Planning shift alert with dependant tasks

Sebastien F. shared this question 25 hours ago
Discussion Open

Dear,

I used MM some years ago for mind mapping and I come back to it for a new project with more precise and different needs after some additional experience years.


When building a projet with dependencies, I am interesting to compare the due date of a milestone and the cumulative duration of the various tasks before this milestone.


I am surprised to see that even for a milestone, the due date is linked to the dependancies. It would be very interesting to be able to separate both. The end date would be the date of termination based on the different dependancies. The due date being the time when we want the task or milestone to be finished.


I thought that formulas could be a good workaround but unfortunately, formula can not be used on date.


So, I haev 2 questions:

- first: did anybody find a workaround or solution to have a visual alert if a milestone is not fulffilled

- secondly: if there is no way, is it possible to have such a feature in the future ?


Sorry if this topic as already been answered, I didn'it find it. Thanks to show me the good topic.


Regards

Replies (2)

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Hello Sebastien

Unfortunately MindManager only has two date fields per task. A milestone is just a task with zero duration, but is otherwise treated as a task that can be scheduled. There are no other date fields that could be used to keep track of milestones.

However it would be possible to calculate data from a project network with a macro. Could you post a screenshot of an example marked up with the required values?

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Thank you for your reply.

I know that there are only 2 dates for a task and a milestone is nearly a task. I choose MM because it is in my point of view the only tool mixing mind mapping, task dependancies and Gantt view in a quite user friendly way.

I think it is a bit a pity because comparing a due date with an estimated end date is a basic need in project planification.


The only workaround I have up to now is to use a user defined property to add the due date.

I don't know what you mean by macro but my need is simply a visual alert in the Map and/or the Gantt.

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Ideally, a formula could calculate the difference between the actual due date and the calculated schedule. But this feature does not exist today, although it might be added in the future.

MindManager macros are short bits of code that can read and write data in a map. A macro could be created to calculate the difference between actual due and scheduled due dates, and write this into a topic property as a positive or negative value in days. You could then use a SmartRule to highlight milestones or tasks that are scheduled too late or are at risk.

Macros only run on demand, not automatically. A new button could be added to a menu (e.g. the map context menu) to refresh these calculated values. For example, the button could be called "Refresh deadline dates" and it would run the macro, updating all the differences, which would then be highlighted in the map by your SmartRule.

Does this sound useful?

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Yes, It sounds really usefull to me. I didn't see macros up to now. It opens the possibility. I'll try it in the coming days. The longer will be the time to find the needed functions. Is there something like "Record a Macro" ? I didn't find it

Thank you very much

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Unlike Microsoft Office, there is no "record" feature for MindManager macros. They are WinWrap Basic, a VBA-compatible programming language. If you contact me via harportconsulting.com I can send you a first draft or some functions that will be useful.

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Hi Sebastian,
I'm familiar with the problem and I found this solution suitable for me.

MS is on a fixed date and the difference between the total duration of the phase and the duration of the work packages results in the buffer. If it is less than 3 days, then a SmartRule is triggered and it turns red.

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