We suggest that the first thing you do after installing JCVGantt Pro 2  is to take this 20 minute tour, it's time well spent!

We'll walk you through all the major features of JCVGantt Pro 2 and you'll create a useful project.

First, click the JCVGantt launch icon to start the product.

You'll see the default screen

Click the icon and you'll notice a new task line appears on the chart

Now double-click where it says "New Task" and you'll see it turn into an edit box

Change the text to read "Build a deck" and press your Enter key

Now press the again and this time, double click the entry and type "Buy the wood", press Enter, but this time press Enter again!

Notice that a new task is added at the same level. Your screen should look like this

 Now instead of double-clicking just try typing "Buy the deck plan" directly into the "New task", and you'll notice it instantly replaces it with whatever you type.

Hmn… I'd probably buy wood after I buy the deck plan…so let's move "Buy the deck plan"

To do that click the Up arrow icon . (Alternatively you could have typed ALT + SHIFT + CURSOR UP)

Your plan should look like this:

Now let's link those two items together with a dependency. Why? Because since you can only buy wood once you have a plan, the task "Buy the wood" is dependent on the fact that you've bought a deck plan.

To do that, hold your CTRL key down and click select both "Buy the deck plan" and "Buy the wood", it should look like this…

Now click the Dependency link icon and you'll see the chart will change to look like this.

Note that "Buy the wood" automatically shifted to the right because the software now knows that you intend to buy the wood, once you've got a deck plan.

Notice also that the "Build a deck" task stretches two days. It is called a summary task and used to show a summary of time spent on any sub-tasks.

Typically executive summaries are created by showing ONLY these summary tasks on a Gantt chart, by hiding the details (You can experiment with this by clicking the minus sign which "closes" the detail, and then click the plus signto reopen the view.

Now, let's say it takes you 2 days to find the deck plan (perhaps you might have to research on the Internet for 2 days). Let's notate that in Gantt. First we'll do that the easy way…grab the right side of one of the bars and we'll stretch it to the right by one day

When you release the mouse you'll see the bars have moved to the right and the top bar is stretched between 2 days.

Try grabbing the center part of the top bar and dragging it one day to the right

You'll note in the above example that we moved the start day from Wednesday to Thursday, and since our plan is now 3-days long that we crossed a weekend. Note that JCVGantt automatically assumed you couldn't work on the weekend, and put the end date on Monday. That's one of the calendaring features you'll read about in this manual.

Go ahead and add a few tasks on your own underneath "Buy the wood" by first selecting "Buy the wood", then pressing the Enter key. For example, you might add "Find carpenter" and "Carpenter builds deck"

Use the dependency link icon to link those to the buy the wood the way you've done in the previous steps

It should look something like this…

Now let's try another way to set duration. Select the "Build the deck" bar (click on it) and then in the Task Info window (That window over on the right side), in the Duration: field, type 7d then press Enter.

Hint: "7d" means 7 days. "7w" would be 7 weeks., '7h" would be seven hours

Note that the bar changes size to show 7 days.

I wonder how much all this is going to cost us? Good question!

Let's enter some costs. Click on the Resources tab

You'll see a spreadsheet similar to what you'd see in Microsoft Excel. Try entering the following information in the spreadsheet. Notice that the Unit column has a drop-down list that you can set to a value.

For Cost of plan and Cost of wood, leave it where it is "flat"…meaning that the cost never changes with time. For the carpenter, set it to "hourly"

The above spreadsheet indicates that the Cost of plan = $300, the Cost of wood is $450 and the Carpenter costs $30 per hour.

Now, switch back to the Gantt chart, by clicking the Gantt Chart tab.

Select "Buy the deck plan" and in the Task Info window, click once in the Resources:  grid…you'll see a down arrow appear. Press the arrow

You'll see a list of the resources you just entered shown

Select cost of plan. This links cost of plan to the first task

Notice that the cost appears to the right of the task

Now do the same thing for Cost of wood and then link the resource "Carpenter" to "Build the deck". Your Gantt should look like this.

On your own, add the cost per hour of you looking to find a carpenter, for example maybe $20/hour in the resources section and link it to the task "Find carpenter"

Getting the idea now? Note how the Gantt chart shows you the costs.

How much is the "total cost"? To find that out, click the Total cost tab.

The report will look something like this…

Fixed costs are those you marked "flat" in the resources. Variable are those that are duration-dependent.

The total project cost at present is $2630. Pricey deck!

Would you like to see this in more detail? Click the Project tab

You'll see another spreadsheet that you can edit directly using the same keystrokes and buttons you used on the Gantt chart tab

Let's try something… let's calculate how much the deck plan and the wood cost.

First, use your mouse to click the $300 and drag it down to also select $450

Now right-click to see the edit menu and select Copy

Click the "User sheets" icon (second row of toolbars)

and…

Click Add user sheet

Note that a blank sheet appears

and a new tab too…

Now right click in the cell A1 and select Paste Link.

You'll see the two dollar amounts you copied to the clipboard appear.

For fun, click one of those little red boxes in the upper right of the cells and you'll see the spreadsheet formula used to show you those numbers

Now type Enter and it'll return to the other value. Go to A3 and type

=SUM(A1:A2) and press Enter

Notice that it immediately calculates the sum of A1 and A2. Should you change the values of the Cost of wood in resource, you'll see that this value in the new User sheet tab that you created

In this manner, you can create your own real-time calculations from any data you can find in the Projects or Resource spreadsheets

Now let's examine a few other features, switch back to the Gantt Chart and select the "Buy the deck plan" task. Now in the Task info, select the change button next the color and you'll see a color palette appear

Select Orange and click OK and the bar will change color.

Use this feature to color code your plan, have fun!

Now click "Buy the deck plan" and let's play with the Task notes on the bottom.

For fun, type the words www.deckplans.com in the box. Did you know that website actually exists? No kidding!

Now select the words you've just typed with your mouse

Click the hyperlink icon and you'll see a hyperlink dialog appear. Type http://www.deckplans.com into the URL field and click enter

You've just linked the web site to your notes, so add some other text…whatever comes to mind. You've got an entire word processing document that's linked to the task! Imagine what you can do with this! You could link design information, project status notes, anything you need to remember about each task.

Wow! This is a great plan you've just created. Hey… maybe you operate a company that builds decks for other people? If that's so, then this plan you've just created should be a template for future projects. How can we do that? Very easily!

Click the "Save all tasks as Gantt part"  icon on the top toolbar and you'll see this dialog

Now click Select folder… and select the Samples folder, then click OK

Now name the Gantt part "Build an entire deck" and click OK

Hmn…wonder where that went? Click the Gantt parts tab on the right side of the screen, then click the thumbtack to keep the window open

Click "Gantt parts", and expand the "Gantt parts" folder and select Samples

See the little thumbnail called "Build an Entire deck". Why don't you try dragging that onto the Gantt chart? Go ahead, be brave!

Wow! You've just reused a component you created. You can now change the duration, start date or any other property of the gantt part you just dragged in, and all costing and project information will update automatically.

Now let's do one last thing…how would you track completion of a task?

Click a "Build the deck" task and on the left side of the Gantt bar, start dragging your mouse to the right, you should see a black line

Note that the percentage is displayed. Slide it all the way to the right and 100% of the  task is marked as completed. These bars provide you a quick way to indicate complete. If you flip to the Projects spreadsheet you'll see the same information as a little pie chart icon that shows an [x] once the task is complete. If all your tasks show [x], your project is done!

Now, let's save your project, click on the File menu and click Save as….

Enter a name for your file, and you've just completed your first gantt project.

If you'd like to print it out you can use either File->Print or File-> Print Preview.

We hope you enjoy JCVGantt Pro 2, it's a powerful project management tool that can provide you with a wealth of project information.