There are certain tricks and shortcuts that people will use when navigating around the DELMIA Quintiq thin client user interface. Many of these become second nature after using the software for a while, but some are easily overlooked if you don't know to look for them.
Below are a few of the common tips and tricks that we have heard are useful when starting out. Please note that these are specific to the thin client -- stay tuned for tips and tricks for our web client in a future post.
Navigating the Gantt chart
Many Quintiq apps will include one or more Gantt charts to help visually represent the timing, duration, and assignment of work to resources. When interacting with the chart, you can use the zoom in/out buttons and left/right scroll shown at the top of the window. You can also use the +/- keys on your keyboard to zoom in and out as well, or your mouse scroll wheel together with the "ctrl" key.
An additional option that is shown in the animation below is to hold "shift" and left-click-drag the mouse to select a region of the Gantt chart. This will zoom in to that selected region when you release the mouse button. This can be useful when you want to see a portion of the Gantt chart, or you have zoomed out too far and quickly want to zoom back in to a specific time period.
Quickly switch between common views with user-defined shortcut keys
For some users, the majority of their planning is done using a single all purpose planning view. For other users, their workflow requires them to switch between two or more views throughout the day. For those users in the second category, the view manager's short-cut option can allow easier switching among the views in your favorite list that you use most often.
In the example below, we use the view manager to set one of our favorite views with a ctrl+1 shortcut and another view to a ctrl+2 shortcut. Once set, we can see the shortcut keys in our favorite list and jump directly to those views using those key combinations.
Copying a form from one view to another
Our last tip is a bit more involved but can come in handy when you want to copy a form from one view to another. In the example below, our "Planning" view includes a form called "Factory overview" which provides a visual flow diagram of the resources in our factory. Our basic "PlanningSimple" view does not have that particular form, but we would like to add it in.
The animation below shows how this can be done using the view manager and the "forms" pane which is hidden on the right side of the views list. We can see the "FormFactoryOverview" in our forms list when selecting the Planning view on the left. By clicking and dragging this onto our "PlanningSimple" view, we now have this form in both views.
Where this can become particularly useful is when you have many versions of a view and spend a lot of time making one particular list in one of those views exactly how you want it (a specific set of fields shown, special data columns, configured formulas, etc.) Rather than having to repeat the process for every other version of that view, you can close that form in the other views and then drag-drop the "leading" version of that form to all of the other views you would like.
Are there any simple tips and tricks you have discovered while using the software? Or any questions on how certain actions might be done more easily? Feel free to share below in the comments.
(Edit May 5, 2021: Added tags)
