If you're new to using a Gantt chart we suggest starting with our Gantt Charts 101 article.
The project Schedule in BuildBook is created by adding Phases and Tasks, but can also include Selections, Change Orders, and Payments if you've set due dates for these items in your project. Due dates are only required for Phases, so if an item is not showing up on your calendar, be sure that you've set a due date or date range.
If you haven't created a Phase yet, here's a quick overview.
Edit items in the Schedule
The Schedule can be edited in a few different places within the Gantt chart depending on your preference and what information you'd like to adjust.
How items can be edited will also depend on whether or not you're using dependencies and/or parent-child relationships. We dive into working with dependencies in BuildBook in this article.
Drag and Drop
Drag and Drop
The Gantt chart is interactive so you can easily adjust your timeline and create dependencies by dragging and dropping the bars in the Gantt chart.
Individual items
Items without dependencies or parent-child relationships don't have relationships with other items so adjustments made won't affect any other items in the Schedule.
Predecessors and Successors
When a predecessor's dates are pushed out in the timeline (ie: they are delayed), its successors will automatically move with it.
Moving a predecessor's dates back in the timeline (ie: the item finished/started early) doesn't mean that the successor also starts sooner, so the successor stays in place.
When you move an item to an earlier date in the schedule that has successors and would like the successors to also move back in the timeline, you can automatically move all of them back by right-clicking and choosing “Auto-Schedule” from the dropdown menu.
Sidebar
Sidebar
In the left sidebar, you can edit the Start date and Duration by clicking the date or duration and typing or selecting the option you'd like.
Opening an item
Opening an item
You can also make all of the same adjustments available on the Schedule by clicking the item and opening up all of its details. Simply click the item name in the Item column in the left sidebar or click the bar for the item in the Gantt chart.
Right-click to edit
Right-click to edit
Sort the Schedule
Click the column header in the sidebar and choose Sort Ascending or Sort Descending to reverse the sort order.
Using the Start sort is a quick and easy way to see updates to the Schedule in real time as you adjust the timeline.
You can add another layer of sorting using the Multi-Sort and choosing Ascending or Descending. To remove Multi-Sort, right-click and choose Remove Sorter.
Set Lag Time Between Items
In BuildBook, lag can be set to add extra time between a predecessor and successor or to decrease the amount of time between the two items.
For example, if you need one day between two Tasks like Paint and Trim to allow time for the paint to dry, you can adjust the "Minimum Lag" settings so that there's always a one-day lag after your paint Task is finished.
Alternatively, if the Touch Up Task can start a day before the Trim Task is finished, the minimum lag can be set to a negative number, -1 day, so that one Task can start before the other finishes.
To set minimum lag, open up the predecessor that the lag should be applied to and add a positive or negative number next to the relevant successor.
Copy another Schedule
You can copy a Schedule from another Project and import Phases, Tasks, and schedule dependencies into the current Project. In this example, we'll be using Project A and Project B.
To copy your Schedule from Project A to Project B, start at Project B (the destination Project).
Go to your Schedule tab in Project B and click on the ellipses menu in the top right corner of the Tasks > choose "Copy From"
Choose your Project to copy the Schedule from by using the Copy From drop-down menu.
You can then adjust the dates for the Schedule to match the start of your Project or leave them as is and adjust them once they're copied over.
Once you've selected your Project to copy the Schedule from and adjusted your dates, click on the Copy Phases and Tasks button. You'll notice that the Copy button at the bottom will tell you how many Phases and Tasks from the Project are coming over.
What to know about copying a schedule into an existing project:
Other items with dates (such as budget items or selections) will not be copied into the schedule.
Only Pro Team Members with Manage Project permissions enabled will be able to access this feature, and they will only be able to copy from projects where they also have access to Manage Project
Customize the Sidebar
The sidebar has a default view, but you can customize it if you would like. You have the ability to hide columns, re-arrange columns, and sort. The Manual column is hidden by default
Hide/View Columns
Hide/View Columns
Right-click on the column header and choose Columns. From here you can uncheck any columns you want hidden and can unhide columns.
Re-order Columns
Re-order Columns
Click the column you wish to move and drag it to the right or left.
Resize Column Widths
Resize Column Widths
Hover over the vertical line between any column and a double arrow will appear, which indicates you can drag to resize that column.
Reset Customization
Reset Customization
To reset all customization, right-click on a column and choose Reset Customization.
Manual Scheduling
Manual Scheduling is an optional setting that can be selected if you want to override the default settings of the Gantt chart in the following situations:
If you want to disable a successor from shifting dates automatically when its predecessor shifts
If you want a Phase to have a different start and/or end date than its children
When Phases are manually scheduled, you can adjust the date and duration of them to anything you’d like. Keep in mind that Manually Scheduled Phases that have predecessors and successors (ie: they are linked to other Phases) won’t adjust automatically.
Click the "Manually Scheduled" box when you're editing the item
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