list.

The Billable flag

If enabled in settings, you will see a money symbol on the time report rows in the list. This is used to signal if the reported time is billable or not. Your organization will have to decide if you are going to use this feature or not.

The flag will get its default value from the setting in the activity. You toggle it by clicking on it.

To export this information go to the reports page.

The activity information area

The activity information area displays information about the selected activity. You can select an activity in the tree view, or click on a time report row.

You can see the name, the project and who is responsible for the activity. For scheduled activities you can also see a visual representation of how much work has been done, and how much work is estimated to be left. The uncertainty is visualized with a box and whiskers plot.

The green bar represents work done, and the orange represents the expected remaining time. The box represents the 1:st and 3:rd quartile. There is a 50 % chance that the end result will be inside the box. The whiskers represent 10 and 90 % probability. All according to your estimate and the model The PlanMinder uses.

If you move the mouse pointer to the plot it will display a legend, the estimates as numbers, and when the time estimate was made. The light green part of the bar represents work reported after the last estimate was made.

If you are authorized to, you can click the edit button to bring up the activity dialog, and edit the activity, change status or update the estimate of remaining time.

The other button will open the corresponding project in the Kairos view, so that you can see how the activity fits in with other activities in the project.

Description overlay

You can right click on elements in the tree view, or on activity names in the week overview or time report list to bring up the description overlay.

For activities the description overlay displays the full description and information about estimated remaining time. Use the Update-button to change status or update estimate of remaining work.

Update Activity Status

You can update the status and estimate of an activity from edit dialogs and description overlay on many pages. The Update Activity Status tab however is specialized to give you an overview of all active activities you are assigned to.

Activities are shown as cards on the right side, ordered by how likely they are to need an updated estimate or changed status.

Update activity status tab screen shot example

A small meter symbol on each card indicates the need for update. This value also decides the color of the card. Red indicates that the current estimate used can not be true, like not completed but zero time remaining. Yellow indicates that much work has been done since the last estimate, or that the relative uncertainty is large.

The bottom half of the card shows the estimated time left for the activity, as it currently stands. It is calculated by subtracting the reported and committed work done from the most recent estimate update. You can also see when the last update was made, and how much work has been reported since then.

When you click on a card to select it, information about the activity is displayed on the right side. The top frame shows details, and a graphical representation of reported and remaining work. Here is also a button to update the activity status or remaining time estimate.

Below is a list of all the time reports and previous updates, with their comments. They are displayed in chronological order, with the newest first. You can change how this list is displayed by clicking on the filter button, giving you the following alternatives.

Work and Updates
Work by date
Work by person
Work by comment
Updates only

At the bottom there is a row showing statistics for the activity. You can select multiple time report rows by shift and ctrl clicking on them, and see the sum of the work they represent. These tools can help you figure out how the time was spent.

The update button opens the same update dialog as accessible from the edit activity dialog. You can change status and time left estimate. Leaving a comment will help you and others understand the status and progress of the work. It will help you get better at estimating time and risks in the future.

Update activity status dialog screenshot

Sometimes it is valuable to create an update for an activity without changing the status or estimate, just to signal that it is up to date and not just ignored. If you make more than one update for an activity on the same day, the most recent update will replace the earlier one. The PlanMinder assumes that the remaining time in the estimate is remaining at the end of the day.

Work Schedule

▶ Video reference Developer @ 5:23

On the work schedule page you define when and how much your team will be working, or more specifically when and how much The PlanMinder can schedule developers to activities.

The left side is a table with individual entries. The right side is a graphical representation of the work schedule for all developers. Click in the People column to select whose schedule entries you want to see in the list.

If you select the General symbol in the Peoples column you will see the list with general rules.

Editing your work schedule

As a developer you can edit your own work schedule. As an administrator you can edit all work schedules.

Click on the Add Rule button to add a new entry to the list. This will open a rule type selection dialog.

In the dialog you can select one of the following rule types:

Base modifier: How many percent on an average work day you will be working on scheduled activities. You may spend part of your average week on meetings, administration or other tasks not part of the project activities The PlanMinder schedules. Adjust for that with this rule.

Exception modifier: Make a temporary exception to the base modifier, replacing it for a specified duration.

Leave preliminary: You will be on leave, but marked as preliminary.

Leave requested: You will be on leave, but marked as requested not yet approved.

Leave vacation: You will be on leave, marked as vacation.

Leave parental: You will be on leave, marked as parental leave.

Leave: You will be on leave, without specifier.

Reserved for work: You will be working, but not available for scheduled project work. This may be things like conferences or business trips.

Part day: You will be working less than a normal day. You specify how many hours of work you will do. Marked with a yellow line in the calendar plot.

Overtime: You will be working more than a normal day. You specify how many hours of work you will do. Marked with a pink line in the calendar plot.

Start from: Specifies first day of work for a new team member.

Work until: Specifies the last day of work.

Click on a rule type to create a new rule entry. The new entry will appear expanded at the top of the list, where you can edit the parameters. The exact parameters depends on the rule type. Usually there is a start and end date. For the short day rule, and similar rules, there is a field where you enter how many hours you will be working. All rule entries have a label and a comment.

Once completed, click the save entry button. The entry will be sorted into the list, with the earliest dates on top. Entries with past dates are sorted after future dates, and they will show the delete button.

To edit an existing entry, click on it to expand it. You can change parameters and save, or delete the entry. To change entry type, select a new type in the drop down.

Editing the general work schedule

If you have Admin privileges you can edit the general work schedule. This is where you define how long a work day normally is, and which days are normal work days. Click on the general schedule icon in the Persons column to access the general schedule rules.

The general work schedule have these rule types:

Normal work day: Specifies length in hours of a normal work day.

Weekday is holiday: Specifies a day of week where there is no work. Marked with red background in the calendar.

Weekday is free: Specifies a day of week where there is no work. Marked with a light pink background in the calendar.

Weekday is short: Specifies a day of the week with a different number of work hours than the normal work day. Marked with a yellow background in the calendar.

Day is holiday: Specifies a date where there is no work. Marked with red background in the calendar.

Day is free: Specifies a date where there is no work. Marked with a light pink background in the calendar.

Day is short: Specifies a date with a different number of work hours than the normal work day. Marked with a yellow background in the calendar.

The rules types are different, but you edit them the same way you do personal schedule rules. There is in practice no difference between free days and holidays, except for the background color. Use the rules to match your local calendar style.

Importing holidays

The import holiday calendar button lets you import official holiday rules for several years into the future. Click on the button and select your country from the list, and which years to import. Do verify that the imported holidays are correct, and that the list is complete.

Delete past holidays by clicking on the delete button to keep the list neat.

Kairos

▶ Video reference Manager @ 0:37

Overview

On this page you create and edit project plans. You need to have Manager or Admin privileges to edit and create plans, but all users can view the plans. As a developer you can edit activities you are responsible for in this view.

Kairos is an ancient Greek word for the opportune time for something. Different from the word chronos, as in chronometer, that is the word for time as on a timeline.

Project plans in The PlanMinder describes when an activity should be done in relation to other activities and milestones. The dependencies are marked with lines.

You read the plan from top to bottom. A circle with no lines connected to its top represents an activity that can be started at any time. If it has a connection, the activity it is connected to must be completed first.

A filled circle is an activity with remaining work. Unfilled mean that it has been completed.

There should be at least one milestone in the plan marked as a prio point with three yellow circles. Only activities directly or indirectly connected to a prio point will be scheduled. The prio points will appear on the Prio list page.

There can also be start points, external activities, discrete risks, deadlines and checkpoints in your plans.

When you have created or changed a plan you click on the Run Scheduler button to let The PlanMinder schedule all the tasks. You can run the scheduler every day to take into account changes in how much people actually work, updated estimates, changes in other project plans, changes in team member availability, etc. without having to touch your plan in Kairos view. And yet you will always have a plan and a schedule that is up to date.

Monitor the schedule and the calculated probabilities for milestones, deadlines, resource utilization, and optimize your plan when necessary.

The example project in the screenshot is from the demo. A short explanation of what you see:

There are six activities connected to the deadline “Date of summit”. Most of them are complete, except the “Invite World Leaders” activity. The “Hold World Peace Summit” activity is connected to a start point. This is to model that work on the summit can not start before the planned date of the summit.

In pink you see a discrete risk, that world peace will not be achieved on the summit. This is marked with an X on the left side, signaling that this risk has been determined as a failure. What fictionally happened is that the team failed with the “Invite World Leaders” activity, and thus with the summit. As the discrete risk has been determined as a failure, the activities it depends on will not be scheduled, and are therefore marked with green X-es. Instead the activities on the right side of the discrete risk will be scheduled, so that the “World Peace Achieved" milestone can be reached in an alternative way.

Creating a project

To create a new project click on the New Project button in the top left. This will bring up a dialog window where you enter basic information about the project.

You can also create a project based on another project as a template using the Clone Active Project button. You must first select an active project you wish to clone.

Enter a name and a description for the project. The project will by default be created in the active category, but you can select a different category in the drop down list.

Normally project visibility should be set to Everyone, but sometimes you may have a reason to not let the project appear in all users project tree.

Regulars: Show only to users marked as regular, and to users with responsibilities in the project.
Need to know: Show only to users with responsibilities in the project.
Admin: Show only to administrators.

Billable defines the default value for the billable flag, if used.

Project manager defines who is managing this project. Only users marked as manager can be selected.

Project status is described in detail below.

Editing project information

To edit a project, select it and click the Edit Project button. This brings up the same dialog options as when creating a project.

If you wish to move a project from one category to another, you can also do so by drag and drop in the tree view.

Enter Scenario Mode

This button will allow you to enter Scenario Mode. Scenario Mode lets you create and test different scenarios where you can change projects and priorities without affecting the active plan. The Scenario Mode is described in its own chapter below.

Project status

A project can have one of seven different statuses. They are defined as follows:

Idea: It is a project idea. The project is not scheduled, changes are not tracked and you can not report time on this project.

Planned: The project is planned, but has not yet started. It is not scheduled, but it is possible to report time on the activities. Changes to activities will generate an Update entry visible in the project history.

Active: The project is active, and is scheduled.

Paused: The project is paused, and is not scheduled. It is understood that the status will be changed back to active some time in the future. Functionally similar to planned.

Completed: The project has been completed, and is no longer scheduled. It is still possible to report time on this project.

Ongoing: This is not a real project with a defined end. It is instead a grouping of ongoing activities. It is possible to add prio points and schedule activities in an ongoing project, but it is mainly intended to be used to host activities to report non project time on.

Closed: The final state of a project. Not scheduled and no longer possible to report time on.

The normal project life cycle should be Idea → Planned → Active → Completed → Closed. Let the project be in the Idea state until you believe the plan is ready. This will avoid filling up the project history with Update entries.

The project tree view

On the left side you have the project tree view. This is a hierarchical view of projects and activities and everything that makes up a project plan.

The top level categories are defined on a settings page. They appear in the order they are defined.

The next level are the projects. Activities and other elements are inside projects. They are sorted by type and by name in alphabetical order. You can double click on an element in the tree view to bring up its corresponding edit dialog. Selecting an element in the active project will also select it in the Kairos view to the right, ping it to show where it is, and pan to it if it is not already visible in the window.

These are symbols you can find in the project tree:

Category: Top level grouping of projects.

Project: May be shown with any of the status icons listed above.

Group: A group of avtivities and milestones.

Start point: A date before which work on dependent activities can not start. The symbol is grey if the date has passed.

Activity icons:

Activity.

Activity completed.

Activity completed, but with risk for remaining unscheduled work.

Ongoing unscheduled activity.

Hidden activity.

Milestone icons:

Milestone.

Milestone that has been reached. Can also be red for a reached deadline.

Milestone that is a prio point. Can be red for a prio point that also is a deadline.

Milestone that is a deadline.

A missed deadline.

Checkpoint.

Checkpoint not yet reached, but approved.

Checkpoint reached, but not yet approved.

Checkpoint reached and approved.

External activities:

External activity.

External activity, started and awaiting delivery.

External activity, completed.

Discrete risks

Discrete risk, pending

Discrete risk, resolved as OK.

Discrete risk, resolved as fail.

A warning symbol can be added to projects, groups and activities to indicate a scheduling problem. Click on the warning triangle on the Run Scheduler button to list all problems.

Tree view tools

Above the tree view is a tool panel with four icons.

Search: Click the search icon to bring up the text search tool. Type text in the text field to search for the name of an element in the tree view. Select search mode on the right side to match beginning of names, or anywhere in names.

If the search term does not match any name, the text field gets a red frame. Click the up and down arrow buttons to jump between matches in the project tree.

Filter: The tree view can be filtered to not show projects of selected statuses, and to not show activities marked as hidden. By default closed projects and hidden activities are not shown. Check all boxes to show everything.

Striped background: Toggles a striped background for the tree view.

Increase / Decrease width: Changes the width for names in the tree view.

Show columns: Select predefined sets of columns with information for the tree view. The column view is explained here.

Groups

Groups can be used to create a logical structure among the activities in a project.

Use the Create Group button to create a new group in the active project. A group has a color associated with it, to make the grouping visible in the Kairos view. You can also define a default setting for the billable status for activities created in the group, if enabled.

You can use Groups to group together activities of similar type, like hardware or firmware, or you can group together logical sub parts of the project.

The prefix option in the group dialog helps you automatically number activities created in the group. This will put a prefix like HW1_ before the name of activities in your hardware group. This could be a good idea if you want to reference activities without using their full name. It also makes it possible to have the activities be listed in a logical order rather than in alphabetical order.

The covariance setting is explained in its own chapter below.

You can move elements to and from groups in the same project by drag and dropping, or by changing group with the drop down menu in their respective edit dialog.

Creating a plan

▶ Video reference Manager @ 1:25. 📃 Guide 10 Steps to Create a Project Plan.

A project needs activities and milestones to form a plan. These are created in the Kairos view on the right side.

Double click on a project in the tree view to make it the active project. Make sure Edit Mode is selected in the View options on the right side.

Right click on an empty space in the Kairos view to bring up the element creation palette. Click on the type of element you want to create (or use keyboard a, c, m, r, e or s), or on the X to exit the menu. Selecting an element type will bring up the corresponding creation dialog. If completed the new element will be created both on the Kairos view, and in the tree view.

All the different elements will be explained below.

You can double click on an element to bring up its edit dialog. You can left click and hold to move the element. Left click and hold on an empty area to pan, and use the scroll wheel to zoom.

Click on an element to select it. This will show its connection points as dots. To create a dependency, click on the connection point dot you want to connect. Then click on the element you want to create a dependency with. You can double click on an empty space to exit the connection mode.

To delete a dependency connection, you can double click on it to bring up its dialog, or click once to select and then press the delete key on the keyboard. You can read about advanced dependency options here.

Activities must be directly or indirectly connected to a dependent prio point to be scheduled. You create a prio point from the deadline menu, by checking the appropriate check boxes. Activities not scheduled are displayed with an X. If that is the intention change the activity type to ongoing, to show that it is not a mistake.

Clicking on the + button in the top left corner of the Kairos view brings out a toolbar.

From left to right, these tool buttons are:

Toggle dark background - The Kairos view can be displayed with a dark background instead of a white.

Toggle symbol style - The Kairos view has two modes of displaying symbols. Choose the one you prefer.

Snap to grid - Moves all elements to its nearest snap point. Elements do by default snap to grid, but you can hold down shift when moving an element to prevent it from snapping.

Move project to paper center - Move your plan to the center of the Kairos view area.

And the leftmost buttons are Zoom in, Zoom out and Reset Zoom and Pan.

Keyboard commands

There are a few keyboard shortcuts you can use on the Kairos page when working with plans.

+ Zoom in
- Zoom out
w Pan up
a Pan left
s Pan down
d Pan right
h Reset pan and zoom
F2 Snap all to grid
F3 Move plan to center
i Space in (move all elements towards center)
o Space out (move all elements away from center)
arrow keys - move in the tree view
enter - select in the tree view
< and > - increase or decrease the width of the tree view column for names
delete - delete selected item

Click on an element to select it. Hold CTRL when clicking to select additional elements to move. Hold CTRL and left mouse button to select elements using a box.

With an element selected you can use

w Move selected element up
a Move selected element left
s Move selected element down
d Move selected element right

t Create dependency from top connection
b Create dependency from bottom connection
l Create dependency from left connection on discrete risk
r Create dependency from right connection on discrete risk

and as on all pages you can use

CTRL+R Reload from database
CTRL+S Run Scheduler

Special commands for element dialogs

In the dialogs described below, you can use special keyboard commands to up your productivity if you are a fast typer. For starters you can use CTRL+S save and exit (or create and exit), or CTRL+Q to abort a dialog.

CTRL+D will take you to the description field of the dialog. Here you can use special commands to fill out the form. Every row that starts with a : followed by a command letter will be treated as a command. Command letters are case insensitive. If it is accepted it will be removed from the description. The commands are applied when you exit the description field, or hit CTRL+D.

:N name - fills out the name field.
:G groupname - selects a group that starts with text.
:@ initials - selects a person with the exact initials, or whose name starts with text.
:W worktype - selects a work type that starts with text.
:B - check the billable box, unless the argument starts with f or false.
:S status - status can be A, C, O or R/CR/CWR for activities, or N, O or F for discrete risks.
:T time estimate - fills out the time estimate. Syntax is described for the activities dialog below. Example 20:40.
:R risk - fills out risk level for discrete risks, 0 to 100 integer.
:P - Checks the priopoint field for a milestone, unless the argument is f or false.
:D date - fills out a date field. For milestones this also sets the Deadline flag.
:C - check the Checkpoint Approved checkbox for a Checkpoint, unless the argument starts with f or false.

Activities

An activity is a logically scoped unit of work, to be done by one person in one go. It could be one simple task, or a group of small tasks to be done by one person to achieve a goal. Most important is that it is easy to understand what it encompasses and is supposed to accomplish. We recommend not creating too many too small activities, as it leads to more administration and possibly unnecessary micromanagement. Neither should they be to big to grasp and estimate, and unwieldy to schedule when you want to optimize your plan.

Name and description are important for your team to understand what the activity encompasses. Descriptions can be formatted using markdown code.

Developer is the person scheduled to work on the activity, and the person responsible for updating estimate and status as the project progresses.

Billing and work type are default values used for the activity when creating time reports.

Activity status is one of the following:

Activity icon Active: An activity with scheduled work

Completed activity icon Completed: Work completed, and dependent activities can be scheduled.

Activity completed with risk for additional work icon Completed, with risk for additional work: This state signals that the work is completed for now, and dependent activities can be scheduled. There may however be additional work that may, or should, be done later. This work is not scheduled, but is still added to the total sum for the project.

Ongoing unscheduled activity icon Ongoing: Activities that are not scheduled. This is used for ongoing work, like project management, that does not have a defined end, or cannot be completed in one go. The time is added to the total sum for the project, and is important for budgeting purposes. It is also used for activities in ongoing projects.

Time estimate is an estimate of how much work is required to complete the activity. At least is the time it will take if everything goes without problems. It should be a time that is not impossible to reach, but it should be unlikely that the activity can be completed significantly faster.

The reasonable sure estimate is a time you are reasonable sure will be enough to complete the activity. Reasonable sure is defined as seven times out of ten, it will take less time. The seven times out of ten definition is why it is somtimes denoted as p70, for 70 % probability.

You can enter the time by typing in the text boxes, or by dragging the points on the slider. If you hold down Ctrl while dragging, you move both points at the same time.

You can also use the scroll wheel or arrow keys to change the values in the text boxes. You can change the text of both text boxes at the same time by separating the numbers by :, like 20:40. You can use d and w to enter time as days (= 8 hours) or weeks (= 40 hours) like 2.5d:1w. Entering numbers separated by space or + will add them, like 8+8+4 : 4d+8h. You can express the reasonable sure number as a multiplication of the at least number, like 20:*2.

If you are entering numbers from notes with only an expected outcome estimate, you can create a two number estimate with the specified expected outcome with the E syntax, like E40, or e5d. This syntax will create a reasonable sure estimate that is twice as large as the at least number. You can specify a different ratio like e40*1.5, which is the same as e40*.5.

If the project is not in the Idea state, you change the estimate or status with the Update button, that also creates an Update entry in the project history. This lets you add a comment to the change.

If you have an activity selected when you create a new activity, the group and work type setting will be copied from the selected activity to the create dialog.

Deadlines, Milestones and Prio Points

Choose Deadline in the element creation palette to create any form of milestone. The dialog has checkboxes that determines if the milestone is a deadline, a priopoint, both, or non of the above.

If no checkbox is selected it becomes a pure milestone. You can monitor the predictions of when it will be reached. It may also be useful to add milestones to manage dependencies a bit easier.

If the milestone is a prio point it will be added to the prio list view, where it can be given a priority. All scheduled projects must have at least one prio point.

If the milestone is a deadline you set a deadline date for it. The PlanMinder will calculate how likely it is that you will reach the milestone before the deadline date.

Checkpoints

The Checkpoint is a special type of milestone. If you need a dedicated person to approve of some work before the project can continue, use a checkpoint in your plan.

The checkpoint has a checkpoint authority who is responsible for the check, and responsible for changing the approved status of the checkpoint.

The checkpoint can be approved before all activities it depends on has been completed. If they are completed, but it has not been approved, it will be shown in the Attention list for the designated checkpoint authority.

External activities

External activities are used to represent things that will take time, but does not require work by the team. This can be work done by external entities, or time to get things delivered.

You assign a supervisor to the external activity, responsible for updating the status, and possibly responsible for initiating the work, placing the order or whatever the external activity represents.

The time it will take is estimated in the same way normal activities are estimated, with the assumption that 8 hours represents one calendar day.

When all activities the external activity depends on are completed, a delivery date will be calculated. This date is used by the scheduler as a predicted delivery date. The supervisor person is tasked with updating the projected delivery date if it is not accurate, and changing the status to completed when delivered.

Discrete Risks

Discrete risks are used to represent risks that will either occur, or not. You define how probable it is that it will fail. This can be used for things like tests that will either pass or fail. A failure would mean that some amount of extra work is required.

The right side of the risk symbol is the pass side. Connect dependencies for if the risk did not fail, or failed and was resolved, from this corner. On the left side create the activities required to resolve the problem if the risk fails. Connect these dependencies back to the bottom dependency connection point.

One person is designated risk manager, tasked with updating risk status and the risk level. If all dependencies for the risk are resolved, the risk will be shown in the attention list for the risk manager.

If risk status is changed to Resolved OK, non of the activities on the fail side will be scheduled. Resolved FAILED will schedule them before any activities on the right side. While not resolved the Monte Carlo simulation will schedule them proportionally to their probability, affecting both timeline and budget uncertainty.

If the discrete risk is resolved before all activities it is dependent on are completed, these activities will no longer be scheduled. They will be marked with an X.

Start Points

If work on a project can not start before a specific date, add a start point to the plan, and make the activities dependent of it. Dependent activities will not be scheduled until the start date has passed.

Copy project elements

Another way to create project elements is to copy them from another project. Select an element in the tree view and drag it onto Kairos work area. This will bring up the create dialog for that type of element, with all fields filled in with the information from the copied element. You can edit all fields just as when creating a new element. The new element will be created where you dropped it. Click Cancel if you do not want to create the element.

Tree view columns

You can change the width of the tree view by dragging the three dot symbol on the divider to the right. This will enable you to see more information in up to six columns. You can click on the Show columns button in the toolbar and choose from predefined column selections, or you can define what you want in each column manually by clicking on the header. (If you want a wider column for the names, use the < and > buttons.)

Hold the mouse over a value to get a hint about the value shown.

This view is good when you want a budget overview. Groups and projects show accumulated information for the entries they contain. If you have defined hour costs for developers you are able to show monetary values as well.

This view is also valuable when checking that you have entered things correctly, and not missed something, when creating a project plan.

Tree view plots

If you drag the divider beyond the rightmost information column, or choose Graphics only from the predefined columns selection, you will get a graphical representation of the time estimates.

The bars represents hours, ending with a box and whiskers plot to indicate uncertainty. The orange bar represents remaining time. By clicking on the filter symbol above, you can enable already done work to be displayed in green. This is similar to the plot shown in the Activity information area on the time report page.

The other option in the filter menu is Highligth selected project. This turns on a background color to make it easier to see which bars belongs to the active project.

Use the scroll wheel to change the scale. Bars that represents a whole project can be difficult to fit in the same scale that make individual activities readable.

Kairos View Modes

▶ Video reference Manager @ 7:31

Example of unvertanty view mode with dark mode active.

On the right side of the Kairos view you can select view mode. This changes how your plan is rendered to visualize more information.

The two top options, Edit mode and Normal mode displays the plan the same way, where all activities are represented by an equally big circle.

Expected Time makes the activity circle areas proportional to the expected total amount of work. The size used for an activity in normal mode would represent 40 hours of work in this mode. Completed activities are shown as unfilled circles.

Uncertainty mode uses a gradient to illustrate the uncertainty in the estimation of of total time. The complete solid part represents the minimal time, and the gradient ends with an area representing 90 % probability.

Remaining Time is similar to Expected Time, but it only shows the time that remains. Completed activities will have no circle at all.

Progress view mode shows activity circles as a pie chart. The area of the circle represents the expected total time. The filled in part of the circle represents the remaining time.

These view modes can help you get a quick overview of the nature and status of the project.

Kairos Color Modes

There are five coloring modes for the Kairos view.

Color by Group. The top default option is to color activities and external activities by the group they belong to. If they do not belong to a group they get the standard green color.

Color by Developer uses the designated color for the developer responsible for the activity. This gives a quick overview of who does what, and who will have the most work. A legend will be displayed at the bottom.

Color by Expected Done Date uses a gradient to illustrate how far into the future activities are expected to be finished. Warmer colors are closer in time. A legend at the bottom explains the colors. You can combine this with a tree view column to get exact dates.

Combining view modes with different color modes unlocks visualizations that can give you a good feeling for the project, and let you discover anomalies and mistakes.

The last two color modes are for analysis tools that require some computation.

Color by Criticallity Analysis runs an analysis for a selected prio-point milestone. Activities and external activities are colored based on how critical they are for when the milestone will be reached. Specifically the analysis tests how much on average one extra day of work for an activity will delay the milestone using Monte Carlo simulation based analysis. If the milestone on average will be delayed one day the activity will be given a criticality score of 100%, as it definitely is part of a critical path, and it will be colored red. If it does not affect when the milestone will be reached it will be colored blue.

Only activities and external activities that are part of the project, and that the milestone is dependent of, will be included in the analysis. Activities part of the fail path of a discrete risk are not included.

Color by Bottleneck Analysis runs an analysis for a selected prio-point milestone to find bottleneck activities. All activities the milestone is dependent on, and all activities connected to prio-points with higher priority are included in the Monte Carlo simulation based analysis. This mean that many activities may be included and that the analysis can take some time.

The analysis test what would happen if an activity is reassigned to the imaginary user, who is always available for scheduled work. How many days (excluding weekends and holidays) this on average would move the milestone completion is recorded. The change is compared with the amount of scheduled work for the activity to calculate a score.

A score close to zero percent mean that reassigning the activity has little or no effect on when the milestone will be reached as the project is currently scheduled. Scores around 100 % (usually) mean that the activity is part of a critical path that could be done in parallel if reassigned. Scores significantly above 100 % denotes true bottlenecks, where a small change in the plan could have a big effect on the completion date.

You may find that activities and persons involved in higher priority projects affects your milestone more than anything you can do in your project. You may also get negative scores for some activities. That mean that a higher priority project would be more optimized, removing a gap in the planning your project currently is utilizing.

The bottleneck analysis dialog will remain open when the simulation is completed. If you close it and open it again, you can see the result of the last analysis. You can double click on a row to close the dialog and select and highlight the corresponding activity.

General notes on the analysis tools

Scores are calculated using Monte Carlo simulations, which mean that there is an amount of uncertainty and randomness to the values. If you select the Fast Mode option, the simulation will run fewer iterations an be significantly faster, but also less precise. You can observe how much values changes between two identical runs.

The results you get are dependent on the current schedule. Even a small change can have a large impact. When working to optimizing plans, rerun the simulation after every change to see what has become critical in the new situation.

To understand why an activity is a bottleneck or has a high criticality score, and to find the best way to optimize, do look at the schedule in Chronos view. Compare different analysis tools, including Key Person analysis explained below, and try one change at a time. Use Scenario Mode to experiment without upsetting the active plan. All three analysis tools are available in the Chronos view too.

Critical Path

Critical path is the longest sequence of tasks that must be completed to reach a milestone. This path is displayed by making the dependency lines thicker, and the expected amount of work on this path is displayed. Activities part of the fail path of a discrete risk are not included.

Example with Critical Path and Color by Criticality Analysis active.

The path and the value are purely theoretical and does not take into account how activities have been assigned or the availability of the developers. Critical Path can be shown for projects not yet scheduled. When you schedule the project you will get much more useful information on when it will be completed, and can use the Color by Criticality and other analysis tools to find what activities and persons actually are critical for when the milestone can be reached.

Key Person Analysis

This analysis explores which person is most important for when a selected prio-point milestone will be reached. It does that by testing how a 10 % increase in schedulable time for a developer would affect the completion date for the milestone. If the increase improves the completion date 10% the developer is given a 100 % score. The analysis includes all higher priority projects, so the most critical person may be one not directly involved in the analyzed project.

The Key Person Analysis tab in the dialog shows the calculated scores and the median amount of work required by the person to reach the milestone, both in the project and a total sum including higher priority projects.

The assigned work tab shows information about the distribution of work between developers. Both in the project for the activities the selected milestone depends on, and for all activities including those in projects with higher priority. This is another measure of who the key persons are.

The Scheduled Work Types tab shows similar information but for how the work is distributed on different work types. This may help you identify what kind of competence is needed if you are going to extend your project team. (The Reports / Explore tab is another tool you can use to explore Work Type distribution both historically and in future plans.)

Cost probability distribution

When you click the "Show cost probability distribution" button, a new plot window will open. This plot shows the result of a Monte Carlo simulation for the project cost.

On the Y axis you have different probability levels and ond the X axis cost of work.

You can read out how likely it is that the project work will cost less than where bars end. Orange bars represents work left to do, including ongoing activities and other work that is not scheduled. Green bars represent work already done and reported.

Cumulative cost probability plot example

The cost unit is the currency defined in System / System Settings. The cost per hour is defined in System / Hour Costs. The cost for work already done is based on the hour cost set at the time the work reports were created.

In the example plot above you can read out that there is a 70 % chance that the cost will be below 250 (units). Holding the mouse over a bar will display the exact values.

The Group Covariance Setting

The Covariance setting for groups is a way to fine tune the uncertainty model for the project. The default value is 20 %. This is a reasonable value in most cases, and if reasoning about mathematical models is not your cup of tee, then you can confidently leave it there.

In probability theory covariance is a measure of the joint variability of two random variables. When modeling the uncertainty in the estimated time for activities, they are considered random variables. If they are independent, like rolls of a die, the covariance is zero.

When regarding how much time activities will take compared to the estimates, you can not always assume that they are independent. There may be a common problem that will affect all or many activities. Or you may be equally bad at estimating all activities, so that they all tend to be over or under your guess.

In The PlanMinder groups are used to model covariance between activity estimate errors. The covariance is between all activities in the group, but only activities in the group.

Underestimating the covariance leads to an underestimation of the uncertainty for the whole project and its milestones. That is why it is included in the model. The default value of 20 % is arbitrarily chosen, but it is a reasonable value.

If you know more, you can change the covariance. If you are certain the activities are independent from each other, set it to zero. If you are aware of risks common to many of the activities in the group, set it a bit higher. 100 % covariance would be equivalent to having one dice role dictate the outcome of all activities. This is unlikely in practice.

You may also actively choose to group activities that are similar, and where you expect a covariance to exist, to get a better project model.

Covariance is more important for larger projects, and when you have long planning horizons.

Advanced dependency options

When you double click on a dependency between two activities, a dialog containing advanced options opens. Normally you should not use these. They make the plan harder to read and understand.

There are however situations when you may want to use them to fix scheduling problems, instead of splitting an activity into two.

Normally a dependency mean that one activity needs to be completed before work on the dependent one can start. If you enter a number in the “Hours of independent work after start“ field, some amount of work can be done before you need the result of the first activity.

The second field “Independent hours of work” indicates that the first activity does not need to be completely finished for the dependent activity to start. The number you enter represents the amount of work allowed to be left in the first activity when work on the dependent activity can start.

Dependencies with advanced options are color coded as shown in the image above.

These are powerful options to fine tune the model of the project and make The PlanMinder schedule tasks as you intend. They are also difficult to understand, easy to forget and might therefore produce surprising results. They are best used to adjust the scheduling behavior in near time, but best avoided when first creating a plan.

Chronos

▶ Video reference Manager @ 2:16

Chronos is the ancient Greek word for time as on a timeline. This view shows the schedule on a timeline as a Gantt chart, but with more information than you normally find in a Gantt chart.

You can interact with the chart and change things to optimize the schedule, but you can not manually move activities on the timeline. The timeline is updated when you click the scheduler button, and the automatic scheduler is run.

On the left side is a list of activities, milestones and the other plan elements. The view type decides in what order they are shown. On the right side is the timeline.

Navigation

With the mouse on the time line area you can press and hold the left mouse button to pan the view. Use the scroll wheel to zoom in and out on the timeline. With the mouse over the list area on the left you can use the scroll wheel to scroll up and down the list. You can also use the keyboard to navigate.

Chronos keyboard commands:

+ Zoom in
- Zoom out
w Pan up
a Pan left
s Pan down
d Pan right
Arrow keys to Pan
h or HOME Reset timeline pan to today

Holding the mouse still in the time line area will display a context sensitive note with information about the date and activity. You can right click to pin the note, and then use left and right arrow keys to move it one day at a time. Right clicking in the list area will open the description overlay.

The list is displayed as a hierarchical tree view. Click on the leftmost symbol to hide its indented children. Items with hidden children has a down arrow indicator. Click on the symbol to expand.

Above the list is a toolbar with a collapse all button,

and an expand all button.

To use the search bar, start typing a search term in the text field. Select if you want to match start of names, or anywhere inside a name. Use the up and down buttons to jump between matching names. The text frame becomes red if there are no matches.