Unfortunately, one feature we have had to remove to improve the speed is the ordering of columns on the Tasks input screen, however, you can still select the columns you wish to see and hide the others. The changes are immediate, there is no delay whilst the data is reloaded. This is also the case for the Chart Filter and Task Filter functions.

Due to the need to validate the data entered into the Task Table the standard Windows keyboard shortcuts for Cut, Copy and Paste have been suppressed. Copying data from or Pasting data to the Task Table is achieved using Copy and Paste from the Popup Menu, which is accessed by right-clicking anywhere on the table.

ChainLink  now has a new dimension, Centre Line Offset.  As well as specifying the Start and Finish Location along the length of the project, you can specify the Start and Finish across the width  as well.  This allows the user to filter out Tasks by their relationship to the Centre Line, thus, on a road project the Tasks can be filtered for left or right carriageway, left or right verge or central reserve.  Tasks which cross the Centre Line will be cropped to show only the section within the specified window.  

A new Task Type of Summary Task has been added to allow the user to group a set of Tasks together and display them on the chart as a single Task. The group is defined by allocating a Start and Finish Task to the summary, entered manually or by using the Link To utility.

Durations and Total Float now have a new format. The Duration is entered as numbers, separated by the decimal point character (5.4.30) or the System Settings Days, Hours and Minutes indicators (5d4h30m). It is not a requirement that all three timing levels need to be entered. The number before the first separator is always translated into the project Time Units with subsequent numbers translated accordingly, thus, if the project Time Units are in Hours and a Duration is entered as 5.4.30 or 5d4h30m then ChainLink  will convert the duration to 5h4m. Conversely, to set a duration of 4 hours 30 minutes on a project with Time Units in Days, the duration must be entered as 0.4.30 or 0d4h30m.

Bar Types now have a new format.  There are now 55 possible hatching styles for the old 10's, 20's, 30's and 40's types so the Bar Type is entered in the format Group.Style, thus, the old type 10 is now entered as 1.00 and 26 as 2.06.  The only variation on this is that the old type 17, 27, 37 and 47 are now entered as n.54 where n = 1, 2, 3 or 4. A popup dialog appears in the top right of the screen when this field is selected to assist selection.

When loading a Version 4 or 5 file the Bar Types are converted to the new equivalents automatically.

The Bar Selected is now displayed with its selected shape, hatching and colour.

On the Tasks Table  some cells are shown in red and locked and cannot be changed on the spreadsheet. The rules for this are as follows:-

Start and Finish Milestones - Tasks with these Task Types have their duration set to zero and locked.  No other Task Type can have a zero duration.

Started - This Task Type is set when an Actual Start Date is entered. The Early and Late Start Dates as set to the same date and locked.  They can only be unlocked by deleting the Actual Start Date.

Completed - This Task Type is set when an Actual Finish Date is entered. The Early and Late Finish Dates are set to the same date, the Total Float to zero and all three fields locked, together with the Duration and Calendar. They can only be unlocked by deleting the Actual Finish Date.

The limit on Links per Task has been increased to 10.

Profile and Progress (Professional Version only) - On the Profile and Progress pane of the Task Details, as progress is entered the Profile graph is redrawn to show a Progress line to compare it with the Baseline.