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Publication Milestones

The Component Model Publishing - Milestone Settings enables monitoring of Flatplan workflow progress in the Publication Planner via the Next Milestone Date/Next Milestone Name and Traffic Light Name columns.

The model allows you to:

Select the object types where milestone dates can be entered—normally publication but can also be publication section and publication group
Select the object types where traffic lights can be defined—normally publication group
Select the attribute that is used to hold the date when the workflow starts and up to 20 additional attributes to hold the subsequent milestone dates
Up to five traffic light colors can be defined—each of which requires a numeric attribute to store the 'percentage of working time remaining' and a second attribute to store the traffic light color

Component Model 'Publishing - Milestone Settings' Example

Milestone date and period / color configuration in Publication with Milestones component model
Name	Example Value	Validation Type
Publication Types defining milestone dates	Publication
Publication Types defining traffic lights	Publication Group
Workflow Start	Start Date	ISO Date and Time
Milestone Date #01 Attribute	Plan Page	ISO Date and Time
Milestone Date #02 Attribute	Plan Approved	ISO Date and Time
Milestone Date #03 Attribute	DTP Page Approved	ISO Date and Time
Period #01	Normal Period	Number
Period #01 Colour	Normal Colour	Regular Expression: [0-9a-f]{6}
Period #02	Warning Period	Number
Period #02 Colour	Warning Colour	Regular Expression: [0-9a-f]{6}
Period #03	Late Period	Number
Period #03 Colour	Late Colour	Regular Expression: [0-9a-f]{6}

The other configuration option that effects the milestones is the definition of the working week. Unless modified the default setting is Monday to Friday from 09:00 to 17:00. Please contact Stibo if you need another definition of a working week. When entering the milestone dates for a publication it is advisable that they are set to be during working time.

Milestone Configuration Example on Publication Level

The attributes that are configured in the Component Model 'Publishing - Milestone Settings' must have values on publication group, publication, or section level. The example below shows how the attributes might be configured for a particular publication.

Attribute values at a publication
Attribute	Example value	Description
Start Date	2013-08-20 09:00:00	Tuesday
Plan Page	2013-09-02 09:00:00	Monday
Plan Approved	2013-09-10 09:00:00	Tuesday
DTP Page Approved	2013-09-20 09:00:00	Friday
Normal Period	100	If the remaining working time is 100% then...
Normal Colour	'green'	... the traffic light is green
Warning Period	40	If the remaining working time is 40% then...
Warning Colour	'amber'	... the traffic light is amber
Late Period	0	If the remaining working time is 0% then...
Late Colour	'red'	... the traffic light is red

The milestone and traffic light information shown in the Publication Planner for a given page is calculated in the following way:

The workflow variable MILESTONE contains the Attribute ID of the next milestone date applicable to that flatplan workflow. This variable is set by the business rules attached to the states within the workflow.
The name of this attribute is displayed in the Next Milestone Name column of the Publication Planner
The Next Milestone date is the value of the attribute obtained from the first publication/publication group above the Flatplan with a value.
The duration of the current task is then calculated as the amount of working time between the next milestone date and the milestone prior to that date.
The amount of remaining working time is then calculated as the difference between the next milestone date and the current date and time.
The percentage of remaining time is the amount of remaining working time as a percentage of the duration of the current task. This can be greater than 100% and can also be negative if the next milestone date is in the past.
The traffic light is selected based on the percentage of remaining working time. From the above example: percentages of 0% or less will show as red, 40% to 1% as amber, and everything else as green.
The Traffic Light Name is the name of the attribute defining the traffic light color.

Monitoring of Flatplan workflow progress in the Publication Planner Example

Assuming that a publication has been created with the example dates and colors shown in the table above, and that the current time is Friday 2013-09-06 09:00:00, then this is how the traffic light colors would be calculated.

Flatplan page-workflow and traffic light status with current date/time 2013-09-06 09:00:00
Page	Workflow MILESTONE	Colour	Explanation
1	Plan page	'red'	The next milestone date is (Plan Page) 2013-09-02 09:00:00 The previous milestone date is (Start Date) 2013-08-20 09:00:00 The duration of the current task is therefore 8 working days The current date/time exceeds (Plan Page) 2013-09-02 09:00:00 by 6 working days. -6 as a percentage of 8 is -78% and so the corresponding color is 'red'
2-3	DTP Page approved	'green'	The next milestone date is (DTP Page Approved) 2013-09-20 09:00:00 The previous milestone date is (Plan Approved) 2013-09-10 09:00:00 The duration of the current task is therefore 8 working days There are 10 working days from the current date/time until the next milestone date 10 as a percentage of 8 is 125% and so the corresponding color is 'green'
4-5	Plan Approved	'amber'	The next milestone date is (Plan Approved) 2013-09-10 09:00:00 The previous milestone date is (Plan Page) 2013-09-02 09:00:00 The duration of the current task is therefore 6 working days There are 2 working days from the current date/time until the next milestone date 2 as a percentage of 6 is 33% and so the corresponding color is 'amber'

2017, Stibo Systems