Dashboard views
The Plenar dashboard is where you see and manage your project schedule. This reference covers all views and their interactions.
Dashboard layout
The dashboard has three areas:
Sidebar — Project navigation and view tabs. Click a goal to filter all views to that goal’s tasks. Sidebar indicators show loading states and pending changes.
Main panel — The active view. Switch between tabs to see your schedule from different angles.
Detail panels — Slide-out panels that appear when you click a task, goal, or milestone. Edit fields inline; changes are queued as pending and trigger a preview.
Sidebar navigation
The sidebar contains:
- Project switcher — Click the project name at the top to switch between projects you have access to.
- Tabs — Direct navigation to the project’s views: Scope, Timeline, Decisions, Knowledge Base, Report, Insights, Activity, and Team.
- Goal list — All goals in the project, ordered by priority (P0 first). Click a goal to filter all views to that goal’s tasks. Off Track goals show a red indicator.
- Pending changes badge — Shows the count of unapplied changes. Click to open the New Plan panel on the right-hand schedule sidebar.
- Loading indicators — Blinking dots appear while the plan is computing or loading.
Detail panels
Click any task, goal, or milestone to open its detail panel. Detail panels slide in from the right and support inline editing:
Task detail panel:
- Edit title, estimate, scope (Must/Nice), assignee, milestone, and skill requirements
- View and manage dependencies (add/remove predecessors)
- View and add linked artifacts (PRs, docs, designs)
- Change status (To Do, In Progress, Blocked, Done)
- Claimed by — When a task is In Progress and claimed by an agent, a banner shows the agent name and how long ago the claim was made
- All edits queue as pending changes and trigger a preview
Goal detail panel:
- Edit title, priority (P0-P4), and target date
- View contributing milestones and tasks
- See ETA, health status (On Track / Off Track), and progress
Milestone detail panel:
- Edit title, target date, and parent goal
- View contributing tasks and their statuses
- See computed ETA
Views
The main panel has eight tabs, in this order:
| Tab | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Scope | Table of all tasks with inline editing — the primary place to add tasks, set estimates, manage assignments and scope. |
| Timeline | Gantt chart with task bars on a calendar axis — visualize the plan, spot gaps, see dependency flow. |
| Decisions | The project’s decision log — open questions, alternatives, and the choices that shaped the plan. |
| Knowledge Base | Project concepts — reference notes on cross-cutting topics that span multiple tasks. |
| Report | A narrative status report you can read or share — where the plan stands, in prose. |
| Insights | Delivery, quality, cost, and cadence charts. See the Insights guide. |
| Activity | A live feed of changes and execution signals (completed tasks, PRs, deploys) as they happen. |
| Team | Team roster, capacity, assignments, and availability. |
Opening a project lands on the Project Poster — a one-page summary of the goals, projected ship date, and health. See the Project Poster guide for what it shows, and Insights for the charts.
The right-hand schedule sidebar — where you preview, apply, and discard plan changes — is documented in Schedule sidebar below.
Timeline
The timeline is a Gantt chart that shows your plan on a calendar axis. Every bar, line, and marker represents the computed plan — not a hand-drawn estimate.
Task bars
Each task is a horizontal bar spanning its scheduled start and end dates.
Colors encode status:
- Gray — To Do (not yet started)
- Blue — In Progress
- Green — Done
- Red — Blocked
A task bar’s position is computed by Plenar. You cannot drag a bar to an arbitrary date — dates are outputs, not inputs. If you want a task to move, change its inputs (estimate, dependencies, assignment) and Plenar will recompute.
Shadow bars
When a preview is active, shadow bars appear behind the main bars. They show where tasks were in the previous plan, so you can visually see what moved.
- Shadow to the left of the main bar = task pushed later
- Shadow to the right = task pulled earlier
- No shadow = task did not move
Dependency lines
Lines connect dependent tasks, showing finish-to-start relationships. The line runs from the end of the predecessor to the start of the successor.
Today marker
A vertical line marks today’s date on the timeline. Tasks to the left are in the past (should be done or in progress). Tasks to the right are in the future.
The today marker uses the project’s timezone, so everyone on the team sees the same line regardless of where they are.
Timeline controls
- Zoom levels — Switch between week, month, and quarter views. Week view shows individual days. Month view shows weeks. Quarter view gives a high-level overview.
- Collapse goals — Click the collapse toggle on a goal row to hide its tasks. Useful for large projects where you want to focus on specific goals.
- Today button — Scrolls the timeline to center on today’s date.
- Scroll — Horizontal scroll moves through time. Vertical scroll moves through tasks.
Interactions
- Click a task bar to open its detail panel for inline editing
- Zoom to switch between day, week, and month granularities
- Scroll horizontally to move through time, vertically to see more tasks
- Click a goal in the sidebar to filter the timeline to that goal’s tasks
- Collapse goals to reduce visual noise in large projects
What you cannot do on the timeline
The timeline is a visualization of your plan output. Some things that other Gantt tools allow are intentionally not supported:
- Drag to reschedule — Dates are computed. Change the inputs and Plenar will produce new dates.
- Manual date entry — Same reason. Scheduled dates are never manually set.
- Drawing dependency lines — Use the Scope Table or detail panel to add dependencies. The timeline shows them.
Scope Table
The Scope Table is where you manage your plan’s content — tasks, estimates, assignments, scope, and dependencies. It is the primary editing interface.
Columns
| Column | What it shows | Editable |
|---|---|---|
| Title | Task name | Yes — click to rename |
| Status | To Do, In Progress, Blocked, Done | Yes — dropdown |
| Scope | Must (required) or Nice (optional) | Yes — toggle chip |
| Estimate | Effort in working days | Yes — click to edit inline |
| Assignee | Team member name, or “Auto” for auto-assigned | Yes — dropdown |
| Start date | Scheduled start (computed) | No |
| End date | Scheduled end (computed) | No |
| Milestone | Parent milestone | Yes — dropdown |
| Dependencies | Count of upstream dependencies | Click to manage |
Start and end dates are plan outputs. You influence them by changing estimates, dependencies, and assignments — not by editing the dates directly.
Inline editing
Click any editable cell to modify it. Changes are queued as pending and trigger a plan preview automatically. You can make multiple edits before reviewing the combined preview in the schedule sidebar.
Note: Edits are not saved immediately. They queue as pending changes. Review the impact in the schedule sidebar and click Apply to commit, or Discard to throw them away.
Scope: Must vs. Nice
- Must (red label) — Always scheduled. Plenar guarantees these tasks get dates.
- Nice (gray label) — Optional. If the team is fully loaded, nice-to-have tasks may be dropped.
One important rule: a Must task cannot depend on a Nice task. Nice-to-have tasks might not be scheduled, so they must never block required work.
Sorting
Click a column header to sort. The default sort is by the computed execution sequence — the optimal order to work on tasks. This is usually the most useful sort.
Bulk selection
Select multiple rows in the Scope Table to perform bulk actions. Use checkbox selection (click the row checkbox) or shift-click to select a range. Bulk actions appear in a toolbar above the table.
Grooming workflow
The Scope Table works well for plan grooming sessions:
- Review unestimated tasks — Sort by estimate to find tasks with no estimate. Plenar cannot schedule them without one.
- Check scope — Toggle nice-to-have on tasks that are not strictly required. This gives Plenar room to optimize.
- Verify dependencies — Look for tasks that should have dependencies but do not.
- Adjust assignments — Reassign overloaded members, or run a fresh recompute to redistribute work.
After grooming, review the combined preview and apply.
Schedule sidebar
The schedule sidebar is the right-hand panel of the dashboard — not a main tab. It is your change-management interface: it shows pending changes and their impact before you commit them to the plan. Open it from the pending-changes badge in the left sidebar, or with its icons on the right edge of the screen.
The sidebar has a few panels:
- New Plan — pending changes and the New Plan preview.
- Plan of Record — the current committed plan.
- Controls — assignment and scheduling controls, including Recompute.
- Report — the report, available alongside the Report tab.
Pending changes
Every edit you make in the Scope Table or detail panels queues as a pending change. The New Plan panel collects them into a single preview:
- Change list — Each pending change is itemized: what changed, from what, to what
- Combined diff — A single schedule diff showing the net effect of all pending changes
- Impact summary — How many tasks moved, how ETAs shifted, whether any goals went Off Track
New Plan preview
The preview shows:
| Element | What it means |
|---|---|
| Tasks moved later | Red — tasks pushed to later dates |
| Tasks moved earlier | Green — tasks pulled to earlier dates |
| Goal ETA changes | Whether goal deadlines are still achievable |
| Assignment changes | Tasks reassigned during optimization |
| No change | Tasks unaffected by the pending edits |
Apply or discard
After reviewing the preview:
- Apply — Commits all pending changes to the plan. The schedule updates permanently.
- Discard — Throws away all pending changes. The plan reverts to its previous state.
You can also selectively revert individual changes before applying the batch.
Recompute
The Recompute action tells Plenar to re-plan the whole project from scratch. Use it after:
- Major team changes (new member joins, someone leaves)
- When you want a fresh redistribution of Auto assignments across the team
- Significant availability changes (extended leave)
- When you want Plenar to look for a better plan across the whole project
Recompute goes through the same preview flow — you see the impact before committing.
Project Poster and Insights
Opening a project lands on the Project Poster — a one-page summary of the project’s goals, projected ship date, and health, built for quick status checks and stakeholder updates. See the Project Poster guide for a full walkthrough.
For delivery, quality, cost, and cadence charts — Burnup, Velocity, deploy frequency, and more — open the Insights tab. See the Insights guide.