Manually Adjusting the Resource Gantt Chart

Note:  This topic applies only to the Resource Gantt Chart - Scheduler form, when used in the Windows client. To manually adjust the bars when you are using the chart in the Web client, see Using the Resource Gantt Chart - Web Client.

Adjusting Chart Bars

Initiate an adjustment by performing one of the following:

  • Left click in the middle of a bar and drag to move the bar without changing its duration. The bar can be moved to a new time on the same resource or to a different resource.
  • Left click on the left end of a bar and drag to change it's start date while leaving the end date fixed. The bar will remain on the same resource.
  • Left click on the right end of a bar and drag to change it's end date while leaving the start date fixed. The bar will remain on the same resource.

After adjusting a bar, a dialog displays, allowing you to verify the new settings and fine-tune the adjustment. You can adjust the start date, end date, and resource allocation. The system validates that the start date and end date are valid and that the end date is later than the start date. Click OK to complete the schedule edit, and click Cancel to revert to the bar's original position.

Note:  You can access this dialog box directly by right-clicking and selecting Edit Operation.

Splitting and Merging

It may be necessary to split a resource usage bar into two pieces in order to complete a desired schedule edit.

To split a usage bar:

  • Right-click on a bar and select Split Operation.
  • The resource bar is now divided into two equal pieces, the first retaining the start code and the second retaining the end code of the original bar. Adjust the split pieces as needed.

To combine separate pieces of a single operation, or to reverse a split:

  • Select any piece of the operation.
  • Right-click and select Merge Operation. This combines the pieces of the currently selected resource usage and combines them into a single usage with the start date of the earliest piece and a duration equal to the combined durations of the merged pieces.

Saving Manual Adjustments

Instead of saving schedule changes immediately to the application database, you must right-click and select Save Schedule. Once selected, all pending changes are saved to the database. If you attempt to exit the form, or load a different dataset, without first saving the current schedule, a warning message displays. This allows you to try out schedule changes before committing them to the database. Saving bulk changes will occur within a transaction to ensure data integrity. The save is rolled back if the original schedule records have been altered since being originally loaded (for example, another user edited some of the same schedule records). The user control will also communicate with the CloudSuite Industrial form logic to allow schedule changes to be saved using the standard collection save command from WinStudio.

Freezing

To freeze a job or operation:

  • Select the job or operation.
  • Right-click and select Freeze Job or Freeze Operation.

This action will cause SCHEDOP000 records to be created for all scheduled operations for the current job. Frozen operations will be displayed with a white fill pattern to distinguish them from other bars.

To unfreeze all operations from a frozen job or operation:

  • Select an operation.
  • Right-click and select Un-Freeze Job or Un-Freeze Operation.
Note:  Operations may also be frozen from the Resource Sequencing form.

If you are populating the Resource Gantt Chart - Scheduler form with Scheduler data (the Use Planning Output for Scheduling field is not selected), then you may freeze entire jobs, or single operations within a job as long as that operation is not in the middle of a routing. Furthermore, these adjustments will be honored by the system the next time you run the Scheduler.

Note:  When you freeze an operation, all preceding operations in that job are also frozen.

Some CloudSuite Industrial users will not use the APS Scheduler, but will instead populate the schedule output tables through the Use Planning Output for Scheduling planning parameter. In this mode, the contents of the schedule output tables are derived from the results of the most recent APS Planner run. Because of this, the step in the planning process where SCHEDOP000 records are generated is bypassed. Manual schedule edits made in the Gantt chart while operating in this mode will have no impact on subsequent planner runs. To resolve this problem, you can freeze and unfreeze operations for a job in the Gantt chart. Once frozen, operations can no longer be manually edited unless the are first unfrozen.

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