Welcome to ProPlanner

ProPlanner is planning and scheduling software, the same kind of tool as Safran Project, Oracle Primavera P6 or Microsoft Project. You describe the work as activities, say which ones depend on which, say who does them, and the software works out:

1. When will we finish? The earliest finish date the logic and working time allow.
2. What can't slip? The critical path: the chain of activities where every day of delay is a day of delay at the end.
3. Do we have the people? Whether any team or machine is booked beyond what exists, and what the plan looks like if work waits for them.
4. What if? Change a duration, a link or a team size and see the effect at once.

The tutorial builds a real plan for a software release, the same one as the Software release demo, in 20 short steps. Each step explains one idea, fills in the form for you and checks you did it. Press ? any time to come back to this guide.

1. Activities: the pieces of work

An activity is one piece of work, or one event, with a clear start and end, that someone can report as done. In a software release: "Write user stories", "Build the payments API", "Run the load test", "Release v1.0".

Why you need them

The planner can only calculate dates for work it knows about. Anything that isn't an activity gets no date, has no float, needs no people, and so can't tell you it is late.

When to add an activity

• The work has its own owner or team (design vs backend vs QA).
• Something else has to wait for it; if nothing depends on it and it needs nobody, it may not belong in the plan.
• You want to track it on its own: report progress, see whether it is late.
• It is an event people care about (kick-off, sign-off, go-live): add a milestone, an activity with duration 0.

How big?

Typically 1 day to 4 weeks. Smaller than half a day belongs in an issue tracker, not a schedule. Longer than 4–6 weeks hides problems: "Development, 6 months" tells nobody anything until month 5. Split it by feature, component or team.

What to type

You do not type start or finish dates. The planner calculates them (chapter 3).

2. Duration and working time

Duration is working time, not wall-clock time. If the team works 8 hours a day, Monday to Friday, then "5 days" is 40 working hours, and an activity that starts Monday 09:00 finishes Friday 18:00. Nights, weekends and holidays don't count.

Working time comes from the calendar: weekly working hours plus holidays and exceptions. The project has a default calendar; an activity can have its own (a 24/7 calendar for an automated soak test); a resource can have its own (a contractor who works Monday to Thursday).

How to type a duration

A "day" is the calendar's working hours per day, shown as h/day in the Calendars tab. ProPlanner stores working hours, so changing the display unit never changes the plan.

Estimating

• Ask the people who will do it. Then add the review and fix-up time they forget.
• Duration ≠ effort. 10 person-days of work done by 2 people is about 5 days of duration. Put the people on the activity as a resource with units 2 (chapter 6).
• If you don't know, estimate a range and use the likely value. A rough plan you can change beats no plan.

3. Start and finish: calculated, not typed

Every activity gets two dates:

• Start: the earliest working moment it is allowed to begin. That is the project start (the Start box in the toolbar), or later if a predecessor isn't finished yet (chapter 4).
• Finish: start + duration, counting only working hours on its calendar.

So finish is always after start, and equal for a milestone. A start never lands in non-working time: an activity that becomes free on Friday at 18:00 starts Monday at 09:00.

Example. Project start Mon 05 Jan 2026 09:00, office calendar. "Requirements, 5d" starts Mon 05 Jan 09:00 and finishes Fri 09 Jan 18:00. "Architecture, 4d, after Requirements" starts Mon 12 Jan 09:00 and finishes Thu 15 Jan 18:00.

Why dates move

• A predecessor got longer, or a new link was added.
• A holiday was added to the calendar.
• Leveling delayed it because its people were busy (chapter 7).

That is the point: you maintain the logic (durations, links, people), and the dates follow. Typing dates by hand is how spreadsheet plans go stale.

4. Links: predecessors and successors

A link (dependency, relationship) says one activity has to wait for another. The predecessor drives; the successor waits. An activity can have many of each.

Lag and lead

A lag is waiting time added to a link, e.g. FS +2d for "wait 2 days for the security review to come back". A negative lag is a lead, e.g. FS -3d: "QA may start 3 days before the frontend is finished". Lags count on the predecessor's calendar.

Several predecessors

Each link gives an earliest allowed date; the planner takes the latest of them, because all must hold. Frontend work needs the designs finished and the API started 5 days ago: whichever comes later decides.

Good habits

• Every activity should have at least one predecessor and one successor, except the first and the last. A loose end means a delay there won't show up anywhere else.
• Prefer FS. Use SS/FF when work genuinely overlaps, and keep lags for real waiting time (curing, approvals), not to force a date.
• Loops (A waits for B, B waits for A) are impossible plans; ProPlanner refuses a link that would close a loop and names an activity on it.

Add links with the Add link form or the After field when adding an activity. Change a link's type or lag, or delete it with ×, in the selected activity's Links list.

5. Critical path and float

Calculate (F9, or automatically with Auto ticked) runs the critical path method:

1. Forward pass: from the project start, the earliest start and finish of every activity. The latest early finish is the project finish (red vertical line).
2. Backward pass: from the project finish, the latest each activity can start and finish without moving the finish.

Total float = latest start − earliest start: how much an activity can slip before the project finishes later. Free float is how much it can slip before it delays any successor.

Activities with zero float are critical (red bars). They form the critical path: shorten it to finish earlier; let it slip and the project slips. Activities with float (blue bars, grey tail to their latest finish) have room. They are where you borrow people from when the critical path is in trouble.

Example. Design takes 8 days but frontend work also waits for the backend API, which isn't ready until later. Design has a few days of float: it can run late by that much and nobody notices. A day lost on the backend is a day lost at go-live.

6. Resources and assignments

A resource is anything limited that activities need: a team, a specialist, a machine, a test environment, a crane. Without resources the plan assumes unlimited people.

Work = units × duration. Two developers for 15 days is 30 person-days (240 hours on an 8-hour calendar); the Activity tab shows the hours for each assignment.

To assign: select the activity, pick the resource under Resources on this activity, type units, press Assign. Units 0, or the ×, removes it.

7. Overloads and leveling

The resource usage histogram under the Gantt chart shows one resource's load over time against its capacity (dashed line). Red is over capacity: the plan needs more of that resource than exists. Grey background is time the resource isn't available.

Level resources fixes overloads by delaying work. Activities are placed in order of earliest start, then least float, so critical work gets the people first. Work only ever moves later; links and calendars are always respected. Tick Leveled view to see leveled dates (faint lines show the original dates) and the leveled finish in the stats bar.

If the leveled finish is too late, choose: add capacity, move people from activities with float, change the logic, or accept the date. Unresolved counts activities that ask for more units than exist at all (e.g. 3 developers when capacity is 2); fix those assignments.

Large plans level in slices with a progress bar, so the page stays usable; press Cancel to stop.

8. Profiles

A profile spreads a resource's units unevenly over an activity, with the same total work. Front-loaded (architecture: the tech lead is busiest early), back-loaded (QA: testing intensifies near the end), bell (a pour, a peak in the middle), ramp-up. Set a default on a resource, or on an activity to override it. Weights are relative: 1,2,3,4 splits the activity into four equal slices with loads in that ratio.

9. Codes

Codes label activities: phase, team, WBS, area, contractor. Create a code set (e.g. PHASE) and its values (PLAN, BUILD, TEST, LIVE) in the Codes tab, then set them on activities in the Activity tab, in the grid, or for many at once with bulk edit. Filter the grid with All activities ▾. Codes never change dates.

10. Editing, delete and undo

11. Demo, tutorial and your own project

• Demo and Tutorial: everything works, nothing is saved.
• New project: your own schedule, saved automatically in this browser (up to 50,000 activities) and restored next visit. It stays on this computer.
• Save XML downloads a file you can keep, share or open elsewhere; Open XML loads one. The layout follows the ILAP schedule-exchange vocabulary so plans can later move to and from other systems.

All times are UTC.

Who plans this way

The pump station demo shows a construction project with three calendars, ten resources and four profiles.

Glossary

Activity

A piece of work or event with a duration; the building block of a plan.

Milestone

An activity with zero duration marking a moment (◆).

Duration

Working time an activity takes on its calendar.

Calendar

Working hours per weekday plus holidays and exceptions.

Project start (data date)

Nothing is scheduled before it.

Predecessor / successor

The driving / waiting end of a link.

FS, SS, FF, SF

Finish-to-start, start-to-start, finish-to-finish, start-to-finish.

Lag / lead

Positive / negative waiting time on a link.

Early / late dates

Earliest possible vs latest allowable dates from the forward and backward passes.

Total float

How far an activity can slip without moving the project finish.

Free float

How far it can slip without delaying any successor.

Critical path

The zero-float chain that sets the finish date.

Resource / capacity / units

A limited thing activities need / how many exist / how many one activity uses.

Work

Units × duration, e.g. person-hours.

Histogram

Load of one resource over time against its capacity.

Leveling

Delaying work until no resource is over capacity.

Profile

The shape of a resource's load across an activity.

Code

A label for filtering and reporting (phase, team, WBS…).