Scheduling

Tagline: Model how work actually happens — then track it as it does.

After you create tasks, link dependencies, assign resources, and read the enterprise Resources pool/views, the schedule still has to behave like real work: summaries roll up, the critical path stands out, calendars and constraints shape dates, task types and effort-driven rules decide what flexes when people change, recurring and split work stay honest on the Gantt, and Actual Work feeds progress and Earned Value.

This section is the operational core of ProjectLibre Cloud scheduling and tracking. It draws on three walkthrough videos (core advanced PM, Schedule & Tracking “what’s new,” and Advanced Task Scheduling demos).

See also: Linking Tasks · Create Tasks · Create a New Project · WBS · Resource Leveling · Performance Management (EVM) · Risk Analysis

Watch (full set): Advanced Scheduling and PM · New Features — Schedule & Tracking · Advanced Task Scheduling

Scheduling overview — three videos, one teaching path

Video	Role	Best for
Advanced Scheduling and PM (~3:27)	Core visuals	Summary rollup, critical path colors, Save Baseline (entire vs selected), task calendars, constraints
New Features — Schedule & Tracking (~6:49)	Cloud “what’s new”	Project/task dialogs; Task Type + Effort Driven; Ignore Resource Calendar; Actual Work time-phased grid
Advanced Task Scheduling (~8:20)	Hands-on demos	Recurring Task wizard; Fixed Units / Duration / Work examples; effort-driven; Split Task

Suggested reading order: summaries & critical path → baselines → calendars & constraints → task types & effort-driven → recurring & split → actuals → then Resource Leveling once capacity conflicts appear.

Demo project anchors (Advanced Task Scheduling): Core Configuration - Fixed Units, Vendor Design Workshop - Fixed Duration, Data Conversion - Fixed Work, Integration Build - Effort Driven, Configure Production Environment (split), Recurring Status Meeting.

Summaries, WBS rollup, and critical path on the Gantt

Summary levels roll Duration, Work, and dates

Multi-level summary rows on Project → Gantt correspond to the Work Breakdown Structure. Collapse a summary and parent values roll up: Duration, Work, Start, and Finish.

In the core scheduling demo, the collapsed root Summary shows 32 days and 296 hours. Expand again to drill 1 → 1.1 → 1.1.1 / 1.1.2, plus siblings 1.2, 2, 3.

Gantt — collapsed Summary rolls up 32d / 296h — from video

Black summary brackets on the Gantt span the children. For how indent builds that hierarchy, see WBS — Indent in Gantt and WBS rollup.

Critical path colors

On the Gantt: Red (pink/red) bars = critical tasks — no float; slip moves the project finish. Blue (blue/purple) bars = non-critical — they have slack/float.

Demo parallel branch: one leaf is 10 days, another 5 days. The shorter non-critical task can slip without moving the project end. Dependency arrows connect the network (see Linking Tasks).

Critical path on Gantt — red = critical, blue = non-critical — from video

PM vernacular: Critical path is the chain that sets the finish date. Everything else has “wiggle room” until you consume the float.

Baselines — snapshot the plan

A baseline is a snapshot in time of structure, scope, and schedule. When live bars move, the baseline underlay stays anchored so you can see variance. That same baseline is what Earned Value uses as Planned Value.

Save Baseline — entire project or selected tasks

1. On the Gantt toolbar, open the baseline control (tooltip Save Baselines).

2. Dialog title: Save Baseline.

3. Save baseline to — choose a slot (e.g. Baseline / Baseline 1).

4. Check Entire project for a full snapshot — or leave it unchecked so the save applies only to selected tasks (helper text in the dialog).

5. Save Baseline (or Cancel). Clear Baseline removes the chosen slot.

Save Baseline — entire project or selected tasks only — from video

Visuals from demos: earlier project baseline underlays can appear brown; an alternate selected-task baseline can appear green. Multiple baseline slots let you keep staged snapshots.

Tip: In the effort-driven demo, baselining the whole project before adding a second person makes the duration shrink obvious against the baseline bar.

Calendars — project, task, and resource

ProjectLibre schedules against calendars at three levels: project (Project edit → Calendar), task (Task dialog → Calendar, including Ignore Resource Calendar), and resource (Resource edit → Calendar + Availability dated Max units).

Task calendar demo (half-day)

1. Select a task → open the Task dialog → Calendar tab.

2. Calendar options include Standard, 24 Hours, Night Shift, 1/2 day Calendar, 3 / 4 / 6 day Calendar, …

3. Assign 1/2 day Calendar.

Task → Calendar — assign 1/2 day Calendar — from video

What changes: In the demo, Work stays 80 hours, but the working day shrinks to ~4 hours, so duration extends versus an 8h/day baseline. The green baseline underlay stays at the original finish while the live bar stretches.

Half-day calendar: Work stays 80h; duration extends vs baseline — from video

Ignore Resource Calendar

On the task Calendar tab, Ignore Resource Calendar tells the engine to schedule that task without applying the assigned resource’s personal calendar — useful when the task must follow the project/task calendar instead (shown on task Prepare Proposal in the Schedule & Tracking video).

Task → Calendar — Ignore Resource Calendar — from video

Resource Availability (dated Max units) and Cost rate tables A–E live on the resource dialog — see also Resource Leveling.

Constraints — pin start or finish when the business requires it

Default scheduling is flexible: tasks start As Soon As Possible after predecessors. Hard business dates use the Constraints tab (core video) or Constraint Type on the Scheduling tab (new-features video).

Constraint Type	Role (PM vernacular)
As Soon As Possible	Default — schedule as early as logic allows
As Late As Possible	Push late (can help cash flow) without breaking logic
Must Start On	Hard start date
Must Finish On	Hard finish date (milestone-style demo)
Start No Earlier Than	Soft lower bound on start
Start No Later Than	Soft upper bound on start
Finish No Earlier Than	Soft lower bound on finish
Finish No Later Than	Soft upper bound on finish

Task → Constraints — ASAP through Finish No Earlier Than — from video

Must Finish On demo

1. Task dialog → Constraints.

2. Set Constraint Type → Must Finish On.

3. Pick Constraint Date (demo lands on 09/07/2026 00:00).

4. The task schedule moves to satisfy the constraint.

Must Finish On + constraint date picker — from video

The same dialog shows Critical Path calculated fields (Early/Late Start/Finish; on the Scheduling tab also Total Slack, Free Slack, Critical). Review with linking and the critical path.

Caution: prefer soft constraints unless the date is truly immovable — hard MSO/MFO can create negative slack.

Task types — Fixed Units, Fixed Duration, Fixed Work

Duration, work, and resource units are related. From the avatar options dialog: Work = Duration × Units. Task Type tells the engine which factor to protect when you change people or hours.

Task Type	Stays fixed	Flexes	Demo task
Fixed Units	Assignment %	Duration	Core Configuration - Fixed Units
Fixed Duration	Calendar span	Work when units change	Vendor Design Workshop - Fixed Duration
Fixed Work	Total work hours	Duration / units	Data Conversion - Fixed Work

Set Task Type on the task Scheduling tab (Fixed Units | Fixed Duration | Fixed Work). You can also show a Task Type column on the Gantt spreadsheet.

Task → Scheduling — Task Type + Effort Driven — from video

Worked examples (Advanced Task Scheduling demo)

Fixed Units — Core Configuration: Assignment at 100% → 3 days. Change to 50% → duration becomes 6 days; restore 100% → back to 3 days. PM takeaway: you protect “how much of this person,” and the calendar length adjusts.

Core Configuration - Fixed Units — units protected — from video

Fixed Duration — Vendor Design Workshop: Workshop locked at 3 days. Drop Project Manager to 50% → Work recalculates; Duration stays 3 days. PM takeaway: the window cannot stretch; effort inside it changes.

Fixed Work — Data Conversion: 64 hours of work. Put Dev resources at 50% → Work stays 64h; Duration stretches. PM takeaway: the job is a fixed bucket of hours; staffing changes how long the bucket takes.

Data Conversion - Fixed Work — 64h protected; duration flexes — from video

Default for new tasks: user avatar options → New tasks: task type (e.g. Fixed Units default), with an in-dialog explanation of the three types and the Work = Duration × Units formula.

Avatar defaults — New tasks: task type & effort driven — from video

Effort-driven scheduling

Effort-driven means: when you add or remove resources, ProjectLibre redistributes the existing work — it does not invent more work just because another person showed up.

Demo — Integration Build

Task Integration Build - Effort Driven starts at 80 hours work, one developer → about 10 days. Add a second developer at 100% → work stays 80h, duration ≈ 5 days. Optional: Save Baseline first, then add Database Engineer — same story: duration compresses, work budget unchanged.

Integration Build - Effort Driven — work redistributed, not increased — from video

Example from Schedule & Tracking: a 40-hour effort-driven task with one person finishes twice as fast when you add a second — still 40 hours of work.

Where to set it: (1) Per task — Scheduling → Effort Driven. (2) Default — avatar → New tasks: effort driven (ON = adjust duration to keep total work; OFF = resources bring/remove their own work without automatically moving dates).

PM vernacular: Effort-driven is “same job, more hands, shorter calendar.” Turning it off is closer to “each person adds their own pile of work.”

Recurring tasks

Projects often include work that repeats: weekly status meetings, monthly customer reviews, inspections, backups, maintenance, government reviews.

Create a recurring task

1. Project → Gantt.

2. Toolbar + Add → Recurring Task.

3. In New Recurring Task: Name (e.g. Recurring Status Meeting); Duration of each occurrence (days) — demo intent 0.25 (2 hours); Repeat Weekly / Every 1 week(s) / Wed; Range Start + End after N or End by date (demo: 4 occurrences); If an occurrence falls on a non-working day — e.g. Move to the next working day; Calendar — Standard (inherited).

4. Create → summary recurring row + child occurrences on the grid/Gantt.

5. Optional: collapse the summary to hide the occurrence list.

Toolbar + Add → Recurring Task — from video

New Recurring Task wizard — Weekly / Wed / range — from video

Recurring summary + occurrence children on Gantt — from video

Split tasks — interrupted work without fake continuity

Not every activity runs start-to-finish without a break. Work may start, pause for another priority or facility access, then resume.

Demo — Configure Production Environment

1. Select a multi-day task (demo: Configure Production Environment, ~4 days, not continuous).

2. Activate Split Task; tip: “Click on a Gantt bar to split”.

3. Click the Gantt bar to insert the split; drag the resumed segment later as needed.

4. Confirm the visual gap on the Gantt and the matching interruption on the resource histogram.

Split Task — Click on a Gantt bar to split — from video

Split task gap on Gantt — interrupted work stays honest — from video

Use cases: interrupted engineering work, phased installations, customer review periods. On the Scheduling tab, Leveling Can Split / Level Assignments relate to Resource Leveling. Actuals also expose Resume Lag for split timing.

Actuals and tracking — beyond % complete

Planned work is what the PM expected. Actual work is the effort completed — essential for honest progress and for EVM.

Two entry paths

Task dialog → Actuals — Actual Duration, Actual Work, Remaining Work, Actual Start / Stop / Resume / Actual Finish, Resume Lag, Actual Overtime Work, Actual Cost, Remaining Cost. Main also has % Complete (0% / 50% / 100% shortcuts + slider).

Usage / time-phased spreadsheet (primary demo in Schedule & Tracking; see also Project Usage View) — rows for Work (yellow) and Actual Work (pink); enter hours in day cells (demo ~12h); remaining work updates. More meaningful than only marking a task partially complete.

Usage-style grid — Work (yellow) + Actual Work (pink) — from video

Also on project/task dialogs: Priority & statuses (Main); EVM + Baseline Snapshots (Performance — see Performance Management); Risk Distribution / O–P durations (see Risk Analysis).

Watch the scheduling videos

Video	Link	Length
Advanced Scheduling and PM	youtu.be/ebf6ojsyy0c	~3:27
New Features — Schedule & Tracking	youtu.be/Zs7SFB2h_DI	~6:49
Advanced Task Scheduling	youtu.be/qCD2nSlO6Kc	~8:20