Resource Planning Best Practices: Custom Data Fields

Custom data field is a core feature of Ganttic's. It is applicable for resources, tasks and projects. This gives you great flexibility to customise your plan inside out. It is also a feature that requires basic scheduling set-up to be available. Once you have created a resource, a task or a project, you will automatically have the ability to dive in further and give your data the customisation it needs.

What can you use custom data fields for?
Besides having particular details saved with your data, you are able to use these information fields for grouping and filtering, in reports and in views. Its usefulness extends all the way into the users feature, whereby you would be able to set default views for each user with their resources sorted by your choice of grouping.

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Type 1 - Resource Custom Data Fields

Click on a resource name. In the settings dialog that comes up, click on 'Add new field'.
Your options of data type are text, number, list of values, date, user and link. For grouping purposes, choose 'list of values' and enter your grouping values in the spaces provided. After clicking 'Save', you will be able to assign a value for your resource. Rinse, lather, repeat the assigning of value for every resource. 
For example, if your resources are your employees, you could give your resources the values of interns, juniors, seniors, management, etc., and assign the resources these values accordingly.

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Type 2 - Task Custom Data Fields

Click on a task. In the settings dialog that comes up, click on 'Add new field'.

Your options of data type are text, number, list of values (coloring), date, user and link. List of values allows you to assign colours to each value. This is especially useful for keeping track and updating task status or priorities. (To do so, after you add the values, return to the planner and click on 'Color Taskbars by'. Then from its dropdown select 'Task custom field' to assign specific colours to each value'.)
For example, you could set the values as 'Completed', 'In Progress', 'Planning Stage', or 'TBC'. And their colours accordingly to represent these values, so when you set your taskbars colours by the Status data label, you can instantly see the status of the tasks.

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Type 3 - Projects Custom Data Fields

Click on a task. In the settings dialog that comes up, click on the pen icon beside the 'Project' dropdown. (The pen icon only shows up once you have a project assigned to a task)

Your options of data type are text, number, list of values (coloring), date (milestone), user and link. List of values here works the same way as tasks' list of values.
Date (milestone) is useful for setting milestones for projects. Create a custom date field in a project through a task dialog. Set a date in your custom date field and group your resources by projects. Your milestone will show up in the form of a diamond (of the colour that you have set) at the date.

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To recap, the custom data field feature is the key to more advanced features in Ganttic. All the main data - resource, task and project - have custom data fields. So once you start using Ganttic and have your resources, tasks and projects set up, you are automatically

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Author: Patricia Goh