I've searched the help documentation, and read the forum archives regarding Gantt charts in WF.

The most I've been able to dig up is you need 6 columns for the X column in the gantt chart. But I can't find anything that says are they numeric, alpha, etc?

I've read Susannah Jones' article on the 'Focus on Developers' section on the IBI site, but I can't find anything in there that talks about gantt charts.

I've also search Google, but can't really find anything.

So, I have two questions/requests:

1) Does anyone have a working example of a gantt chart in WF, or can point me to some effective documentation?

and

2) Does IBI have plans to improve the documentation? We have WF version 5.3 and 7.1.1, and while the documentation has improved quite a bit, it is still sorely lacking. . .

Dan, you can fake a very cool gantt chart using my technique .
you overlay it onto a table where the cells have 1 TR and multiple TD's and that gives you your grid,; then overlay your grid table(#1) with the another table(#2) that will contain the cells of the fake gantt. Use position absolute and zindex to make sure the two setups overlay each other perfectly and one on top of the other. Each row of that overlayed table(#2) contains its own table(#3), cells being of the needed width according to the data, and cells being background colored with gorgeous colors or with images with background repeat turned on; you could have each one of these tables have, say, 3 cells: a white-filled cell, a colored cell, and another white-filled cell, to show some activty starting later in your grid..not just on the left axis. (my article only had 2 cells per row..color and empty..but to kick it up to Gantt, you'ld need at least 3 cells).
You could even add another dimension by making your cells of different heights...Can be really gorgeous. Edward Tufte would love it.
I try to use isapi to present these sorts of graphic things, but sometimes i have so much html code that isapi chokes and i have to run servlet, and servlet works fine; This is sounding fun ...
----
I've just searched the doc (zip! nada! not one example could i find!) and just tried to write a graph where lookgraph=gantt and i can't make heads or tails of it. it seems that the xaxis is sunday-saturday.
A bunch of FP'ers are great on javagraphs.. JG for one...maybe you can pm him and get him to help.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: susannah,

Hi Dan,

There are only 2 sentences in the Creating Reports With WebFOCUS Language Manual for versions 5.2., 5.3, and 7.1, that deal with this topic:

"Provides a visual representation of project oriented time critical events. Gantt charts require six display fields and one sort field, in that order. Conditional styling and drill-down are not supported for GANTT charts."

So, you may want to consider Susannah's suggestions.

Regards,
Jenn

This message has been edited. Last edited by: <DocServices>,

Dan,

Being in mind that IB use ThreeD graphics engine (with amendments?) I found that the six items you need for the Gantt chart are as follows -

Data 1 = Task Start Date
Data 2 = Task End Date
Data 3 = percentage completed (integer)
Data 4 = Task Second Start Date
Data 5 = Task Second End Date
Data 6 = Data series linked to

I have managed to knock up an example of the Gantt chart with limitations which might provide you with a head start. I've not had success getting the x-axis labels showing up correctly (if at all ), but as I say, a start for you. Note that I've not bothered too much with getting the data correct but have geared it to actually producing a chart!! Therefore the data will require amendments!!

If you take the basis and improve upon it then please share with the rest of the Forum. Thanks.

T

Basic code -

APP FI GANTT DISK GANTT.MAS (LRECL 80
-RUN
-WRITE GANTT
-WRITE GANTT FILE=GANTT,SUFFIX=FOC
-WRITE GANTT SEGNAME=SEG1
-WRITE GANTT FIELD=AREA,,A15,A15,$
-WRITE GANTT FIELD=TASK,,A27,A27,$
-WRITE GANTT FIELD=BEGDATE,,YYMD,YYMD,$
-WRITE GANTT FIELD=ENDDATE,,YYMD,YYMD,$
-RUN

CREATE FILE GANTT
MODIFY FILE GANTT
FIXFORM AREA/A15 TASK/A27 BEGDATE/A8 ENDDATE/A8
DATA
Engineering     1 Site Survey             2000101820001115
Engineering     2 Draft Survey Results    2000101820001204
Engineering     3 GMBH Review             2000120420001229
Engineering     4 Survey RPT (Final)      2001010120010122
Engineering     5 GMBH RFV Approval       2001010320010206
Engineering     6 System Design           2001021420010320
Engineering     7 HMBC Review             2001032020010404
Engineering     8 Bid and Award           2001040420010604
Engineering     9 Construction Support    2001042720010905
END
-RUN
DEFINE FILE GANTT
  CURRDATE/YYMD = 20010113;
  DURATION/I9   = ENDDATE - BEGDATE;
  REMAIN/I9     = IF ENDDATE LT CURRDATE THEN 0
             ELSE IF CURRDATE FROM BEGDATE TO ENDDATE THEN ENDDATE - CURRDATE
             ELSE DURATION ;
  COMPLETED/I9  = IF ENDDATE LT CURRDATE THEN 100
             ELSE IF CURRDATE FROM BEGDATE TO ENDDATE THEN 100 - (REMAIN / DURATION * 100)
             ELSE 0 ;
END
GRAPH FILE GANTT
SUM BEGDATE/YYMD
    ENDDATE/YYMD
    COMPLETED
    COMPUTE NEXTBEGDATE/YYMD = IF CURRDATE LE BEGDATE THEN BEGDATE ELSE CURRDATE;
    COMPUTE NEXTENDDATE/YYMD = IF CURRDATE LE ENDDATE THEN ENDDATE ELSE CURRDATE;
-* To make each Task a predecessor to the subsequent task set ROLLED_UP equal to
-* LAST ROLLED_UP + 1;
    COMPUTE ROLLED_UP/I1 = 0;
BY TASK
ON GRAPH SET GRAPHEDIT OFF
ON GRAPH SET BARNUMB OFF
ON GRAPH SET 3D OFF
ON GRAPH SET VZERO OFF
ON GRAPH SET GRID ON
ON GRAPH SET GRMERGE ON
ON GRAPH SET GRAPHSTYLE *
 setGraphType(99);
ENDSTYLE
END

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Tony A,

way to go, T. where in the world did you find any further info? Did you call the PM?

Hi Susannah,

I just got down and dirty with the PFJ manual from ThreeD. It took some digging, but there, in the examples section, I found the reference to the six values ... reckoned on IB not changing too much on the engine front and finally made a tremendous leap of faith.

Building the graph was the easy part once I found what it should contain!!

I found some data in a Gantt chart discussion forum somewhere and it seemed more reasonable to use than the ThreeD example of Wash Dog, Wash Cat, Wash Car!!

Perhaps, (I know they're watching ) IB could take this basis and work upon it for an example in the documentation?

Just waiting for the Graphing API manual to download to see what that contains.

T

Would you believe that "gantt" doesn't even appear in the 5.3 Graphical API manual (DN4500605.0904)!!

yup, i know. i searched it earlier on for Dan. Go figure.

Tony have you tried this in 71

When I did, I got

(FOC32457) Y AXIS MAY NOT CONTAIN A DATE FIELD AND A NON-DATE FIELD.

Not Nice!

JG

Hi J.G.

Not had too much time to try it in 7.1.1 but hopefully might pick up some time to test over next couple of days. The message you got doesn't bode well but I'll try and get something to work .

T

Re: 7.1 - It might be the devil in me but I thought I'd try changing the format for COMPLETED and ROLLED_UP to I8YYMD just for the sake of it and guess what ....

No the graph didn't display as per 5.3.2 but it did render with Monday through Sunday on the Y axis but without any gantt bars

I think the real give away that Gantt charts haven't been thought about (or intentionally excluded?) is the fact that, although the graph API manual is a derivation of the ThreeD graphics manual, graphtype(99) (e.g. Gantt chart) in the "special charts" section has been wiped off the map!!

Can anyone from IB's documentation group confirm why this is?

It is interesting to note that MS actually state that Excel does not have a gantt chart option and suggests that you create a horizontal bar chart (see Here) which may help Dan in his quest and, more importantly, give a solution that "should" be upwardly compatible?

T

Moderators, can you get the PM to reply to this thread for us all, please? gracias.

The following information was obtained from Product Management regarding the lack of documentation on Gantt charts:

"We do not support Gantt charts in WebFOCUS. We do not intend to support them in the future."

Sorry for the inconvenience.

-Jennifer

This message has been edited. Last edited by: <DocServices>,

Greetings,

The stubs of Gantt chart functionality you have discovered in WebFOCUS and in the documentation are the result of a project we had once undertaken, but subsequently abandoned. The documentation entries are simply an oversight from some early draft documents. Gantt is not a supported chart type in WebFOCUS for a variety of compelling reasons.

As we worked to implement a useful Gantt chart we began to discover that we were sliding down a very slippery slope where the bottom was essentially Project Mangagement tools like Microsoft Project and there was no significant ledge above that where we could realistically stop.

Creating a Gantt chart requires a highly-specific data structure. Such a structure must be created purposfully and cannot be expected to exist "in the wild" in general business data sources. The user interface required to create a useful Gantt chart is also a significant undertaking. In addition, the Business Intelligence market was moving in another direction with regard to visualization technology. These and other facts brought us to the conclusion that the Gantt project was not a prudent investment.

While creation of such a chart is certainly desirable for certain applications, Gantt does not lend itself well to "snapshot" database queries.

We have no plan to resurrect this project.

Larry Eiss, WebFOCUS Product Support Director

Thank you, Larry; Makes sense.
and you write so well, you can even make bad news sound good.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: susannah,

Yes, Thanks Larry, it's nice to have it confirmed. It somewhat explains the MS stance about gantt charts as well I suppose.

BTW. Any chance of disabling graphtype 99 to underline the fact?