All,
SheetPlanner beta 6 will go out tomorrow. It's likely to be our final beta before release.

We will start work on 1.1 and 1.2 soon thereafter.

Thanks,
Peter

Some very nice revisions, Peter, and it's a lot more stable than it was - I was on the point of sending you a whole list of things when you released B5 (already much better). But B6 is a big step forward again; the interface is much tidier, for one thing.

One tiny anomaly in your labelling: you've got Start and Finish dates (which effectively determine what appears in the Timeline view); but Finish might be better as Due Date, and it would be superb if the timeline view could also display an Actual Date (i.e. the date on which you actually finished the task, whether before or after the Due Date). As it stands, the term "Finish Date" is a bit ambiguous (i.e. does it mean the due date, or the date on which the task was completed?). And for project tracking purposes, specifying actual dates means you could easily adjust your scheduling based on the data shown in the Timeline view - by far the most user-friendly way of doing that.

Why not just adjust the Finish date, you'll ask me? Well, that's an option, of course, but less amenable to tracking project slippage, which can be a valuable datum in its own right.

Just some passing thoughts. I'm still playing with B6, but so far very impressed. This plus an iOS version would be the Bees' Knees of data management apps!

Cheers,
Bill

On Start, Finish, Due and Completed dates:

If you use SP as a task manager (like Omnifocus, 2Do etc), Start & Due are the obvious choices, with a Completed (or Finished) option.

If you're using SP as a project planner (MS Project/OmniPlan mindset), then Start and Finish are accepted conventions.

For my part, I think SP fits the second mode better - but then, I'm a project manager, which influences my thinking. Currently, I use Omniplan/Merlin for project planning (can convert to MS Project which is important for my clients) and OmniFocus for task planning. SP fits better (for me) into a variation of Omniplan/Merlin than it does into a variation of Omnifocus.

Maybe Peter could solve the problem by allowing renaming of the standard fields? I don't know how much havoc that would create

Madaboutdana,
Thanks for your comments and glad to hear you are liking b6.
Could you please send me your list of issues from b5 so I can validate they have been addressed in b6. support@sheetplanner.com

We have had a number of requests as far as labelling finish date as due date or date due and so much like Nick states below, both Finish date in terms of Project Management terminology and Due Date in terms of a task manager make sense. We will look to how we can accommodate both options in either 1.1 or 1.2. Nicks suggestion about renaming or maybe 'custom labels' for standard fields is an option.

As it relates to showing the completed date on the Timeline, we will consider that for 1.1 or 1.2 although we need to put some thought into that. It may or may not make sense.
One thing we will do in 1.1 or 1.2 is have a progress column type where you will enter a percentage and the percentage will be reflected in the timeline, so for example if you type 80% in the progress column, the timeline bar will be 80% green and the remaining 20% red. It won't account for 'effort' of a task but will still be handy for tracking progress.

Thanks for the feedback.
Peter
MadaboutDana wrote:

Some very nice revisions, Peter, and it's a lot more stable than it was
- I was on the point of sending you a whole list of things when you
released B5 (already much better). But B6 is a big step forward again;
the interface is much tidier, for one thing.

One tiny anomaly in your labelling: you've got Start and Finish dates
(which effectively determine what appears in the Timeline view); but
Finish might be better as Due Date, and it would be superb if the
timeline view could also display an Actual Date (i.e. the date on which
you actually finished the task, whether before or after the Due Date).
As it stands, the term "Finish Date" is a bit ambiguous (i.e. does it
mean the due date, or the date on which the task was completed?). And
for project tracking purposes, specifying actual dates means you could
easily adjust your scheduling based on the data shown in the Timeline
view - by far the most user-friendly way of doing that.

Why not just adjust the Finish date, you'll ask me? Well, that's an
option, of course, but less amenable to tracking project slippage, which
can be a valuable datum in its own right.

Just some passing thoughts. I'm still playing with B6, but so far very
impressed. This plus an iOS version would be the Bees' Knees of data
management apps!

Cheers,
Bill

NickG,

Your idea is a good one. We will definitely look at this issue for 1.1 or 1.2
Thanks,
Peter

NickG wrote:

On Start, Finish, Due and Completed dates:

If you use SP as a task manager (like Omnifocus, 2Do etc), Start & Due
are the obvious choices, with a Completed (or Finished) option.

If you're using SP as a project planner (MS Project/OmniPlan mindset),
then Start and Finish are accepted conventions.

For my part, I think SP fits the second mode better - but then, I'm a
project manager, which influences my thinking. Currently, I use
Omniplan/Merlin for project planning (can convert to MS Project which is
important for my clients) and OmniFocus for task planning. SP fits
better (for me) into a variation of Omniplan/Merlin than it does into a
variation of Omnifocus.

Maybe Peter could solve the problem by allowing renaming of the standard
fields? I don't know how much havoc that would create

MadaboutDana,
One other item that may not be apparent to you given the current lack of a help file or training videos (we are working on both of these) is that in the inspector, you can specify under 'Outline' and option to 'Carry Forward' the Finish date. What this does is carry forward the finish date for incomplete items. So if something is due today and you don't complete it, with this box checked it will carry it forward to tomorrow. You can also italicize the finish date for those rows that have been carried forward by clicking the 'italicize' option under 'carry forward' in the outline section of the inspector.

I wanted to let you know this in case that might effect how you use Sp and your thinking about Finish Date V Due date. As I stated previously we will still look at the option to change the default column field labels in a future version.

Thanks.
Peter

MadaboutDana wrote:

Some very nice revisions, Peter, and it's a lot more stable than it was
- I was on the point of sending you a whole list of things when you
released B5 (already much better). But B6 is a big step forward again;
the interface is much tidier, for one thing.

One tiny anomaly in your labelling: you've got Start and Finish dates
(which effectively determine what appears in the Timeline view); but
Finish might be better as Due Date, and it would be superb if the
timeline view could also display an Actual Date (i.e. the date on which
you actually finished the task, whether before or after the Due Date).
As it stands, the term "Finish Date" is a bit ambiguous (i.e. does it
mean the due date, or the date on which the task was completed?). And
for project tracking purposes, specifying actual dates means you could
easily adjust your scheduling based on the data shown in the Timeline
view - by far the most user-friendly way of doing that.

Why not just adjust the Finish date, you'll ask me? Well, that's an
option, of course, but less amenable to tracking project slippage, which
can be a valuable datum in its own right.

Just some passing thoughts. I'm still playing with B6, but so far very
impressed. This plus an iOS version would be the Bees' Knees of data
management apps!

Cheers,
Bill

That's interesting, especially the italicising bit. Thanks, Peter!