Manage Your Schedule
Everything in Plenar follows the same pattern: you make a change, Plenar shows you the change impact preview, and you decide whether to commit it. This guide walks through that workflow.
The core loop
- You make a change — edit an estimate, reassign a task, add a dependency, log time off.
- Plenar recomputes your plan — the change impact preview shows exactly what moves and why.
- You decide — Apply to commit the change to the plan of record, or Discard to throw it away.
Nothing is saved until you explicitly apply. You can experiment freely — change estimates, move tasks around, try different assignments — and always see what moves and why before committing.
Plan of Record
The plan of record (POR) is the currently active, committed plan — the shareable version that clients, execs, and teammates all see:
- Every task’s scheduled start and end dates come from the POR
- Goal and milestone ETAs come from the POR
- The timeline visualization shows the POR
The POR updates only when you apply changes. Between applies, it is stable — no background process will silently move your tasks.
Reviewing a preview
When you edit anything, the change is queued as pending. Plenar recomputes your plan and shows a change impact preview automatically. You can stack multiple changes — adjust three estimates, reassign two tasks, add a dependency — and see the combined impact as a single preview.
The Schedule panel shows the preview diff:
| Section | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Moved items | Tasks that shifted dates, with the delta in days (+3 means pushed 3 days later, -2 means pulled 2 days earlier) |
| Assignment changes | Tasks that moved to a different team member |
| Goal impact | Goals whose ETAs changed, with slip or gain in days and whether they are now on-track or off-track |
| Milestone impact | Milestones whose ETAs changed |
| Quality comparison | Whether the proposed schedule is better, worse, or equivalent |
Applying or discarding
- Apply — Saves all pending changes. Promotes the preview to the new plan of record. Triggers a background optimization pass that may find a slightly better arrangement.
- Discard — Removes all pending changes. The POR is unchanged.
Quality comparison
The preview assesses whether the proposed schedule is better than the current one using a tiered model:
Tier 1 — Goal Compliance (highest priority). How many goals are late, how late the worst goal is. If this tier improves, the schedule is better regardless of lower tiers.
Tier 2 — Skill Compliance. How well task assignments match required and preferred skills.
Tier 3 — Efficiency. Total project duration, utilization, load balance across the team.
Tier 4 — Stability (informational). How many tasks moved and by how much. Does not affect the quality verdict.
Tiers are compared in order: Tier 1 dominates Tier 2, which dominates Tier 3. A schedule that meets one more deadline is always preferred, even if it makes the project slightly longer overall.
Refresh vs. Recompute
Two distinct actions:
Refresh pulls the latest data — pending changes, availability updates, calendar syncs. No schedule recomputation. Lightweight. Use it when you want to see what changed since you last looked.
Recompute recomputes your plan from scratch — all auto-assigned items are freed for re-optimization. User-pinned items stay fixed. The result is shown as a change impact preview. Use it when you have made significant changes (new team members, bulk imports) and want Plenar to find new optimal assignments.
When to use which
| Scenario | Action | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Calendar sync pulled new PTO | Refresh sufficient | The availability data is updated; Plenar already accounts for it in the existing schedule. A refresh shows the latest state. |
| New team member added to the project | Recompute recommended | Plenar needs to consider the new member as a candidate for optimal assignments. A refresh alone will not redistribute work. |
| Estimate changed on one task | Neither — preview handles it | Editing the estimate automatically triggers a preview. No manual refresh or recompute needed. |
| Major scope cut (10+ tasks removed) | Recompute recommended | Removing many tasks frees significant capacity. A recompute lets Plenar find new optimal assignments and ordering across the remaining work. |
| Teammate applied changes while you were editing | Refresh sufficient | Pulls in their applied changes so your preview reflects the current plan of record. |
| Team member left the project | Recompute recommended | Their tasks need reassignment. A recompute with auto-assignment redistributes the work. |
| You just want to see the latest schedule | Refresh sufficient | Lightweight data pull, no recomputation overhead. |
What types of changes trigger a preview
Every kind of change Plenar supports goes through the change impact preview:
- Work items — estimate, assignment, dependencies, scope, milestone, status, skills, create, delete
- Goals — create, delete, priority, target date
- Milestones — create, delete, target date, goal assignment
- Team — availability overrides, skill updates
- Assignments — add/remove project members
- Project — start date, end date
- Constraints — auto-assignment, skill mode, parallel work, lead time, scheduling template