Project Alarms

Sometimes, project managers will make large edits to project plans. This typically happens inside Microsoft Project and can involve running macros, adding new subprojects or performing major rescheduling.

Since these changes do not happen within the context of LiveProject, the regular method of highlighting suggestions for tasks does not function. Instead, LiveProject supports "alarms", a dynamic set of named rules that specify how to track external project changes.

Using alarms, users can define a set of rules to apply to project plans. When the plans change, LiveProject will detect changes that trigger the alarm, then apply the rules.

Standard Project Alarms

Here are some examples of alarms that are included as standard with LiveProject:

Highlight all changes

This alarm will detect any change on any task and color the affected cell in orange.

Highlight late tasks

This alarm will detect any tasks where the status changes to "late" and highlight the entire row in bright red.

New tasks found

This alarm will detect any new tasks and highlight the entire row in gold.

These alarms can serve as a base, as users can open and modify them to suit their own needs.

Triggers

Alarms can be set to monitor nearly every project field, and can trigger notifications, sounds or coloring of tasks. Alarms can also be set to only work for certain conditions, such as: "If a task is assigned to "Anders" and it is late, then if the finish date increases, play a sound." Rules like these make the alarms a powerful tool for team members and managers alike.

LiveProject's alarms can be customized to monitor almost any change to a project. Using alarms, managers and team members can create powerful views to quickly pinpoint areas that need attention.

Note: LiveProject Alarms are still in beta. This means you must manually go to Options > Beta and enable them before they can be used.