Schedule a Chart - EcoSys - 9.2 - Administration & Configuration - Hexagon

EcoSys Scheduler

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English
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EcoSys
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Administration & Configuration
EcoSys Version
9.2

Once you define a calendar, you must configure a chart with a chart type Scheduler, and Cost Object or Task subject areas.

To perform the scheduling operation, you can create relationship links between entities or objects using various date and duration constraints. Relationships in scheduling are defined as :

  • Finish to Start (FS)

  • Finish to Finish (FF)

  • Start to Finish (SF)

  • Start to Start (SS)

Follow the steps below:

  1. Navigate to Configure > Charts

  2. Click Create New Chart.

  3. Specify Name, Title, Chart Type and Subject Area on the Create New Chart and click SAVE.

    • Subject Area – Enter the subject area as Cost object or Task

    • Chart Type – Enter the chart type as scheduler

    • Chart Name - Enter the name of the chart

    • Title – Enter the title for the scheduler

  4. On the General tab, enter the following details:

    • Description - Enter a brief description

    • Scheduling- Under Scheduling section, set the Calendar and set the Baseline if applicable.

  5. Click the Columns tab and then click Add New Column

    • Expand the Attributes field, select the Cost Object ID and Cost Object Internal ID, and click Add.

    • Enter the caption and select the Cost Object ID in Fields.

      To hide the column, un-check the Visible option. To remove the option to control the column view, in view settings, un-check the User can show/hide option. Any of the columns you add can be specified as the dimension column on the Chart Elements tab. Any other added columns that are not used as the dimension columns, appear only after the first 4 columns which are the dimension column, Start Date, End Date and Duration. You have an option to show or hide these fields using the Chart Elements tab.

    In the scheduler charts, you can now enter a specific Decimal Count and the Divide Values By in the “Display Options” section for any fields (for example, cost, units, custom fields, float etc.) and the decimal characters will be applicable and displayed once you preview the chart.

  6. In the Row Filters tab, select the column Cost object ID and define the condition.

  7. In the Chart Element tab, enable the dimension as it is added as the column.

    The dimension column controls which field must appears as the first column in the chart. You can select any field or none in the Label Source. You can also choose to hide the start data, end date, and duration.

    In 8.8, the dimension column is now controlled by the visible flag on the Columns tab to show or hide on the scheduler table. If you want to display cost object scheduler in hierarchy mode, check the Hierarchy Mode option.

  8. Click Preview.

    A scheduler table on the left and a scheduler chart on the right is displayed:

  9. Expand the chart to view it in Hierarchy mode.

    • If an object has Internal Dates, the scheduler will use the internal dates. If there are no Internal Dates, EcoSys considers the External Dates if they exist.

    • When external dates are used in the scheduler chart:

      • The row in the Chart is greyed out and made read-only.

      • You will not be able to edit the duration, constraints, relationships on the row. Also, you cannot progress the schedule on this row.

      • You cannot reschedule the items in the chart

    • If you check the option Override external schedules on the Chart Options tab, the row remains gray, but you can modify the Duration, constraints, relationships. Also, you can re-schedule the row with internal dates

    • To support datetime without Timezone, configure the following settings:

      • server.parsing.iso8601.mandatoryTimeZone.enabled=false

      • Advanced Command - iso8601TimeZoneMandatory=false

      • server.parsing.iso8601.assumeMissingTimeZoneAsUTC.enabled

      For more information, see Server Settings and Advanced Commands.

  10. In the above Scheduler chart, the following fields appear.

    • Filter - Filters any column for both the scheduler chart and the scheduler table.

    • Date Display - Displays the time zone. Local or UTC controls the date/time you see for the Start Date and End Date in the chart

    • Timescale Unit - You can select days, weeks, or hours in this field. The default duration is set to Days.

      You can also set the duration using:

      • Server setting "scheduler.durationInHours.enabled=false"

      • Advanced command "durationInHours=false"

    • Data Date – Click this option to open the date picker. Select the date and time for the scheduler to run. This field is used to drive the start date for scheduling or the current date for progressing.

      • If none of the activities in the view have been scheduled, the data date shows today's date.

      • If some of the activities in the view have been scheduled, the data date shows the max/latest date of those scheduled activities.

    • Timescale Unit – Changes the time display on the scheduler chart. You can select the unit as Year, Quarter, Month, Week, or Day.

    • Timescale Subunit – It can be used along with the TimeScale unit. You can select the unit as Week, Month, Quarter, Year

    • EXPORT - Exports the chart to Excel.

    • UNDO - Reverts the latest changes.

    • BASELINE - Saves a snapshot of the current schedule to a baseline

      The BASELINE button is displayed beside the Export button only If Show baseline option is enabled under the Options tab of the chart.

    • SCHEDULE - Runs the scheduler based on the date and time selected in the Data date field.

    Starting with 8.8, if you make any changes to the chart, the changes are auto saved, but you must click the SCHEDULE button to run the scheduler.

  11. After making the necessary changes to the chart, click SCHEDULE.

    If you do not run the Scheduler after making the changes to the chart, a yellow warning icon appears indicating that you must click the SCHEDULE button to execute the changes.

    After you click the Acknowledge button in the banner, it disappears immediately. This yellow warning icon will no longer appear when scheduling is needed, instead a yellow triangle appears next to the SCHEDULE button on the top.

  12. After making any changes, if you navigate away from the chart with unscheduled changes, a popup appears indicating that you have unsaved changes. Click OK to proceed.

    You can also make the chart read-only. In the Options tab and select the option Read-only. Once you select read-only, you cannot add or change the constraints, duration, relationships, or run the scheduler.

  13. In the scheduler table, the following fields appear.

    • Cost Object Id

    • Start Date

    • End Date

    • Duration

    The Duration column is editable so you can make changes to the duration between activities.

  14. Click the value under the Duration column and make changes as required.

  15. Select the row you want the cost object to be created under and then click + button on the top.

  16. Enter the ID, Name, and select the Cost Object Type and click OK.

  17. View settings are available in Scheduler chat. Select the option User can show / hide this column at runtime to show/hide the columns during run time on Columns tab during configuration.

    • In Scheduler chart.

      • Click and click Show View settings

      • Select the check box against the required column and click RUN to view the column in the activity table.

  18. If you want to add a constraint, double-click on the Start or End date in the Activity table.

    A pop-up appears to allow a constraint to be added. You can add the following constraints for Start date:

    • Start No Earlier Than

    • Start No Later Than

    • Must Start On

    • Finish No Earlier Than

    • Finish No Earlier Than

    • Must Finish On

      In the previous release, the Must Start On date constraint was used to determine when the schedule must start. . In 8.8, Datadate field drives the start of the project for the initial schedules.

      If the constraints are not met, a po-pup message appears on the screen and must be acknowledged.


      • Date constraint has a time component in 8.8.

      • The Date Constraints are applied after the schedule is calculated. If the constraint is feasible, that is, it can be accommodated by float on the activity, the schedule will be recalculated by trying new date incrementing 1 hour starting from the early start date until the late start date.

      • If the constraint is not feasible (that is, either there is no float or if there is float but the recalculation does not produce viable dates, then you will get the warning message saying the scheduler cannot enforce the constraint and you must acknowledge it.

      • Finish Date constraints are not supported on terminal nodes, such as the last activity on a given path through the schedule.

      Similarly, double-click the end date to add the constraints for end dates such as Finish No Earlier Than, Finish No Later than, Must Finish on.

      You can create relationship links between activities which control the sequence of the events in the schedule.

      For more information on modifying date and duration constraints, refer Configure Scheduler Constraints

  19. In the scheduler chart on the right, a Relationship between two objects can be created by as follows:

    1. Hover over an object in which the relationship is to be created.

    2. Circles are display on either side of the diamond.

    3. Drag the circle to the left or right side and connect to the start or end of another object to create a dependency link:

    4. Depending on the positioning of the link, one of the following relationship types can be created:

      • Start-to-Start

      • Start-to Finish

      • Finish-to-Start

      • Finish-to-Finish

      Bar colors in the Scheduler chart

    5. If the Float is 0, it indicates that the objects are on the Critical Path (Red)

    6. If the Float > 0 on start date(late start – early start) and end date (late finish – early finish) , the objects are indicated with a Green bar.

    7. If the Float > 0 on only one side either start date or finish date the objects are indicated with an Orange bar

    8. If the Items have no start/end date and duration, the objects are indicated with a grey bar.

      Start and End dates

    • If an actual Start Date exists it uses it. Else, EcoSys uses the Planned / External Start Date​.

    • If an actual Finish Date exists, it uses it. Else, EcoSys uses Planned / External End Date

      Once a relationship is created between objects, you can also add a Lag (time lag) which allows you to adjust the activities with a gap.

    • To add a lag, double-click on any of the links. The Edit Link pop up appears.


    1. Enter the required Lag details.You can enter Positive or Negative lag between links.

      Positive lag (example + 3) indicates that you want to increase the gap by 3 hours between activities and negative lag (example -3) indicates that you want to decrease the gap between activities by 3 hours.

    2. To remove entire relationship between two activities from the Lag pop-up, select Remove this link option.