Working with milestones

You can create a milestone by doing any of the following:

• Setting the duration of an existing task to zero.
• Right-clicking a task and selecting Make Into - Start Milestone or Make Into - Finish Milestone.
• Right-clicking a blank area of the bar chart and selecting Insert Milestone to insert a milestone at that location.

To change a start milestone to a finish milestone, or vice versa, right-click the milestone then select Make Into - Start Milestone or Make Into - Finish Milestone as appropriate. You can also specify whether a milestone is a start or finish milestone by editing the Milestone type field in the Dates section of the Task tab of the Bar and Task Properties dialog.

You can specify whether new milestones inherit code library assignments, calendar and the 'use parent calendar' setting, plus the WBS code, from a neighbouring task or from the bar chart defaults. To do this:

1. Click the File tab, then click Options. The Options dialog appears.
2. Click the Edit tab.
3. Select the Inherit attributes from neighbouring task check box to specify that new tasks should inherit these attributes from a neighbouring task where possible, or clear the check box to specify that they should inherit these attributes (except WBS code) from the default settings that have been defined on the Task tab of the Bar Chart Defaults Properties dialog.
4. Click OK.

You can change a milestone into a task by doing any of the following:

• Right-clicking a milestone and selecting Make Into - Task. The milestone is converted into a task with the default duration.
• Dragging one end of the milestone to increase its duration from zero.

Milestone appearances are Library Explorer objects. You create milestone appearances, edit their properties and delete them, in Library Explorer. All the milestone appearances in a project can be displayed in the project view.

To create or edit a milestone appearance:

1. Access Library Explorer and click the Milestone Appearance library in the left pane.
2. To create a new milestone appearance, right-click a blank area of the right pane and select New Milestone Appearance; to edit an existing milestone appearance, right-click the milestone appearance and select Properties. The Milestone Appearance Properties dialog appears.
3. Enter a descriptive name to apply to the milestone appearance in the Name field.
4. Select the shape to apply to the milestone appearance in the Appearance field.
5. In the Sort order field, enter a number that determines the order in which the milestone appearance appears in the legend in printouts and in the project view. Milestone appearances with a lower number appear above those with a higher number.
   
   To order milestone appearances in printout legends according to their sort order, select the Use milestone appearances library sort order check box on the Legends section of the tree in the Appearance tab of the Print dialog. If you do not select this check box, milestone appearances appear in legends in the order in which milestones of each appearance appear in the printout. To order milestone appearances in the project view according to their sort order, click the Sort milestone appearances by - Sort order radio button on the View tab of the Options dialog. If you do not click this radio button, milestone appearances appear in the project view in alphanumerical order.
6. Click one of the Alignment radio buttons to determine the way in which milestones that use this appearance are aligned in relation to the actual point of time on which the milestone occurs. For example:
   • It may be useful to align milestones that use appearances such as or to the left, so that the pointed element of the milestone "points" at the point in time on which the milestone occurs.
   • It may be useful to align milestones that use vertically-symmetrical appearances such as or to the centre.
   • It may be useful to align milestones that use appearances such as or to the right, so that the pointed element of the milestone "points" at the point in time on which the milestone occurs.
7. Click Close.

You can apply different milestone appearances to milestones in the following ways:

• Drag a milestone appearance from the project view and drop it onto a milestone, provided that the project view is configured to display milestone appearances.
• Edit the properties of the milestone and select a milestone appearance in the Start appearance or Finish appearance field, on the Task tab of the Bar and Task Properties dialog.
• For zero-duration resource allocations, edit the properties of the allocation and select a milestone appearance in the Zero duration appearance field, on the Details tab of the allocation's Properties dialog.
• For zero-duration cost allocations, edit the properties of the allocation and select a milestone appearance in the Point spend appearance field, on the Cost Allocation tab of the Cost Allocation Properties dialog.

Specifying which milestone appearances to apply to new start and finish milestones by default

You can use milestones to measure the overall progress of a project. To do this:

1. Create a summary group or subchart that contains a number of finish milestones, representing important stages in a project. The milestones can be placed on the same bar, or on different bars. Ensure that the summary group or subchart does not contain any other tasks.
2. Link each milestone to an appropriate task in the project. For example, if one of the milestones is called 'Stage 1 Complete', create a link from the finish of the last task in Stage 1 of the project to that milestone.
3. As various stages of the project are completed, mark the corresponding milestones as 100% complete.

You can obtain an overview of the progress of the project at any point by selecting the summary or expanded task whose summary group or subchart contains the milestones, right-clicking it and selecting Enter Progress, to display the Enter Progress dialog. The Task tab of this dialog will display a non-editable Milestone row, which displays the total number of milestones within the summary group or subchart, the number that have been completed and the number that remain to be completed.

When displaying a view, Asta Powerproject usually draws the tasks on a bar from left to right: the left-most task is drawn first, then the next, then the next, and so on, until the right-most task is drawn.

Because you can configure milestone appearances to be aligned to the left, centre or right of the actual point in time on which a milestone occurs, in some circumstances milestones can be partially or completely obscured by other tasks on the same bar. Consider the following example, in which there are two tasks on the second bar, with a milestone () between them. The milestone appearance that is applied to the milestone has been configured to be right-aligned:

If tasks 2 and 3 are positioned so that task 3 starts immediately after task 2, as Asta Powerproject draws the tasks on a bar from left to right, the milestone between them is obscured by task 3 - Asta Powerproject draws the milestone, but then draws task 3 on top of it:

If bar is displayed in one-task-per-line mode, we can see that the "missing" milestone is still there:

You can avoid situations like this by configuring Asta Powerproject to always draw whole milestones - ie to always display milestones on top of tasks. Configuring Asta Powerproject to always draw whole milestones would result in the "missing" milestone being displayed on top of task 3, rather than being obscured by it:

Milestone appearances that are configured to be centrally-aligned can also be partially obscured by the tasks that follow them - if the milestone appearance applied to the milestone in the illustration above was centrally-aligned, it would appear like this unless Asta Powerproject was configured to always draw whole milestones:

Configuring Asta Powerproject to always draw whole milestones would result in this partially obscured milestone being displayed in full:

To specify how milestones are drawn where they overlap tasks:

1. Click the File tab, then click Options. The Options dialog appears.
2. Click the View tab.
3. Select the Always draw whole milestones check box to draw milestones on top of tasks where there is an overlap, or clear the check box to draw tasks and milestones on a bar from left to right, which can result in all or part of a milestone being obscured by a task that appears directly to the right of it.
4. Click Close.

Another way of preventing milestones from being obscured by tasks to the right of them is by displaying them on their own row within each bar that contains one or more milestones. To do this:

1. On the Format tab, in the Format group, click Format Bar Chart. The Format Bar Chart dialog appears.
2. On the Tasks tab, click Settings. The Overlapping Tasks and Milestone Rows Settings dialog appears.
3. Click the Show in their own row radio button and click OK.
4. Click Apply or Close in the Format Bar Chart dialog.

With this option set, milestones now appear on their own row within each bar:

You can use the Separation % field on the Overlapping Tasks and Milestone Rows Settings dialog to configure the gap between tasks and the milestone row in each bar.