Date Differences in Timeline

[gsjmia]

Hello, I was trying to do a timeline with periods of days that could be used as a template for a repetitive project (foreclosure filings).

Some of the tasks involve filing periods of e.g., 20 days or 90 days.

It would be nice to be able to put in the start day for the 30 day period and Visio calculate the 30th day.

Then, it would be great to see the number of days left until the finish date.

I don't see any date calculator or date difference feature in Visio--any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

[Paul Herber]

Dates are stored within the shapes, for example, create a time line and drop on it 2 milestones.
Now select one of the milestones and do menu Window -> Show Shapesheet
and look at the user-defined cells section. There is an entry called User.visMilestoneDate.
If the shape is called "Diamond milestone.39" then this date can be accessed from within other shapes as "Diamond milestone.39!User.visMilestoneDate" and arithmetic can be done on it.
If you now drop another milestone shape, say "Diamond milestone.40", we can now do the following:
1. Create a plain box shape, menu Window -> Show Shapesheet
2. Create the user-defined section
3. in the Value cell enter the formula like
=Diamond milestone.40!User.visMilestoneDate - Diamond milestone.39!User.visMilestoneDate
Of course, use the actual shape names here that you created, and put the latest shape first.
4. Close the shape sheet window and with the plain box shape still selected, menu Insert -> Field
and select the user-defined cells and the field you created (probably Row_1).
Now the box shape will display the days difference between the two milestones.

Now I can use these formulae like,
Open the shapesheet of the 2nd milestone, and set the User.visMilestoneDate formula to
=guard(Diamond Milestone39!User.visMilestoneDate+30)

Now when the first milestone is moved the 2nd one will tag along 30 days later.

[gsjmia]

Thank you.

I am trying to follow your instructions and I am sure it won't be so complicated once I get used to working with the Shape Sheet, but I am unfamiliar and am having 2 very basic problems:

1. User Data section doesn't appear (sometimes), why would that occur?

2.  Can't find the name of the object (in your example, Diamond milestone.39).  I found it once in the very beginning but have been unable to locate again--it is in a missing section, like the User Data box that comes and goes?

Is there a way to word search in shapesheet?  Ctr-F does not work.

Thanks again

[Paul Herber]

Some shapes may not have a User-data section, to add one right-click on the shapesheet background and Insert Section. It may just be hidden in which case do a View Section. These are also available from the normal menu (View and Insert) when in shapesheet edit mode.

The Diamond milestone.39 was just an example, you shapes will have all sorts of names, use the menu View -> Document Explorer
then select from the Foreground Pages -> page-n -> Shapes

Is there a way to word search in shapesheet?  Ctr-F does not work.

No, it doesn't appear to.
A possible option would be to export your page/shape as XML and search that data.