Editing Metrics in the Work Breakdown Structure Editor

In the Work Breakdown Structure Editor, the right-hand side of the screen contains several tabs. These tabs display various collections of metrics for the items in your WBS. Select a tab to view or edit those metrics.

Within these metrics panels, several typesetting conventions are used to convey information.

For example, gray text is used to indicate read-only data. If text is not gray, you can edit it directly. For example, in the second line of the table above, you can see that Component A is estimated to contain 1,230 lines of code, and take 94.8 hours. You may edit these numbers directly! (This often takes people by surprise, as many planning tools do not permit you to edit top-down values.) This feature can be very useful and powerful for planning. For example, historical data rates (inherited from a process/workflow definition) may have produced the estimate of 94.8 hours for Component A. If your team feels that Component A is more complex and will require additional time, simply edit the value 94.8 and replace it with your team's actual estimate for the component. The time estimates for all of the tasks underneath Component A will automatically be scaled proportionally. Similarly, you can change a set of initials in the Assigned To column to reassign an entire branch of the WBS from one person to another.

Some values may be displayed in a bold red font to indicate a serious error. Hover the mouse over the value in question, and a tool tip will explain the problem. Less serious problems are highlighted with a bold blue font. (For example, the tasks in the picture above have not been assigned to any team members.)

For keyboard-based navigation of the user interface, you can also select the active tab by pressing Ctrl-T on Windows/Unix, or Command-T on Mac OS X. After selecting a tab in this way, press the "Tab" key on your keyboard to move back to the WBS table.

Support is also provided for copying and pasting metrics data from one part of the WBS to another, and for copying and pasting data from other programs such as Excel. If you copy a rectangle of cells in an Excel spreadsheet, you can paste the data into a similar rectangle of cells on the right-hand side of the WBS, and vice versa. To copy, type Ctrl-C; to paste, type Ctrl-V. These operations are repeated on the Edit menu as "Copy WBS Data" and "Paste WBS Data". (Note that the copy and paste buttons on the toolbar will paste entirely new WBS items into the hierarchy, rather than pasting data into existing cells.)

Custom WBS Columns

As you create your project plan, you may find the need to capture information that is project, team, or organization-specific. For example, you might want to record details like:

Often, this information can simply be entered into the task note. But if you would like to take a more structured approach, you can create custom columns to hold particular pieces of data. Just choose "Custom Columns..." from the "Tabs" menu. This approach can provide a number of benefits:

When you create custom columns, they will appear on the "Task Details" tab by default. However, it is usually more convenient to create new tabs that group together the columns you edit most often, as described below.

Custom Tabs

The WBS Editor provides several default tabs showing preset collections of data, but you are not limited to those tabs. To support team-specific planning styles, click the "New Tab" that appears to the right of the preexisting tabs. You can customize the columns that appear on your new tab by selecting Tabs → Change Tab Columns. Although you can alter the columns that appear on your custom tabs, the original tabs will always remain the same; this provides continuity for other coaches or mentors that need to look at your team plan.