External Planning

Plan projects or project phases that have no price list attached — a design phase, a licensing phase, or any stage without a closed estimate yet. Under Planning > External Planning, create your own tasks, entering the name, level, and value directly, independent of any estimate's items.

Set a start date for each task; the overall deadline still comes from the estimate. Each chapter's value is the automatic sum of its tasks, just as in item-based planning.

Import tasks, levels, dates, durations, and costs directly from an MS Project file — in .xml format, without needing Project installed, or in .mpp format, when Project is available on the computer.

Track progress without relying on measurement records: log the accumulated percentage completed per task, per month. Compare it against a reference payment plan, typed in or pasted from Excel, and get the differences, totals, and a chart with accumulated curves of planned, scheduled, and actual progress — instantly.

Keep your own purchasing plan and descriptive memory here too, just as in item-based planning. During construction, create successive versions of the external plan under Planning > "External Planning" > "Manage External Plans", copying the estimate's version or the previous one, and deleting the latest version when needed.