Calculate and read the figures

Parse and Update

Two icon buttons sit above the canvas. Parse saves, then calculates this canvas and every canvas linked below it. Update applies the saved figures from linked canvases to this one without calculating; results become out of date until the next Parse. Hover either button for its description.

Parse walks the connections between blocks. Where one block leads to the next, their durations and delays add. Where two branches join, it takes the longer one. Blocks that are not connected run side by side. A block that opens into a child canvas uses the larger of its own figure and the child’s longest path. The result is the longest path through the work, which is why the whole canvas can take less time than its steps add up to. The Adding up lesson explains the arithmetic.

The figures it produces

• On each card, the rows you chose to show: Duration, Delay, and a Total duration once there is a path to add up.
• In the right panel, with nothing selected, Whole canvas: the Overview tab with the Cost contributions panel (Fixed cost, Variable cost, Unclassified cost and a Total cost for the horizon you are viewing), the Flow tab, and the Capacity tab with the load on each resource.
• In the strip at the bottom, Current canvas, the same headline figures as pills. Its Lead time is the whole canvas’s Total duration, the figure the Flow tab shows; the canvas cards and the Overview tab use the same name.
• On the Resources page, Demand and Excess for every resource, across all canvases.

The horizon label near the top of the panel (Daily, Weekly, Monthly and so on) is the period the cost total is expressed in; per-period amounts are projected to it.

“Out of date” and “Stale”

As soon as you change a block after a Parse, the results no longer match the canvas and the app says so in several places: a small dot on cards, Input and Output blocks and the bottom strip (its tooltip reads “Some results are out of date — Parse to refresh”); the words Stale on editor rows and in the Total duration and Cost contributions panels; and, if a linked canvas failed to update, “Out of date” with the reason and a Retry button in the bar above the canvas. A bell in the header collects the same notice. None of it is an error. Parse again when you want current figures.

“Counted as 0” and “unknown”

A blank Duration or Delay, and several missing cost inputs (an amount, a rate, an assigned quantity), count as zero in a total, and the result lists what was counted that way. Read such a total as “at least what has been entered”. A value that is invalid, or that cannot be combined with the others (a different currency, a different basis), leaves the result unknown instead. A missing amount on an assignment makes that resource’s capacity comparison unknown. If blocks are connected in a loop, the returning line is drawn as a Loop, and the durations in and after the loop are unknown, because a repeated step has no single total.

Outputs, inputs and overrides

Add output places an Output block. Its field is Manual until you map it to Elapsed duration or Delay; after a Parse it carries that figure, and another canvas can read it. Add input places an Input block; Add from published output… lets you pick an Output from another canvas, and the field shows which canvas and field it came from.

You can override either. Type a value into a mapped Output and it takes priority, marked “override”, until you choose Clear override; later Parses leave it alone. An Input has an Override button for the same purpose. If the source’s unit or period changes, the app warns that the override was not converted. There is no override on custom metrics, forecast quantities or costs: edit those directly.