Ganttic Update | The New View Settings: A Beginners Guide

Firstly, we would like to apologize that we weren’t there for you this morning (or during the weekend if you are one of those outstanding people that use resource planning tools during non-business days) when you first logged into Ganttic. We totally should have been there yelling surprise and throwing confetti around. But we weren’t. And we’re sorry. Secondly, yes, the planner looks quite a bit different. Actually, if you have been with us for some time, you already know we tend to be whimsical like that. Making changes. Thirdly, if you want to know what’s different and why it’s different, you have come to the right place.

Part I, “Getting started”

In this chapter of the beginner's guide, we are going to go through everything that’s new to the view settings. New things can be scary but you shouldn’t be afraid since there isn’t much that can go wrong with changing the view settings. The view settings can’t hurt you even if you decide to delete the view (all your data will still be there!). So you just gotta be brave and dive in head first. Your mom probably taught you not to do that if you don't know what you are diving into but if there’s ever a time not to follow your mother’s advice, it’s now.

The View Settings

The Grouping Options

The Sorting Order

The Coloring Options

The Filtering Options

The Custom Time Period

The Single Project View

Part II, “Using the New View Settings”

Now that you know how the views work, let’s get to using them. We a going to explore some of the ways you can use the view settings for resource planning. To start from the very beginning, a brief definition of views is needed. When you first logged in to Ganttic, you landed in the middle of the general resource view. That’s the view where you can see all of your resources. There aren’t any filters or groupings. The time period isn't custom. Nothing is modified. Everything at once. Since that might be a little too much to comprehend, you can edit the view and save the edited version as a new view. As you can understand, views are like different snapshots of your resource plan, they can give you different perspectives. However, views can only do it if you set them up accordingly.

Let’s say you are a manager of a marketing department of your company. Since Ganttic is used in every department of the company, there are a lot of resources. It can be a bit tedious for you to find your team each time you need to book resources for a new project. Here’s where views come in.

Add Custom Data Fields

Since you might need to add some other kind of information about your resource through custom data fields, it’s good to do it all at once. For example, do you need to add the skill sets of your team? If your imaginary marketing team is big, it might be a good idea since making good task and skill matches is an important part of resource planning. However, there is no need for you to actually remember everything about everyone, you are not a resource planning software. Luckily, Ganttic is. If you think you might want to group your resources according to skills, add another list type of field. If you think you might only want to filter out the resources with the specific skill you need, add a text type of field. Is Mary great at analytics while Todd writes prime copy? Since it’s your imaginary department, think it through. Is there any other type of information you need to know about your resources while planning? Are you planning a mix of people, machinery, and rooms? Would you need to add a number or an email address? Or maybe attach an image with a link? All of which can be done through custom data fields. Once you are done, you need to open the resource dialog of every member of your imaginary marketing team and add the correct values of the custom data fields.

Think About Your Planning Needs

Now, let’s get to setting up the Gantt chart area. That’s where you drag and drop schedule your tasks. Which colors would you like to see there? If you would like the tasks to be colored by the colors of each individual task, it can be done. If you want the tasks to have the color of the project they belong to, it can be done. If you want your tasks to be colored by some other characteristic like status, it can also be done. If you schedule a task, you’ll see you can change the default blue color. If you do that for each task you plan, you’ll have a nice colorful Gantt chart area which makes it easier for you to distinguish who is doing what. In the task dialog, you can also add a project. If you want your tasks to be colored by project colors, you need to add a color for each of your projects. Now, if you want your tasks to be colored by other characteristics, you need to add list type of custom data fields. It works the same way as it does with resources, so you already got it. For example, add a custom data field for status, and set values to be planned, in progress, and done. And that’s it for the groundwork. Now, let’s get to creating the actual views.

Setting up the View Parameters

As you remember from the first chapter, the first thing you can change is the grouping. Since you want to create a view of your imaginary department, you should consider which data field you would like to use for resource grouping? Is it the resource type? Is it the skill sets? Whatever it is, select it. Your resources will be grouped accordingly if you added values to each of them. If some of your resources are left out, the reason might be there.

The next thing on the list is sorting. Sorting resources using resource utilization is definitely a favorite here. If resources are sorted by utilization, you can easily see if a resource is overbooked or underbooked or in that sweet optimal utilization range. You have other options as well but a rave about sorting by utilization had to be done. Click on the option that suits you, and the resources will be sorted accordingly. By the way, you can also create a custom resource order.

Now, let’s get to coloring options. If you added a new list type custom data field, you’ll see it. You’ll also see that you can add colors to the values. Select the colors you like. Or don’t if you would prefer your tasks to be colored by task or project colors. If it’s one of the latter options, you’ll just need to select it, and the taskbars will be colored accordingly in the Gantt chart area.

Filtering options are next. This is where you can filter out all the resources in your department. Type ‘Marketing’ in the search box, and select it from the filtering result. Apply the filter. All the resources that aren’t part of your department are now gone. They aren’t permanently deleted from your account, don’t worry. It’s just a filter. Only you can see the changes you are making right now.

The last thing is the time period of the view. This is where you need to think about your resource planning habits. Are you planning for the week? Do you need to see the whole month? Or three months ahead? You can even zoom into a day to make daily schedules. You know what’s the best for your imaginary department. Select the options. Now, you have almost everything set to create a view.

Creating a New View

To create a new view, click on ‘View’. You’ll see all the settings you have applied. If you want your team to see the view, make sure that ‘All users’ is selected. If you want the keep the view to yourself and no one else needs it, select ‘Only me’ at the bottom of the dialog. Now, there are only two steps left. First. Click on ‘Save as’. The view will open in another tab. The last step is to give the view a name. ‘A view of my imaginary marketing department’ is always a good choice. Well not always. But, you know,  on few occasions. Anyway, now you have a view! That’s a view! A view that’s going to make resource planning easier for you. You can always return to the general resource view. If someone books a resource in your department, the task will be a part of your view.

Part III, “Exploring Resource Planning with Views”

After you have read all the prior chapters of this guide, you might ask, “What’s in it for me?”. So we are going to go over the pros and cons of using different views for resource planning.

Pros of Planning Using Views

One of the most obvious pros is that you can divide your resource plan into smaller bits. Think of it like you were trying to achieve a big goal. To do that, you would need to deconstruct it. Establish smaller goals that are measurable and will be easier to accomplish. If you have to keep an eye on the whole organization, every resource, and project, it’s not difficult to miss something or get lost altogether. If you create views with different parameters, you’ll see your plan from different angles. And in addition to the fact that you can create views, every other administrator and user can create their own views. Users can create private views only, and administrators can choose if the views they create are private as well or public.

The second pro is that you can open projects in separate views. If you are managing a project portfolio, you are really going to love this feature if you don’t know about it already. If you group your resources by projects, you can open each project up in a separate view. You can also use the list of projects to do that. Once you have a single project view open, you’ll see that the tasks that aren’t connected to that project, are grayed out. Every time you add a project, it will be automatically connected to that project. You can edit the view settings of the project the same way as you can edit the settings of a regular view. You can change the grouping and coloring option, you can edit the time period etc. You can concentrate on one project at once.

The third big pro is that you can basically create a view that fits the user. Basically, you can restrict the user rights to the level that they can only see their own resource and the tasks attached to it and nothing else. However, since you can choose which view is the default view for each user, you can basically create a view that works the best for them. So remember when you created the perfect view of your imaginary marketing team? You can make that view their default view. That way they’ll see what you see. They themselves can add an extra filter if they only want to see their own resource.

Cons of Planning With Views

Since there isn’t a thing that doesn’t have any cons, here are a few cons that views have. First thing is that views can create a bit of confusion. Namely, if someone doesn’t know about all the things you can do to a view, it might just seem that things are missing or looking wrong. You can, of course, prevent it with a bit of Ganttic education but it can happen nevertheless. One of the other cons is actually connected to the first one. Remember how you could choose if your view is public or private? If you forget to make a private view private it can be the root of the first con. Panic! Not only at the disco. Fortunately, only administrators can make that mistake since users can only create private views. By the way, if you feel like you should learn more about users and administrators, you can hop on to our helpdesk. The last con is a bit more meta. If you are used to looking at small portions of your resource plan, the bigger picture might be overwhelming. If you are one of the people that have to take a look at the general resource view, try to do it once a week, that way you’ll always know what’s going on but at the same time, you don’t have time to get lost in it.

That’s it. Go create a view or two!