We’re excited to announce a powerful set of enhancements to PPO’s Scheduler functionality, all designed to give project managers, teams, and planners even more control, visibility, and flexibility when planning and managing project timelines.

These updates address some of the most-requested features from our user community and continue our focus on improving usability, visual simplicity, and scheduling accuracy. Here’s what’s new:

Colour Coding for Better Visual Insights

Say hello to a more customisable and visually informative Gantt view!

You can now colour code bars and milestones based on data fields, such as task status or type. Apply colour codes to milestones, tasks, summary tasks, and even the project task itself for a clearer visual structure.

This isn’t just about looks – it’s a powerful way to enhance project visibility. For example, if you colour code using the Task Status field, you’ll be able to instantly see which tasks are Done, Doing, To Do, or Overdue. This makes it easier to assess progress, highlight problem areas, and communicate status during reporting sessions.

See It in Action
In the example below, the Gantt bars have been colour coded using the Task Status field. This provides an immediate visual representation of progress – with colours clearly distinguishing tasks that are To Do, Doing, Done, or Overdue.

This visual format makes it significantly easier to track task completion, identify bottlenecks, and communicate progress during reviews or status meetings.

PPO Admins can set default colour formatting for all users from the Widget Configuration menu — whether it’s fixed colours for different task types or colours based on data fields like Task Status. And don’t worry, users can still tweak their own views to match how they like to work.

Visualise Task Dependencies with Arrows on the Gantt View

When viewing the Scheduler for a single project, you’ll now see dependency arrows between tasks on the Gantt widget. This simple yet effective visual cue makes it easier to follow the sequence of activities, spot critical paths, and understand how tasks are linked.

To ensure correct formatting of project and summary tasks, make sure the Parent field is set to Task Parent under the Gantt Widget setting.

Introducing the Calculated Predecessor Field

Managing task dependencies just got easier — and more consistent across PPO.

Previously, predecessors and successors could only be viewed within the Scheduler. With the new Calculated Predecessor field, you can now view dependency relationships directly on the task view, edit, and list pages as well.

This improvement removes the need to cross-reference the Scheduler when reviewing task details, making it faster and easier to understand task sequences, identify scheduling logic, and resolve dependency issues within the plan.

Cleaner Views with Column Header Wrapping

Tired of squinting at cut-off column names? We’ve added column header wrapping, which automatically wraps long headers into multiple lines, making it easier to read and visualise your data.

Support for Negative Lag (Lead Time)

PPO now supports both Lag and Lead times when defining dependencies between tasks. Whether your successor starts a few days later (lag) or even a few days earlier (lead), PPO has you covered.

Here’s how it works:

• No Lag (0): Successor starts immediately after the predecessor ends (e.g. 2FS).
• Lag: Add a delay between tasks (e.g. 2FS+2days, 2FS+1week, 2FS+1month).
• Lead (Negative Lag): Successor starts before the predecessor ends (e.g. 2FS-1week).

This level of granularity allows for even more accurate scheduling — especially in complex projects with overlapping tasks.

Inclusive End Dates for Milestones

PPO’s scheduler now supports inclusive end dates for milestones, aligning perfectly with how dates are handled across the rest of the application.

Previously, the Scheduler used exclusive end dates, meaning a one-day task starting on 2025-06-23 would show an end date of 2025-06-24.

This mismatch created confusion in some cases — particularly when a task linked to a milestone appeared to finish after the milestone date. With this enhancement, PPO now aligns task and milestone end dates using an inclusive approach, ensuring consistency across the platform and eliminating those discrepancies.

Better PDF Page Breaks

We’ve heard your feedback around exporting the Scheduler to PDF – specifically, where content cuts off mid-task or fails to stretch neatly across pages. An enhancement is on the way to improve PDF page break handling, ensuring a more professional, complete export with cleaner breaks and no missing data.

We do our very best to make PPO better every day, so we’d love to hear your feedback on these latest enhancements.

Don’t forget to let us know if you have any other product enhancement ideas! Drop us an email or log an idea on our community portal please. More importantly, keep up to date with all our new product information by subscribing to our blog.