Introduction

Contents

The purpose of this document is to describe the features of LibrePlan and provide user information on how to configure and use the application.

LibrePlan is an opensource web application for project planning. Its main goal is to provide a complete solution for company project management. For any specific information you may need about this software, please contact the development team at http://www.libreplan.com/contact/

images/company_view.png

Company overview

Company overview and view management

As can be seen in the program's main screen (shot given previously) and the company overview, users can see the list of planned projects to find out about the company's overall situation in relation to orders and the use of resources. The company overview contains 3 views:

images/resources_global.png

Resource overview

images/order_list.png

Work Breakdown Structure

The view management commented on previously for the company overview is very similar to the management planned for a single project. A project can be accessed in several ways:

The program has the following views for an order:

What makes LibrePlan useful?

LibrePlan is an application that has been developed as a general purpose planning tool. It is based on a series of concepts discovered by analysing problems in industrial project planning that were not fully covered by any existing planning tool. Also the motivations for the development of LibrePlan were based on providing a free software alternative, and completely web, for existing privative plannig tools.

The essential concepts used for the program are as follows:

On top of the functions offered by the program, there are other features that make it stand out from similar programs:

Usability conventions

Information about forms

Before describing the various functions associated with the most important modules, we need to give a general explanation on how to browse and the forms.

Essentially, there are 3 kinds of editing forms:

  • Forms with a Return button. These forms are part of a wider picture and the changes that are made are stored in the memory. The changes are only applied when the user explicitly stores all the details on the screen from which the form came.
  • Forms with the Save and Close buttons. These forms enable 2 operations to take place. The first one stores and closes the current window and the second one closes without saving the changes.
  • Forms with the Save and continue, "Save" and "Close" buttons. These forms enable 3 operations to take place. The first one stores and continues the current form. The second one stores and closes the form. Lastly, the third one closes the window without storing changes.

Standard icons and buttons

  • Editing: In general, editing records in the program may be done by clicking on an icon consisting of a pencil on a white notebook.
  • Left indent: In general, these operations are needed for elements of a tree that intend to move into internal levels. This operation may be done by clicking the icon consisting of a green arrow pointing right.
  • Right indent: In general, these operations are needed for elements of a tree that intend to move from internal to external levels. This operation may be done by clicking the icon consisting of a green arrow pointing left.
  • Erasing: Users can erase information by clicking on the paper basket icon.
  • Search: The magnifying glass is the icon that indicates that the text entry to the left is intended for searching for elements.

Tabs

The program will have content editing and administration forms, which will be represented by graphic components based on tabs. This method is used to organise information from a comprehensive form into different sections that can be accessed by clicking on the names of the different tabs, the others keeping their status. In all cases, the save and cancel options affect the group of sub-forms on the different tabs.

Explicit actions and context help

The program contains components that provide additional descriptions about the element when hovering over them for one second. The actions the user may carry out in the program are stated on the button tabs and in the help texts about them, the browsing menu options and the options on the context menus that open out when right clicking on the planner area. Furthermore, short cuts are given for the main operations by double clicking the listed elements or by associating key events with cursors and the enter key, which is how to add elements when moving through the forms.