Schedule Recovery

Location on ribbon: Tab DVD Cons → Group Schedule → Menu Schedule AI

Command ID: btnScheduleRecovery

PRO feature

This command is part of the PRO package. STANDARD accounts activated before 1 July 2026 keep access until their licence expires; other Standard accounts will see an upgrade dialog.

What it does

Opens the schedule variance dialog: it cuts the data off at a Status Date, classifies every activity (Behind / Ahead / On track / Complete / Not started), computes the critical-path slip and projects the finish date.

Once you can see the picture, you choose a recovery strategy and the add-in writes the proposal into three new columns at the end of the sheet — the baseline is never overwritten, so you keep the original for comparison and for justifying the plan to the client.

How to use

1. Open a schedule sheet that has Start / Finish / % complete columns.
2. Go to the DVD Cons tab → Schedule group → Schedule AI menu → click Schedule Recovery.
3. Pick a Status Date (the cut-off for comparison), then click Analyze current sheet.
4. Read the KPI strip: Total tasks, On track, Behind, Ahead, Complete, Not started, Slip days and Projected finish. The grid below lists every activity with actual %, expected %, slip days and status.
5. Choose a Proposal mode:
   • Keep deadline (compress remaining) — compress the remaining work on late tasks so they still hit the original date; the output includes the % productivity uplift required.
   • Push deadline (shift uniform) — shift every task after the Status Date by the critical-path slip and get a new deadline.
   • AI re-plan — the AI service selected in Preferences ▸ AI Assistant proposes a creative re-plan per late task (fast-track / parallelise / extend). Requires that provider's API key.
6. Click Create proposal and review the Proposed Start / Proposed Finish / Note columns in the grid.
7. Click Write to Excel to append those three columns to the sheet. You also get Draw overlay (orange proposed bars plus a dashed purple Status Date line over the existing Gantt), Copy report (summary table and late-task list to the clipboard) and Undo write (restore the three columns to their state before the last write).

Example

The Two-storey primary school project has a contractual handover on 30 December. At the 22 August progress meeting the superstructure is clearly behind.

Open Schedule Recovery, set the Status Date to 22 August and click Analyze current sheet: the KPIs show 12 tasks Behind, 14 slip days and a projected finish of 13 January — past the contract date. Choose Keep deadline (compress remaining) → Create proposal: the grid compresses Blockwork and Internal plaster, noting that roughly 28% more productivity is needed. Click Draw overlay to present it visually in the meeting, Copy report to paste into the minutes, then Write to Excel to save the plan.

Notes

• The add-in never overwrites the baseline: the plan goes into three new columns, Proposed Start / Proposed Finish / Recovery Note, at the end of the sheet.
• Undo write is a one-shot restore back to the state before the last write — it is not Ctrl+Z and it will not step back through several writes.
• Draw overlay requires an existing Gantt chart on the sheet; with no chart there is nothing to overlay.
• AI re-plan needs the API key of the provider chosen in Preferences ▸ AI Assistant; the Keep-deadline and Push-deadline modes run entirely locally, with no network access.
• Results are only as good as the % complete data — wrong progress figures produce a wrong recovery plan.
• You must click Analyze current sheet first; no proposal can be created before the analysis runs.

Related

• Update Status — a quick SPI / Δ Finish check to see whether you need this command at all.
• AI Gantt Builder — the other AI tool in the Schedule AI menu, used at the planning stage.
• Gantt Chart — the chart must exist before Draw overlay can work.
• Constraints — pin the contractual milestones so you can see which proposals still breach the deadline.