Other types of timelines

[Peter Ward]

I am trying to use Project to show infectious periods for Tuberculosis cases.
I'm using Visio now, but have to align everything by hand. We have the
start date for medication as a base point, then the length of therapy
afterwards for cases that have completed therapy. For the infectious period,
we estimate, based on a records review of the case.

I would also like to use it to determine overlaps in lab processing times,
to determine or rule-out the possibility of cross contamination. We have a
number of dates for each specimen, and I would like to show them as a Gantt
chart in Project. Or continue with Visio, but with a template or shapefile
better suited to the task.

Ideally I would like to have one "bar" for the whole case/specimen, with
different colors/patterns for the different periods of the case or lab
processing timeline. Has anyone done this in the past, and are there any
tutorials FAQs or other online resources for this sort of project file or
visio drawing?

I have Project 2000 and Visio 2003 installed. Cross posted to both general
newsgroups (I hope) because I can work with either program to get similar
results. I just think I may be taking the most difficult route to get there.

Thanks,

Peter Ward

 

[davegb]

I am trying to use Project to show infectious periods for Tuberculosis cases.
I'm using Visio now, but have to align everything by hand. We have the
start date for medication as a base point, then the length of therapy
afterwards for cases that have completed therapy. For the infectious period,
we estimate, based on a records review of the case.

I would also like to use it to determine overlaps in lab processing times,
to determine or rule-out the possibility of cross contamination. We have a
number of dates for each specimen, and I would like to show them as a Gantt
chart in Project. Or continue with Visio, but with a template or shapefile
better suited to the task.

Ideally I would like to have one "bar" for the whole case/specimen, with
different colors/patterns for the different periods of the case or lab
processing timeline. Has anyone done this in the past, and are there any
tutorials FAQs or other online resources for this sort of project file or
visio drawing?

I have Project 2000 and Visio 2003 installed. Cross posted to both general
newsgroups (I hope) because I can work with either program to get similar
results. I just think I may be taking the most difficult route to get there.

Thanks,

Peter Ward

I don't think you're going to get what you want from Project, it just
isn't designed to do that sort of thing. It doesn't do multiple bars on
the same line except for repetitive task, all of which have the same
size bar.

I've worked a little with Visio. I briefly tried to see how to make a
timeline, but couldn't figure out a way to create the timescale
effectively.

You might find using the graphics features of Excel would work better.
I don't mean creating a graph, I mean the ability to color cells. If
you can get what you want with the limitation of 256 horizontal units,
it might work.

Hope this helps in your world.