What does Time-Span do?
i-lign's Time-Span feature allows you to plan your Tasks by effort, rather than percentage of time, and then deliver the prescribed effort within a set period, defined by start and end dates.
This means that you can choose, for example, to carry out five days of effort within a thirty day period.
We will assume that you are in a New/Edit Task/Activity screen. In these instructions, we will refer only to to Tasks, but the same applies in the New/Edit Activity screens.
- In the Scheduling Panel, go to the drop-down box beside Calculation Method, and choose Time-span.
- You will see that the field for Planned end date goes live. Enter a date by which the Task needs to be finished. For training purposes, choose a date several weeks away from the start date.
Using Time-span, you can edit both Planned Start and Planned End Dates for the Task. In contrast, Effort-based determines the end date based on the effort and Resources assigned, and Duration-based defines the end date based on the number of days assigned.
- As when you are designing an Effort-based Task, you can assign Action Items to people and click 'Use effort for Task'.
- The Percentage complete and days remaining fields are manually updated in tasks only. Percentage complete does not apply to activities.
Allocating across the Time-Span
You have four options for allocating the time over the time period:
- Distributed evenly across the entire time period.
- Distributed across the beginning of the period.
- Distributed across the middle of the period.
- Distributed across the end of the period.
- In the Allocation Rates, go to the drop-down list beside Allocation approach.
- Click between Even spread, Beginning, Middle, and End. Watch the difference that your choice makes to the Allocation graphs of Resources allocated to your Task.
