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Gemini Community Support Site

This Gemini community support site can be used to find solutions to product issues. You can log in using Open Id, Google Profile and even Facebook. Feel free to ask a question or browse FAQs and documentation. Product tour videos are also available along with how-to videos demonstrating key Gemini capabilities.




Index The Grid

 1.9        MS Project Connector
appnav
Project
 2      Getting Started with Gemini 5
usage
projects
templates
 2.5.1          The Grid
usage
Excel
 2.5.2          The Planner
usage
 2.5.3          Activity Page
usage
time
 2.5.4          Timeline Page
usage
time
 2.5.5          Roadmaps and Changelogs
usage
time
 2.5.8          The Calendar
usage
projects
add-ons
time
plugins
ms-outlook
 2.5.9          Burndown and Burnup Charts
usage
time
reporting
 2.5.11           The Data Import Wizard
admin
database
templates
Excel
migration
 3      Creating and Managing Tasks
usage
 3.1        Creating Tasks
projects
templates
 3.2        Rapid Planning (Creating Multiple Tasks)
usage
projects
templates
 3.3        The View Item Page
usage
projects
sentry
 6.1        Introduction to Sentry
usage
testing
sentry
 6.2        Test Cases
usage
testing
sentry
 6.3        Test Plans
usage
testing
sentry
 6.4        Test Runner (Executing Tests)
usage
testing
sentry
 6.5        Test Run History
usage
testing
sentry
 10.5         Item Management
 10.5.1           Overview
 10.5.2           Creating
 10.5.3           Editing
 10.5.4           Viewing
 10.5.5           Visibility
 10.5.6           Custom Fields
custom-fields
 10.5.7           Comments
 10.5.8           Hierarchy
 10.5.9           Links
 10.5.10            Recurrence
 10.5.11            Estimates & Time Logs
time
 10.5.12            Source Control Links
 10.5.13            Audit Trails
 10.5.14            Workflow
 10.5.15            Filter Items
find-filter
 10.5.15.1              Using the Filter
find-filter
 10.5.15.2              Saving and Reusing Filters
find-filter
 10.5.15.3              Cross Project Roll-ups
find-filter
 10.5.16            Patterns
usage
projects
 10.7         Time Management
time
 10.7.1           Time Reports
time
 10.7.2           Recording Time
usage
 10.10.1.5              Item Management
admin
 10.12.9            Custom Fields API
custom-fields
api
 10.12.11             Items API
api
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45 documents found.


The Grid

usage
items
Excel

The Grid page delivers highly sophisticated list management capability and possesses a number of features rarely seen, such as Sequencing and Dependencies that allow to you effortlessly manage a list of tasks in ways that most lists cannot. If you are unfamiliar with the Gemini Grid, the screen layouts at the bottom of this page may help to familiarize you with the regions of the screen and Gemini terminology.

By default the Grid is called ‘Items’ on the menu, though because you can rename all of the Gemini menus on each project template you might be using it (as in the screenshot below) to represent “Stories” or “Tasks” or “Initiatives” or “Queries” etc.

Items Menu Small

The Grid as it appears on the menu when setting up the Project Template (here renamed “Stories")

Functionality on the Grid

Filtering

Immediately below the Menu Bar, on the left hand side of the page, is the Project Attributes filter. This area contains all of the standard fields and selected custom fields that are used by the Template from which your project is built.

Click on any of the attributes and you will get a drop down list with the ability to select one or more values to filter by. In certain circumstances Gemini will display the meta filter “Any” to allow you to select all values against a particular attribute.

Gemini’s super fast filters run on every click so what you see is always what you get and there is no learning curve associated with finding items in the system.

Filters are cumulative, which means that filtering on Priority:High and Severity:Major will only return items that have a Priority code of High AND a Severity rating of Major.

The last box in the list of Project Attributes contains meta filters and 3 Options. Meta filters allow you to select items that are “Late”, “Created Recently”, “Due in the next n days” etc. The 3 Options are:

  1. Include Closed Items – by default Gemini excludes items in a ‘Final’ status. Check this option to include such items in your view.
  2. Group Dependencies – Gemini lets you create tasks that are dependent on other items, with no practical limit to the level of nesting. In the Grid view sub-tasks are collapsed under the highest level parent task if "Group Dependencies" is selected. Where sub-tasks are collapsed under the parent, Gemini will display a drop-down triangle next to the Item Key that when clicked will explode the hierarchy of tasks. If Group Dependencies is not selected the sub-tasks will appear in the grid with no indication of a parent/child relationship.
  3. Sequenced Items – Beneath the column headings is a grey bar known in Gemini as the Sequence Bar. If you have the appropriate permissions then on the extreme left hand side of the Grid you will see that each item has a ‘Grab Handle’ next to it. You can click on this and drag items up above the bar, into the Sequence Zone. No matter how you sort or filter items, Gemini will not remove from view or change the order of the items in the Sequence Zone.

Sequencing in Gemini is by project, so that all team members can be made aware of the order or priority of tasks. In order to sequence items for a project you must have the permission to do so as this is effectively a way of imposing a human-defined order on a list of tasks or activities. If for example a list was sorted by priority, Sequencing is the only clear and logical way to allow a user to take a number of tasks with an identical priority code and re-prioritize them without having to create new codes like ‘Super High Priority’ etc.

Sorting

To sort a list in Gemini, simply click on the column heading. Sorting will initially default to Sort Ascending but is done on a toggle so that a list that is sorted in ascending order will be sorted in descending order with a subsequent click and so on.

To sort by more than one column, simply hold the ctrl button down when sorting on anything other than the first sorted column and sorting will be cumulative.

Finding

If the attribute is a text box or rich text box then Gemini will allow you to type in a string to find. Gemini keyword search supports “and” / “or” in the search string.

In addition, in the top right corner of every Gemini screen, just below the username, is the Search pill. Click on the pill (which will expand) and type in your search criteria. Gemini will search keys, titles and descriptions and return all matching items to the grid. The exception to this is if you search for an item by number (e.g. 1150) and Gemini finds a matching key, in which case you will be taken to the View Item page, otherwise you will always be returned to the Grid view.

Note: If you do not find the item you are looking for please make sure that you have not selected an attribute filter that would exclude it or that it is not closed and you have “Include Closed Items” unchecked.

Column Control

Gemini’s Grid columns can be easily ordered by just dragging and dropping the column headers.

To add or remove columns, click on the Select Columns icon. Gemini will present a drop-down list of all the columns that you have access to based on your user group permissions. Columns that are highlighted in bold are custom fields, though this is just for notification as Gemini treats custom fields as if they were part of the application baseline.

Mass Update

If you have the Bulk Operations permission, Gemini gives you the capability of updating multiple rows of data at a stroke. Simply use the Project Attributes Filter to identify the data that you wish to update and click on the button labelled “Update”, next to the Prev and Next buttons. You will be prompted with a screen of all of the attributes in your Project Template. Select the attributes you wish to overwrite by selecting the checkbox next to the attribute name and then enter or select the value that you wish to apply to all of the rows that match your filter selection. Click “Update” and Gemini will set all rows that are in your filtered data set to have the selected value(s).

Import

import wizard

Gemini gives you an import wizard on the Grid. The wizard is available to anyone with the "Bulk Operations" permission. It takes an Excel spreadsheet or any delimited file (tab, comma or pipe).

The wizard has the following features:

  1. Map from a source column to any destination field in Gemini
  2. Ignore columns from the input source
  3. Transform data on upload from one value to a lookup value in Gemini e.g. "import with status of "1" and transform it to "Unassigned". 
  4. Create new lookup data in Gemini e.g. if import file has a value not in a Gemini lookup then that value can be added as part of the import process

All newly created items will be given unique Ids when created in Gemini.

Export and Excel Reporting

Excel Reporting

Gemini gives you the ability to export any data represented by an AppNav card on the Grid to Excel, HTML or CSV format.

Gemini also gives you the ability to define your own ad hoc Excel reports and there are 3 pre-defined Excel workbooks to provide you with the reporting you need or to provide a basis for you to define your own.

Collapse Filter

If you wish to increase the number of tasks that can be viewed on the page you can click on the Collapse icon and Gemini will collapse the App Nav Zone and dedicate the resulting space to additional items in the list.

 

Grid Control anotated

                                                                      Fig 1.0 Paging, Update, Import, Export, Select and Collapse

 

Inline Editing of values

Left mouse click on any item in the grid and Gemini will allow you to change the item's values, placing focus on the field that you have clicked on.

Right mouse click on any item in the grid and Gemini will popup an Inline Editing Menu to let you choose to:

  • View- Open the item in the View Item page
  • Comment- Add a comment with the ability to specify comment visibility
  • Edit- Change item values immediately
  • Pin/Un-Pin- Create an AppNav Card to the item)
  • Follow/Un-Follow- Add yourself to a list of people to receive email notifications on changes to the item
  • Delete - Delete the item if you have permissions to do so and this does not break data integrity rules

The Gemini Grid layout and key controls

 image

 Fig 2.0 AppNav, Menu Bar, Options, Attributes and Sequencing