Introduction to components
A part of what makes Dime.Scheduler so flexible is its capability to allow you - the user - to create your own workspace using the provided building blocks, or what is better known as components. Each component has its own set of distinct features that may or may not be relevant for your planning activities. Most of these components are also stateful, meaning that you can store its settings and share it with other users. The statefulness of these components are also referred to as layouts.
You can have as many components (and subsequent layouts) as you want in your workspace and you can arrange them in any way you want to. Dime.Scheduler allows you to store these workspaces, also known as profiles. And just as with the layouts, profiles can be shared with other users.
The available components are the following:
- Open Tasks: shows tasks that need to be planned.
- Planned Tasks: shows planned tasks in a grid for easier searching.
- Task Details: shows detailed information about a selected task (open or planned) or appointment.
- Gantt Chart: allows to plan projects using a Gantt chart including dependencies, constraints and multiple planning modes.
- Map: shows the map, location of addresses, position of resources and assets, calculated route, travel time and travel distance.
- Resource Filters: allows to filter resources on the planning boards.
- Calendar: you use the calendar to select a custom date range (other than the presets you find on the planning board) for the planning boards.
- Category: shows a legend of the categories, which color means what?
- Notifications: shows notifications about a selected task or appointment.
- Route Sequence: visualize and change the sequence of a selected route on the map.
- Capacity: pivot grid to report on the capacity of the resources.
Each component has a standard setup which Dime.Scheduler applies in the absence of a default layout for that specific component in the profile. A component can be considered as a placeholder for a specific set of features which can be configured and stored. In this example below there are two open task grids with their own state. Even though they share the same type - they will provide roughly the same type of information and have the same capabilities - they will vary slightly given the customizable parameters on that component. These configurable elements will be elaborated in the next sections.
This kind of granularity (profiles, layouts and components) enables you to create a workspace according to your personal preferences. One such example is that layouts are reusable: you can use the same layout for a component in another profile, like this example:
Many of these components are connected in order to support and facilitate the planning process. One of the most important examples is the drag and drop feature that allows you drag open tasks and drop them on the planning board. All of these inter-component interactions will be covered later in this manual. All you need to know is that they exist and that the component type (disregarding any kind of layout that is applied to it) will determine their capabilities.