Making and printing a report

Making and printing a report

Goal: choose a report of your schedule, check it in the preview and save it as a PDF, so you can hand it out or print it yourself.

When you need this

Friday is the site meeting. The client wants the schedule on paper, the site manager wants to know what starts in the coming weeks, and the foreman wants a sheet with only his own tasks. You make overviews like these on the Report tab. The app calculates them from your schedule and shows them as a preview first. Then you export them to a PDF.

The app does not send a report to a printer itself. The end point is always a PDF. You print that with your PDF reader, or email it.

Steps

1. Open the Report tab

Choose Report in the ribbon, or press Ctrl+P. Ctrl+P takes you to this tab. If you are typing in a field, a dialog is open or presentation mode is on, Ctrl+P does not work. In the browser the print dialog of the browser then opens, and that prints the screen, not the report.

From the file menu, choose File › Print › Open print preview. The file menu closes and the Report tab opens. Then choose your report and settings.

On the left is the Report column with the Report type list, a summary and the settings. On the right is the preview.

2. Choose the report type

The Report type list has eleven reports. Choose the one that fits your question.

• Gantt chart: the schedule as a bar chart, for the ordinary handout schedule.
• Resource diagram: the same bars, but with a band per resource. For "what is crew X doing?", if you like with a sheet per crew.
• Milestone overview: all milestones with date and status.
• Variance: the current schedule next to the active baseline. For "how far have we slipped?".
• Look-ahead: what runs or starts in the coming period. The list for the weekly meeting.
• Critical & near-critical: the activities with no or almost no float.
• Progress report: where the project stands on the status date, the day on which you measure progress.
• Schedule health: a check of the schedule itself for errors and unusual values.
• Resource loading: per resource per week or month, what is required against what is available.
• Resource assignments: per resource, the activities it is assigned to.
• WBS summary: the schedule rolled up per WBS level, for management.

3. Make sure the schedule is up to date

The app does not calculate by itself. If you changed tasks, relations or calendars since the last calculation, press Calculate (F5). The table reports warn you themselves, at the top of the report: The schedule changed since the last calculation — press Calculate (F5) for current values. Or, if it has never been calculated: Not calculated yet — press Calculate (F5) for dates and float.

The ribbon of the Report tab has no Calculate button, but F5 works here just fine. Export PDF also calculates first by itself if the schedule is out of date, so the PDF never lags behind your schedule.

4. Adjust the report

Under Settings are the choices for the Gantt chart and the Resource diagram. Look-ahead, Critical & near-critical, Progress report, Schedule health, Resource loading, Resource assignments and WBS summary only have Paper: and Orientation:, plus a Report options block with the choices of that report. The Milestone overview and the Variance have no choices of their own. For the period of a report see Choosing the reporting period.

• Paper: and Orientation: determine the sheet. By default this is A3 landscape, which is handy for a construction schedule, but not every printer prints A3. If you have an A4 printer, choose A4 now: the app then lays out the pages for A4, instead of you having to shrink them later.
• With the Resource diagram, the checkbox Each resource on a new page gives a sheet per crew.
• Font size: (90% to 125%) makes text and table larger or smaller. A larger font leaves less room for the timeline.
• Follow view (filter, grouping, sort) only appears for the Gantt chart. By default the whole task tree goes on paper. With this checkbox the report draws exactly the rows you see on screen, including collapsed phases, for example only the critical tasks from a layout. How to make such a view is in Creating and using a layout.
• Show baseline overlay shows the active baseline next to the current bars. With Status line: you choose a Status date line or a Progress line.
• Auto-fit to paper is on by default: the timeline is then scaled to the page width and the number of pages follows from the height. If you turn it off, the report uses a fixed zoom and also tiles across the width, which quickly produces many pages. With Timeline over: you spread the timeline over 2 to 8 pages wide with auto-fit, for a long schedule you want to print at a readable size.

5. Check the preview

For the Gantt chart and the Resource diagram you see the paper with page header, table, timeline and legend. Scroll to look at the pages. Preview quality only sets how sharp the preview is on your screen; the PDF does not change with it. If below the pages it says … and 1 more page — export for the full document (with more pages … and 2 more pages — export for the full document), the preview does not have all pages ready. The PDF contains all of them.

The other reports are shown on screen as a table. What you see is what ends up in the PDF.

6. Export to PDF

Click Print in the ribbon, or Export PDF at the bottom of the left column. Both buttons export the selected report with your current settings to PDF. The suggested file name is the project name followed by the kind of report, for the Gantt chart for example Extension house-schedule.pdf. The report part follows the interface language: a progress report gets -progress.pdf in English and -voortgang.pdf in Dutch. The project name stays the same; previously saved files are not renamed.

• In the desktop app, and in a browser that has a save dialog for files, you choose where the PDF goes. If you close that dialog without saving, nothing happens.
• In a browser without such a dialog, the browser puts the PDF in your downloads folder.

7. Print the PDF

Open the PDF in your PDF reader and print it there. If you print an A3 PDF on an A4 printer, your print dialog has to shrink the pages. So set the paper size first in step 4.

Pitfalls and what the app does

Print exports; Ctrl+P opens Report. The Print button in the Report group exports the configured report to PDF, just like Export PDF. Ctrl+P takes you to the Report tab; it does not start an export. There is no separate print command in the app: the way to paper goes through the PDF. If Ctrl+P does not work (see step 1), the print dialog of the browser opens in the browser, and that prints the screen, not the report.

Company: overtyping is not kept. The Company: field of the Gantt chart starts with the company from the project settings. What you type over it is not kept. You cannot type in Author: here. You change both with Settings › Project › Project settings, in the fields Client/organization and Author, and confirm with Apply.

Bar colors: also applies to your screen. The Bar colors: choice in the report is the same choice as Bar colors on the View tab. If you change it in the report, your Gantt on screen changes with it.

The Variance without a baseline. A baseline is a saved snapshot of your schedule that you measure against later; how to save one is in Saving and managing a baseline. If you have no active baseline, instead of a comparison it says No active baseline — save a baseline or set one active.

Status line without a status date. If you choose a Status line: while the project has no status date, the report warns with Set a status date first and draws nothing. You set the status date at Planning › Baselines & progress › Status date.

The schedule contains a loop. If the schedule contains a loop, Export PDF makes no file and shows the error.

Paper currently applies to all reports. There is one choice for Paper: and Orientation:, shared by all reports. The Milestone overview and the Variance have no paper choice of their own: they use what you set in another report, A3 landscape by default. So choose the paper first in a report that offers it, for example the Gantt chart, and then go back.

The settings apply to all projects. Paper, font size, period and the other choices are remembered by the app on this device, for all your projects. They do not belong to the project file.

See also

• Choosing the reporting period: a look-ahead or progress report over a certain stretch of time.
• Creating and using a layout: first filter or group, then print with Follow view.
• Saving and managing a baseline: the snapshot the Variance compares with.
• Resolving overallocation: what to do when Resource loading shows overloaded weeks.
• Critical path and float: why an activity is critical or near-critical.
• Report types: all report types and their options.