Note: Some options and features may vary from the article below based on your CS Project package.
CS Project has a very useful feature that lets users customise the colour of the bars on the bar chart. Of course, you have colours according to the status of the bar, such as a normal bar, critical bar and super-critical bar and you can change these, but you can also use Activity Codes to change an individual bar colour regardless of its status.
Activity codes - are essentially lookup tables. For each code you define a number of possible
values. The code fields allow you to select a value from the predefined list of possible values.
Code fields can also be used for display purposes on the bar chart.
To independently colour bars, the following steps need to be taken:
Step One – Define a code library under the Configuration toolbar.
1.) Select the configuration toolbar and press the Activity Codes button.
2.) Ensure the <New> option in the left-hand list is selected.
3.) Enter the name for the new code in the Name field (We’re going to name it CustomColour)
4.) In the grid, enter a short code and then a description for each code.
5.) Click in the Format column and press the three dots to display the Format dialog.
6.) In this dialog, customise the bar section which will be displayed upon assigning an activity to that code. As we are formatting the code for ‘Earthworks’, I am giving it a brown colour to represent soil. Use the pattern drop-down menu to specify the pattern. (Things such as bricks and tiles have their own pattern).
Step Two – Assign the codes to each activity, either in the Activity Details dialog (Codes tab) or in the activity table.
1.) Double click on the activity of which you wish to set a code.
2.) Select the codes tab.
3.) The ‘Category’ column is the different activity codes that are available. Find the name of the one you created and follow it to the right. The ‘Code’ column in this tab will list all of the codes you have previously made, whereas the ‘Value’ column will display the description for the codes you have just made. Use either one to assign the code and press ‘OK’.
Step Three – Select or create a Bar Chart Layout to display a bar chart using the code library.
1.) Ensure that the Bar Chart is selected, and go to the Configuration toolbar > Bar Chart options. (Alternatively, right-click on the bar chart and select Bar Chart Options).
2.) Make sure you are in the advanced view. (Select Advanced at the bottom. If it displays ‘Basic’, you are in the right view.)
3.) Select the Bars tab.
4.) To create a new Bar Chart Layout, click on New and give the new layout a name. (Something along the lines of Colour By Code). We recommend making a new layout to keep the defaults integrity intact for use at a later date.
5.) The ‘Show’ column is where you can Tick/Untick what bar styles you wish to view (e.g. Critical).
6.) Scrolling through the list, locate the bars you wish to change such as ‘Detail Normal’, and find the ‘Use Code’ column to the left. Select activity (which will draw codes from Activity Codes, whereas Resource will draw from Resource Codes), then select the code you want to ‘colour according to’ in the ‘Code column’. In this case, ‘Custom Colour’.
7.) Press the OK button once done to display the bar chart, colour-coded according to a user-defined code.
Your custom formatted bars will now be displayed.
