Programme versions

Why you'd use it

Until now, every change to the Construction Program went straight to Live: the project team, subcontractors, the dashboard and the portals saw it the moment it was saved. Drafts give you somewhere to think first.

• Rework a sequence in private

  A planner can push Level 3 fit-out back a week, watch every successor move with it, and nobody on site sees a half-finished plan in the meantime.

• Weigh up two or three options

  Keep "Crane early" and "Crane late" as separate drafts, compare each against Live or against each other, and publish the one that wins.

• Stop emailing subbies on every tweak

  Reassigning a subcontractor inside a draft notifies no one. When the draft is published, each newly assigned subcontractor gets one notification.

• Put last week's programme back

  Every publish keeps the previous Live as a baseline. Start a draft from that baseline and publish it, and the old programme is Live again.

How it fits together

There is always exactly one Live programme. Drafts branch off it, and publishing a draft brings its plan back onto Live, keeping a snapshot of what Live looked like just before.

Live programme

The one programme the project runs on. Bookings, reminders, the dashboard, Lookahead Planning, Weekly Work Plan, the portals and DS Site all read from it.

draft

A private, editable copy. Only its creator, the people it is shared with, and project managers can open it.

published

A draft that has been published to Live. It stays in the list, read-only, as a record of what was published and when.

baseline

A read-only snapshot of Live taken automatically at each publish, named after the day it was taken.

Quick tour

Everything lives on Program › Construction Program. The switcher at the left of the Gantt toolbar tells you which version you are looking at and lets you move between them.

When a draft is open, the switcher turns amber and a banner across the top of the grid reminds you that nobody else can see what you are doing. Publish is replaced by Publish draft….

Create a draft

1. Go to Program › Construction Program for your project.
2. Open the Programme version switcher (it reads Live programme) and choose New draft….
3. Give the draft a Name that says what you are trying, for example Level 3 resequence.
4. Leave Start from on Live programme, or pick another draft, a published draft or a baseline to start from that instead.
5. Optionally add a Note so colleagues know what the draft is for.
6. Click Create draft. Deep Space Horizon copies every task, section and link, confirms Draft "Level 3 resequence" created from Live programme, and opens the draft.

Work in a draft

A draft uses the same Gantt you already know. Edits save as you make them, and date changes behave exactly as they do on Live: successors move and section dates roll up. The difference is that all of it stays inside the draft.

Change a date in the grid

1. With the draft open, double-click the task's Start, End or Duration cell.
2. Type the new value (dates are day, month, year) or pick it from the calendar.
3. Press Enter. The task moves, and so does everything that depends on it.

Other things you can change

• Task details: click a row to open Task Details. The panel carries a draft tag, and saving shows Task updated in draft.
• Add a task: hover a row and click + (Add task below) to type a new task straight into the grid.
• Remove a task: open it and choose Delete Task. It is removed from the draft only.
• Links: double-click the PRED cell and enter predecessor row numbers, or add and remove dependencies in the task panel.
• Subcontractor and cost code: change them in the grid or the task panel. No one is notified while you work in a draft.

You can switch back to Live programme at any time from the switcher. The draft stays exactly as you left it, and the page link includes the version you are viewing, so you can send a draft's link to someone it is shared with.

Share a draft

A new draft is visible only to you and to project and workspace managers. To bring colleagues in:

1. Open the draft, then open the switcher and choose Share… under This draft.
2. Pick a person from Add a person… and click Add. Repeat for anyone else.
3. Click Save.

To remove someone, open Share… again, remove them from Shared with and save. Use Rename… in the same menu to change the draft's name.

Publish a draft

Publishing replaces the plan on Live with the plan in your draft. Before anything changes, Deep Space Horizon shows you exactly what will happen.

1. Open the draft and click Publish draft… in the toolbar.
2. Read the summary: how many tasks are changed, added and removed, and how many dependency changes there are.
3. Check the Changed tasks list. Each line shows the field, the Live value struck through, and the draft value that will replace it.
4. If a red Conflicts block appears, read it and decide (see Conflicts below).
5. Click Publish to Live, or Cancel to keep working.

What happens when you publish

1. The current Live programme is saved as a baseline, for example Baseline – 30/09/2026.
2. The draft's tasks, dates, durations, sections and links are applied to Live. Successor dates and section roll-ups are recalculated as they would be for a manual edit.
3. Each subcontractor newly assigned to a task is notified once and receives the usual booking request.
4. You are taken back to Live with a confirmation such as Published: 3 changed, 0 added, 0 removed · Baseline – 30/09/2026 created. The draft moves to Published drafts and becomes read-only.

Conflicts

Other people can keep working on Live while you work in your draft. If someone changes a task on Live after your draft was started, and your draft has a different plan for that task, the task is listed as a conflict. A task that someone touched on Live but that your draft removed counts as a conflict too.

The Conflicts block shows each task with its Live value next to the draft value. Publish to Live stays disabled until you tick Overwrite the live changes listed above. If you tick it and publish, the draft wins. If the Live change should stand, cancel, update your draft to match, and publish again.

Baselines and history

You never create a baseline by hand: one is saved every time a draft is published. Baselines are named after the day they were taken, with a number added if there is more than one that day, for example Baseline – 30/09/2026 (2).

1. Open the switcher and pick a baseline under Baselines, or a published draft under Published drafts.
2. The version opens read-only with a lock banner showing when it was published and by whom. Dates cannot be edited and the draft-only actions are not offered.
3. Switch back to Live programme when you are done.

Baselines and published drafts are permanent history. They cannot be edited or deleted.

Compare

Compare against… overlays another version on the Gantt you have open, so you can see what moved without leaving the page. It is view-only: nothing is changed by comparing.

1. Open the version you want to look at: Live or a draft.
2. Click Compare against…, the button next to the switcher.
3. Choose what to compare with: a baseline, the Live programme (when a draft is open), a published draft or another draft.
4. Read the result. A thin grey ghost bar under each task shows its dates in the other version, a NEW label marks tasks that do not exist there, and the Changes panel lists the changed, added and removed tasks. Click a task in the panel to jump to it.
5. Click Clear comparison to turn it off. Switching version also clears it.

Roll back

There is no separate undo for a publish. Instead, you publish the old programme again from its baseline, which keeps a full record of both changes.

1. Open the switcher and pick the baseline you want to go back to.
2. Choose New draft…, and set Start from to that baseline. The dialog confirms that publishing a draft started from a baseline puts that programme back on Live.
3. Name the draft, for example Roll back to 30/09 baseline, and click Create draft.
4. Click Publish draft…. Expect the tasks you are reverting to show as conflicts, because Live has moved on since the baseline was taken. Tick Overwrite the live changes listed above and click Publish to Live.

Archive and delete

Archive a draft you might want later

1. Open the draft, then choose Archive under This draft in the switcher. You are taken back to Live.
2. To find it again, tick Show archived in the switcher. The draft is listed with an archived pill and opens read-only.
3. To work on it again, open it and choose Un-archive.

Delete a draft you no longer need

1. Open the draft and choose Delete… under This draft.
2. Confirm with OK. Only the draft is deleted; the Live programme, bookings and reminders are not touched. This cannot be undone.

Good to know

Some actions write to the Live programme or reach people outside the project team, so they are switched off while a draft is open. Hovering one tells you why.

FAQ