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Introduction
BigPicture PPM for monday.com will revolutionize the way your data is organized. In BigPicture, we use boxes that are containers for your monday boards, groups, and items across your workspaces.
Your monday boards will be used to populate the scope of the box. No matter the size of the project or the complexity of your portfolio, one box can hold any amount of your monday boards.
Let’s explore all the possibilities to work with BigPicture below.
Navigate in BigPicture
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In BigPicture PPM for monday.com there are available the following modules:
The Overview module is dedicated to creating, editing, and organizing boxes. Switch between the Kanban, Hierarchy, and Timeline modes to organize and visualize data the way you want.
The Gantt module is all you need to visualize your project roadmap quickly and monitor its execution.
Use advanced scheduling based on customizable dependencies of various types and parent-task to sub-task relationships between tasks.
Focus on important aspects of your project with information available in the customizable columns.
Inline edit all essential information in one place while having the timeline visible simultaneously.
Track any crucial information in the Infobar and see your team members’ workload details in the Resources panel, also without losing the context of your Gantt timeline.
The Resources module helps you monitor capacity and distribute workload. You can easily switch between the Individual and Team views.
The Teams module allows you to create new BigPicture teams or assign existing ones to manage their members and availability.
The Calendar module allows you to stay organized and see all upcoming tasks and important dates in the form of a traditional calendar view.
Organize your monday boards and items in BigPicture boxes
BigPicture boxes let you aggregate monday boards from across all workspaces into portfolios.
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Visualize timelines and roadmaps effortlessly
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Use basic tasks as placeholders for temporary work
BigPicture basic tasks are versatile and serve well as notes and placeholders. Basic tasks are tasks stored by BigPicture but NOT synchronized with monday. However, you can convert basic tasks to monday items at any time.
Basic tasks can be viewed in:
the Gantt module
the WBS widget
the Resources module
the Calendar module
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Convert a basic task into a monday item
To convert a basic task into a monday item:
Go to the Gantt module.
Right-click on the basic task.
Select the Convert to monday item option.
Select a board and group to which the task will be added.
Click Convert to confirm.
Visualize your roadmap with the Gantt module
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The BigPicture Gantt module comes in handy to visualize your project roadmap.
The Gantt module includes four key elements:
Customizable task list (Work Breakdown Structure - WBS).
Timeline with a high-level overview of the entire project, with tasks and dependencies that visualize your work items and include auto-scheduling.
Resources panel that shows your resources’ workload. You can easily notice over and under-allocation of resources.
Infobar that highlights the most important information related to your project, e.g. Overdue tasks, Critical path, Dependencies, and Milestones.
All these elements empower the way your roadmap is presented. Let the Gantt module develop high-level roadmaps for you.
Automate task scheduling and visualize relations
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Dependencies are relationships between tasks, milestones, and other items. The mechanism can simultaneously move one or more tasks linked to a task that is being moved. By defining dependencies, task dates and other initiatives are updated automatically as a result of changes made to a project.
BigPicture can schedule the task based on dependencies, task structure, and other factors. There are five different modes:
Auto basic (default mode)
Auto bottom-up
Auto top-down
Manual
Locked
Map dependencies and monitor progress
Keep your tasks on track with auto-scheduling
Dependencies specify the relationship between items, milestones, and other elements in a logical sequence. They help you visualize the order in which you need to proceed with the issues and estimate the timeframe. You can draw dependencies between parent items and sub-items in the same monday board, as well as items from different monday boards.
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Dependencies
Soft dependencies
In BigPicture, No action dependencies are called Soft dependencies and are used to mark relationships between tasks without changing their dates (indicating that tasks are thematically related). You can also create dependencies between items from different monday boards.
Soft dependencies are marked on the Gantt chart with a dashed line.
Strong dependencies
In BigPicture, Strict and Flexible dependencies are called Strong dependencies and they can cause task date changes, as they are mainly used for scheduling.
BigPicture provides great possibilities for defining four types of dependencies, setting them in ASAP or non-ASAP mode, as well as adding a time interval between tasks (called “lag time”). You can also create dependencies between items from different monday boards.
Strong dependencies are marked on the Gantt chart with a solid line.
Lag time
It is the time period calculated in days by dividing the linked tasks. Lag time has the highest priority over other dependency properties. In both ASAP and non-ASAP modes the lag time will be respected and applied regardless of other circumstances. The type of dependency determines which date (Start or End) of the source task the lag time will be added to.
ASAP mode
ASAP mode always schedules the target task to take place “as soon as possible”, according to dependency type. This renders the target task strictly dependent on the source. Therefore, it will be impossible to drag and drop it, neither to the future nor the past. The target task will always revert to its position previously calculated by scheduling.
Dependencies in monday.com vs. BigPicture
Dependencies existing on the monday side, as well as on the BigPicture side will run parallel scheduling mechanisms affecting task dates. If monday board has a column with Strict or Flexible dependencies, this means that dependencies in BigPicture should NOT then affect tasks. Otherwise, various scheduling mechanisms would lead to setting incorrect dates on tasks.
Identify potential over and under-allocation of your resources with BigPicture
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Prevent over-allocated resources
BigPicture is a great solution to balance the workload and avoid over and under-allocation of your resources. You can analyze the capacity and workload of individual resources and teams. The Resources module provides easy access to information about over/under-allocated resources. Using the Resources module, you can analyze:
Workload - the amount of work already assigned to a resource
Capacity - the amount of work a resource can perform
Remaining Capacity - the difference between capacity and workload
Workload and capacity values can be expressed either in hours or story points.
Different colors make it easy to see if you have met or exceeded an individual’s or team’s capacity:
Green for under-allocation (workload less than 75%)
Orange for moderate allocation (workload between 75-100 %)
Red for overallocation (workload over 100%)
With BigPicture you can balance the workload directly in the Resources module:
Change the assigned resource to a person who’s not overloaded
Extend a task on the timeline, or
Adjust the task start and end dates
Assignee
Many BigPicture features, like workload and capacity calculation, are done based on the assignee of a task.
The BigPicture assignee field corresponds to the first people column we find on a monday board (first from the left). If multiple people are in a column of monday board, the first person listed is considered an assignee.
Gantt module - add the "assignee" column and use inline editing to add/change the assignee.
Resources module - to change the assignee:
move a task to a different swimlane (using drag-and-drop) or
open the task details pop-up and change the assignee
Estimates
You can use estimates to plan your work, track progress, and manage workload distribution. BigPicture lets you use the Original Estimate (hourly) and Story points.
To use estimates, add columns to your monday boards:
Original Estimate - automatically mapped to the first “Number” type column to the left, containing one to the phrases: “original estimate”, “original”, "planned effort" or "planned hours".
Story Points - can be mapped in App Configuration > General > Fields (remember to first add a story points column (numbers type) to your monday boards).
BigPicture needs values to do calculations. Fill in the estimate fields of your tasks.
Once you have added the estimation data, you can start working with the Resources module. Make sure to adjust the view to match the needs of your analysis:
"View" menu lets you select what is shown on a timeline below
"Effort mode" changes what the calculations are based on
Aggregation can be changed in the "scale" menu
Make sure to navigate to the right spot on the timeline
Skills panel
Skills help you manage the workload. You can easily match tasks with resources (and teams) based on what is required to complete a task and who has the needed abilities.
You can select the skills at the task level. The related effort is used to calculate the skill demand and is evenly distributed over the task's duration. The skill demand will be displayed in the Resource module's Skill panel. First, you need to:
Define the skills
Add skills to users
Add the skill widget to your monday board
Select the required skills at the item level
Find the perfect match
The feature suggests the best-suited assignees available for the job based on their capacity and defined skills. This way, you don’t have to look for an assignee manually.
Monitor capacity and distribute workload with BigPicture
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Most PPM tools don’t allow their users to manage resources on the portfolio level. This can cause organization-wide problems and hinder successful capacity planning or resource allocation. Fortunately, a handful of tools support portfolio-level management of resources. BigPicture helps you monitor capacity and distribute workload across the whole organization.
You can manage all resources from a single place. That includes every project and program located in the portfolio. Think of it as a management command center. Combining resources from all projects and programs allows for more comprehensive and easier allocation and monitoring.
Resources Panel (Gantt Module)
The Resources panel in the Gantt module allows for a comprehensive check of how much work has been assigned. The numbers in color-coded bars show the workload assigned to a given person.
Workload vs capacity thresholds
When a resource has no assigned tasks, then no workload is displayed. The workload can stand as follows:
with less than 75% of the capacity, the bar turns Green (under-allocation)
between 75% and 100% of the capacity, the bar turns Orange (moderate allocation)
over 100% of the capacity, the bar turns Red (overallocation)
Effort mode
With a rule in mind, the effort has to be evenly distributed over the duration period. There are three effort modes to choose from:
Original estimate - the mode to show planned workload versus the resource capacity.
Remaining estimate - the mode to show workload history (spent time), and the remaining workload versus the resource capacity.
Story Points - 1 day equals 1 story point.
Original estimate
Original estimate mode is used during the planning phase as the original estimate of time tracking applies. Assignees are assumed NOT to start logging the work yet.
Remaining estimate
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With the mode selected, the remaining duration is evenly distributed over the remaining duration of the task, starting from the current date and the spent time is evenly distributed over the past duration.
Story points
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Aggregation mode
With BigGantt, the workload shows the aggregated values in the following intervals:
Daily
Weekly (a week counts from Monday to Sunday)
Monthly
Manage and allocate resources directly in the Gantt module
The Gantt module in BigPicture comes with a dedicated space to manage and allocate resources. The Resources panel lets you preview how much work has been assigned. You can keep an eye on a list of resources along with the capacity and workload status of the respective person.
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Manage resources across the whole organization with the Resources module
The Resources module in BigPicture is fully dedicated to resources. It is not only for checking and managing all your resources’ absences, holidays, and workload but also for assigning and re-assigning tasks to your resources. You can easily prevent overallocated resources by rescheduling a task or reassigning it to another person. If you want BigPicture to suggest the particular resource for allocation based on their skill set and remaining capacity, use the Find Perfect Match option.
With the Skills panel, which is part of the Resources module, you will know how much skill-related effort you need for all the tasks you have planned for a particular period.
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Customize the timeline view to track progress and deadlines with ease
With the timeline options, you can easily monitor progress and deadlines. The features, such as milestones and markers, provide a clear visual representation of project progress. The timeline can be modified to display various time intervals depending on your needs.
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Make “what-if” scenarios to test changes to the Gantt chart
If you wish to take your planning activities to the next level, use the what-if scenario option and try out different variants of your plan, compare the results, or save your scenario as reference points. The scenarios don’t make any changes in your monday items until you decide to replace the live view with it.
Organize your tasks in a way you need
Display different fields as columns, change the aggregation, and display options
You no longer need to go to a given issue separately to check its details. With BigPicture, you get a holistic view of your project at once. You can freely customize the task tree in the Gantt module in terms of the data you want to see. Column views allow you to add various fields and configure their display and aggregation settings in just a few clicks. Once your column view is customized, you can save it for future use.
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Control critical paths and set milestones
Generate the critical path for your project
Don’t spend time calculating the critical path on your own. Let BigPicture take care of it for you! As long as you have your scope and strong dependencies, BigPicture will automatically draw the critical path. You can also create alternative critical paths with what-if scenarios.
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Use drag & drop and inline editing
Arrange everything with drag & drop
The drag & drop feature allows you to perform various actions in BigPicture such as moving boxes up and down in the hierarchy, creating dependencies, moving the timeline, and much more!
Update fields with inline editing
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