New project and Project settings

New project and Project settings

The fields of the New project window and of Project settings: what each field does, what the default is and where it takes effect. They are two sides of the same form. New project creates a new project and has a few extra fields. Project settings changes the project you have open.

Opening

New project — File › New, Ctrl+N, or the plus to the right of the document tabs (Start a project, then New project). The window opens with the cursor in Project Name.

Project settings — Settings › Project › Project settings opens the form as a window titled Project settings. File › Project settings shows the same form in the File screen. The block Calculation profile and options is at the bottom in both places; what is in it is in Calculation options and conventions.

Create, Apply and cancel

Create (in New project) makes the project. If your current tab is empty and unchanged, the app uses that tab; otherwise the project opens in a new tab. Apply (in Project settings) writes your changes to the project.

• Only at Apply. You type into a draft. The project changes only when you click Apply. Apply writes only what you actually changed, in one step in Undo. If you click Apply without changing anything, nothing happens and no step is added.
• Cancel, the cross and Esc close the window without saving anything. A click next to the window does not close it: what you had typed stays.
• Enter does the same as Create or Apply, except in the Description field and in an open drop-down.
• In the File screen Project settings shows Changes not applied — click Apply to keep them. at the bottom as long as your draft differs. If you then leave the screen, the app asks whether you want to apply, discard or cancel. See The ribbon, tab by tab.
• A custom calculation profile without a name blocks Apply and Create. Give it a name, or discard the change.

Fields in both windows

Project Name — the name of the project in the title bar, on the tab and in the file name when you save. Default: empty. An empty field is allowed: the project is then called New schedule, shown as grey text in the field. Where: the whole screen.

Description — free text. Default: empty. Effect: stored with the project, in the IFC file and in the export to Primavera P6 XML, and has no influence on the schedule.

Author — free text. Default: empty. Effect: goes into the IFC file and appears as Author: in the header of a report, where you cannot retype it.

Resource library — which resource library the project is linked to. Choose from none (standalone project), your existing libraries and + New resource library…. Default: in New project the default library, in Project settings the current link. Effect: see Using the resource library. With + New resource library… you type a name in a field below; the library is only made at Create or Apply, so cancelling leaves nothing behind. A link in Project settings is only changed if you touch this field yourself.

Client/organization — free text. Default: empty. Effect: goes into the IFC file and appears as Company: in the header of a report.

Start Date — the start of the project. Default: in New project today. What the field does is below under What the start date does.

End Date — the planned end of the project. Default: empty. Effect: a piece of information, not a requirement: the app does not plan towards this date. It appears in the header of a report and in exports, and determines up to which year the holidays are generated. Only for a Primavera file with the setting Calculate float up to the project finish date (see Calculation options and conventions) does the float calculation run up to this date.

Default unit for new tasks — only visible when Enable hour planning is on. Choose from Days and Hours. Default: Days. Effect and conditions: see Turning on hour planning.

Calculation profile and options — in Project settings the whole block, in New project only the drop-down Calculation profile with Primavera P6, Microsoft Project and Open Planner Studio. Default: Open Planner Studio. Choosing a profile also sets the default options of that profile. See Calculation options and conventions.

Only in Project settings

IFC schema when saving — which IFC schema is in the header of the saved file. Choice of IFC 4.3 ADD2 (default), IFC 4.3 and IFC4. Default: IFC 4.3 ADD2 (default); for an opened IFC file, the schema of that file. Effect: only the header of the file changes, not the content. Use it to merge the schedule with a building model in the same schema. If an opened file has another schema than the default, the app asks the first time you save whether you keep that schema; a choice here counts as the answer. Another choice here is not a step in Undo: the schema belongs to the file. See Choosing the IFC schema.

Only in the New project window

Phasing template — which phases the project starts with. Choose from Empty, Residential construction and Commercial / renovation. Default: Empty. Effect: Empty gives a project without tasks. The other two put eight phase tasks ready, each with a duration of 5 in the project's default unit (5 working days, or 5 hours if you choose Hours under Default unit for new tasks) and without relations; you rename, move and extend them yourself. For Residential construction these are: Bouwplaats & grondwerk, Fundering, Ruwbouw / casco, Dak, Gevel & afbouw, Installaties (W/E), Afwerking and Oplevering. For Commercial / renovation: Sloop & strip-out, Grondwerk & fundering, Hoofddraagconstructie, Gevel & dak, Installaties (W/E), Afbouw, Inregelen & testen and Oplevering. The names are data of your project and stay Dutch, also in another interface language. If Enable construction mode is off, only Empty exists. See App settings.

Shift — only visible when Enable hour planning is on. Choose from Day shift, 2 shifts, 3 shifts and 24/7. Default: Day shift. Effect: Day shift leaves the standard calendar as it is, an ordinary day calendar from Monday to Friday. The other three put working-time blocks on the project's calendar, like the buttons with the same name in the Calendars window. Which times those are is in Setting working times. With Day shift, Hours cannot be chosen under Default unit for new tasks, because a day calendar has no work blocks.

Holiday set — which days off the project calendar gets. At Country you choose Netherlands (default), Germany, Belgium, France, United Kingdom, Austria, Switzerland, No holidays or Custom…. If the country has regions, a drop-down Region is added. For the Netherlands you also choose, if Enable construction mode is on, the Construction holiday: None (default), North, Central or South. Below it is a line like 36 holidays, 2025–2029, which you expand for the list. The years run from the year before the start date to the year after the end date, or to three years after the start year if there is no end date. Custom… gives a calendar without holidays and opens the Calendars window straight after creating, so you can fill them in yourself. The project calendar is called Bouwkalender NL, or Standaardkalender if Enable construction mode is off; the choice is then also No holidays. How the generator works is in Generating holidays and the construction holiday.

What the start date does

The start date is the anchor of the project. Three rules:

• New tasks begin on the start date. A task you add gets the project start as its planned start.
• A task with a predecessor never begins before the start date. If the end of the predecessor is earlier, the task waits until the start date. A task without a predecessor keeps its own date, even if that lies before the start date. That is needed to show a schedule from MS Project or Primavera the way the source program shows it. A constraint Must start on (MSO) or Must finish on (MFO) breaks both rules: such a task sits on its date, even if that falls before the start date.
• A later start date moves loose tasks along. If you set the start date later in Project settings and click Apply, tasks without a predecessor and without a constraint that sets a lower bound (Start no earlier than, Must start on, Finish no earlier than or Must finish on) that would lie before the new date move to that date, in the same step in Undo. The app says how many tasks were moved. That only happens when you change the start date yourself, never when opening a file. Setting the start date later does not move the rest of the schedule: Move project does that, see Moving a project.

See also

• Calculation options and conventions: the block Calculation profile and options.
• Calculation profiles and conventions: why a profile changes the outcome.
• Moving a project: the whole schedule to another start.
• Adding tasks and milestones: starting on the first tasks.
• Generating holidays and the construction holiday: the holiday set in detail.
• Choosing the IFC schema: saving for a building model in IFC4.