Customizing the Date Scale
Open Plan enables you to define the components of the date scale on the barchart and histogram views.
This date scale controls both the display of bars and the aggregation of resources in the histogram portion of the view. The histogram bars correspond to the smallest date unit defined for the date scale.
You can define the settings for the date scale using any of the following methods:
- Using autoscaling.
- Defining the settings manually.
- Creating a date scale based on one or more custom reporting calendars.
To select a method for defining the date scale, display the Options tab of the Date Scale Preferences dialog box. You can use this dialog box to control the text and background color for the date scale. You can also manually adjust the spacing of any date scale by dragging within the date scale area.
Defining a Date Scale Manually
To define the appearance of a date scale manually, click the Manual option on the Options tab of the Date Scale Preferences dialog box to display the Manual tab. Use the # of Axes setting to specify how many lines you want to appear in the date scale. If you are displaying relative dates in one or more lines in the date scale, you can define a starting (reference) date for these labels.
Defining a Date Scale Using Autoscaling
The autoscaling feature on the Manual tab of the Date Scale Preferences dialog box enables you to automatically define the date range that Open Plan should display on a single screen, based on any of the following intervals:
- One week
- Two weeks
- One month
- Three months
- Entire project
You can also specify a custom interval to use with this feature.
After you have indicated which interval to use, Open Plan automatically generates a date scale based on the width of the barchart pane and appropriate to the interval you specified. You can then further modify the date scale using by defining date scale manually.
Using Reporting Calendars
If you have set up one or more reporting calendars in order to display data using a non-linear time scale, you can base a date scale on this type of calendar. This allows you, for example, to create a “rolling wave” barchart report in which the units on the date scale can refer to different spans of time.
It is also possible to use multiple reporting calendars in a single date scale by assigning a different reporting calendar to each axis.
With multiple reporting calendars, however, you must designate one of the axes as the “controlling” axis that determines how Open Plan scales the other axes. Typically, the controlling axis displays the smallest intervals to be displayed in the date scale.
To use a reporting calendar to define the appearance of a date scale, you must have already defined the calendar using the Reporting Calendars command from the Tools tab.
After you have created a reporting calendar, click the Report Calendar option on the Options tab of the Date Scale Preferences dialog box. You can then display the Report Calendar tab.
Use this tab to indicate the number of axes you want to appear in the date scale. If you are displaying relative dates in one or more lines in the date scale, you can define a starting (reference) date for these labels. If you want to use multiple axes in the date scale, you must specify which axis will control the scaling of the other axes.
For each axis you can define the name of the reporting calendar. You can also define how the labels from the reporting calendar appear.
Adjust the Date Scale with a Mouse
Open Plan allows you to expand or compress the spacing of any date scale by dragging within the date scale area of the view. With this feature, it is possible to make small adjustments to the date scale without having to redefine one or more of the elements making up the scale.
This feature also works on the Manual tab and Reporting Calendar tab of the Date Scale Preferences dialog box.