About Solutions Schedule for WPF

Bring full featured resource scheduling, planning, and Gantt style Drag 'n Drop resource management to your end users quickly.

Solutions Schedule for WPF is a comprehensive control for managing and presenting enterprise information in Gantt style presentations - plan, schedule, optimize multiple resources over any period of time - designed for Visual Studio. Enabling developers to create fully functional Resource Gantt, Planning and Scheduling solutions in minutes.

There are five primary elements that comprise Solutions Schedule:

  • The Schedule Area - Where time bars are created and interacted with and through which developers define the type of Gantt style end-user interaction, varying degrees of accuracy and supporting information that can be surfaced. Within the Schedule Area there are a number of objects that offer fine grained interaction with schedule plans:
    • Notes – Notes are stationary visual objects in the schedule. Tool tips with information about the note are displayed when the mouse hovers over the Note icon. Notes can be used to draw attention to important aspects of a schedule.
    • Line arrows are images placed at the start or end of a schedule item notifying the end-user that other tasks have been scheduled that are not within the viewable schedule area.
    • Guide Lines are vertical lines within the schedule area for representing a critical point in time and also to help align time bars accurately.
    • Current Time Line is a vertical line drawn in the schedule representing the current time of day. The Current Time Offset property can be used to display the line in different time zones.
    • Dead zones set specific areas of the schedule where activities cannot be set - mouse actions are not allowed to create or move time bars in a dead zone.
    • Edit modes extend or restrict the CRUD aspects of Solutions Schedule WPF. There are seven specific edits modes: Edit, Erase, Select, Link, Unlink, Split and Guideline, which can be presented via the Edit Modes Toolbar object.
  • The multi column List View and Tree View area - Where developers define either style of presentation - the direct edit List View or the Tree View and connect data for presenting and interacting with categorized lists of Resources. In addition to the multi column list and tree view options, there are many customization and intuitive end-user features that allow for unique ERP, MRP and other planning presentations, including:
    • In Cell Editing:
      • Built in edit box and combo box.
      • Support for 3rd party edit controls.
      • Standard edit modes: <Enter>, <Esc>, <Tab>, and <Shift Tab> for navigation.
      • Modify the Edit Controls default move and size settings.
      • Direct access of text and combo boxes for:
        • Addition of new navigation keys.
        • Overriding behavior of existing navigation keys.
        • Creating edit masks.
    • List/Tree View Area Options:
      • Change Line Item height by click and drag.
      • Change Column widths by click and drag.
      • Column Sorting built-in.
      • Line Item Headers independent of columns.
      • Click and drag line items within parent group.
      • Line Item sub text.
      • Booleans – support for check boxes in a column.
      • Set Resource List Horizontal Scroll Bar Visible.
    • List/Tree View Area - User Drawn Features:
      • Line Item – Override the default painting of a line item.
      • Cells – Override the default painting of a single line item cell.
      • Column Headers – Override the default painting of a column header.
      • Title - Override the default painting of the list title.
      • Resource List UserDrawn Horizontal Scroll Bar.
  • The Ruler Area - Which offers direct time line customization for creating plans and schedules based on time types and time lines of Seconds to Years.
    • Time Line Ruler - The Schedule Ruler offers great flexibility for creating and managing activities, roles, appointments, etc. across any combination of time type and time value:
      • User Drawn Timeline Ruler Segments - i.e. custom week presentation.
      • Time types include divisions of hours, days, weeks, months and years.
      • Time Distance values allow for managing resources down to the second - an important aspect when scheduling robotics - and to years for planning conferences, equipment rentals and production cycles having long durations.
      • The Time Distance property allows developers to create zoom-in and zoom-out capabilities for their schedule presentations.
      • Ruler Selection – The start and end time of a selected time bar is highlighted in the time line ruler, allowing for more accurate alignment of resource time allocations.
  • List Items - Which originate in the List View/Tree View area and carry through the Scheduling Area for contiguous representation of Resources and the tasks and roles assigned to them.
  • The Time Bars - Which reside in the Schedule Area that complete DBI’s unique Gantt Style, intuitively interactive, Drag and Drop planning and scheduling surface. Time bars represent the events, assigned roles and appointments attributed to each resource across the time line in a schedule object. Time bar functionality offered in Solutions Schedule is extensive, offering developers the ability to provide and end-users the opportunity to consume a wealth of information in a single glance:
    • Regular text and sub-text – time bars support 2 text string display options.
    • Text Into View – Make sure the data intended for display is always visible.
    • Time Bar Dates – display the start / end days of the month within a time bar.
    • Duplicate time bars quickly with keyboard and mouse actions.
    • Customize time bar presentations with:
      • Set TimeBars Visible by Attribute.
      • Milestone markers.
      • Stock and custom supplied images.
      • Percentage complete graphs in time bars.
    • Set View - per Schedule Object, set the Schedule View.
    • Overlap lines – extra thick lines drawn at the points where time bars overlap.
    • Toggle Time Bars – place time bars behind or to the front.
    • Alignment Lines – vertical lines appearing at either end of a time bar when a time bar is being created, moved or sized allowing for precision alignment.
    • Links – Time bars can be linked with Gantt lines. Link time bars in any combination of Start to Start, Start to End, End to Start and End to End with standard, reciprocal or direct link.
    • Link Lines, Dash Patterns and Styles, User Drawn Link Lines.
  • Each of the primary elements that comprise Solutions Schedule are managed dynamically by the architecture and business rules applied through the construct of the control. Also, via the Properties, Events and Methods (PEMs), developers are provided discrete programmability and full control of the control's presentation - including user (owner) drawn features built into the List / Tree View, Time Line Ruler, Time Bars and Schedule area.

General Features

  • Set the number of Schedule Objects for One Instance of the Control.
  • Set individual Time Distance Values per Schedule Object.
  • Independently set Schedule Objects Visible.
  • UserDrawn Custom Areas.
  • Integrated ToolTip.
  • Watermark and User Drawn Watermarks.
  • Custom Areas, vertical offsets.
  • Reporting - built in reporting, print preview, create image, mark items as page breaks.
  • Custom reporting using Solutions Schedule .NET print document object.
  • XML – write the contents of the control to an XML file and read it back at any time.
  • Selected time bar collection.
  • Map Area – A visual representation of all active schedule objects placed along the top of the control for quick navigation.
  • Scroll to Date - a time targeted method for programmatically navigating to specific points in a schedule.
  • Hit test methods are provided allowing the developer to determine where the mouse is at any point in the control.