At the latest version of the app, plan files must be Excel files where each row represents and activity on the plan and each column represents a different attribute of that activity. In order for visuals to be created, certain columns/fields are required to be provided. These are:
| STICKY_UID | Most project planning applications assign a unique id to each activity when it is added to the plan and that id is maintained for that activity. It isn't a sequence number and as other activities get added before or after it, the id maintains its value, hence the name - STICKY_ID. The attribute is important in creating visuals from a plan which is going to be updated becaue in order to correcly process a new version of an already uploaded plan, the app needs to be able to identify which activities are already in the visual, which have been added or removed. Note: Some planning apps don't provide a unique id by default (such as SmartSheet) and in those cases, the user will need to add this column wichin SmartSheet manually before exporting the plan. Each file type on this page includes a link to a page which has more detailed instructions on how to ensure the exported file is of the right format. td> |
| NAME | Activity Name |
| DURATION | Only used to identify Milestones. A Milestone is defined as an activity with duration of zero. |
| START | Start Date |
| END | End Date |
| LEVEL | Used in defining the hierarchy for the plan. A plan comprises a hierarchical structure where high level activities are made up of lower level activities in a recursive manner. This structure is important as when defining which activities to place on the visual, typically you would either place a high level activity or its lower level sub-activities, but not both (to make good use of the space available). This principle will also be adopted by automated algorithms for creating visuals. If level is not included then the app will still work but it will be much more difficult to create a good visual as it won't be obvious which activities are sub- activities of others. |
Various formats are supported (and these will be added to as support for different use cases increases).
This screen allows the user to see what the mapping is for each defined type, so that they can check that their exported Excel file conforms to an agreed mapping, or can use to define a mapping for an export.
The intention is to minimise the effort expensed by a user in order to use the app so mappings have been chosen to be as near to default or standard export formats for the expected use cases (such as MS Project Excel File Export and SmartSheet File Export).
Feel free to contact the developer if you'd like to see additional mappings. In the future it is expected that users with the appropriate level will be able to add their own mappings.
Microsoft Project allows the user to export any project plan to Excel and it is easy to ensure that the minimum fields required to support creating a Plan Visualisation are included in the exported file.
Represents mapping of all field names from Microsoft Project export to Excel, using default field names.
| STICKY_UID | ID |
|---|---|
| NAME | Name |
| DURATION | Duration |
| START | Start_Date |
| END | Finish_Date |
| LEVEL | Outline_Level |
Represents one of several field mappings from a Smartsheet export to Excel. Note that Smartsheet doesn't have build-in columns for ID or Level, so there are no default names.
| STICKY_UID | Id |
|---|---|
| NAME | Task Name |
| DURATION | Duration |
| START | Start |
| END | Finish |
| LEVEL | Task Name |