Try the following:

 

• Check you have not unintentionally disabled the ResultsManager Option for using Multimap links. This will prevent ResultsManager scanning linked maps. Click  the ResultsManager tab | Options group | Options | ResultsManager Options to check this.
• Check you have not incorrectly used the blocking Icon  to block access to trees or Multimap links that contain activities.
• Check you do have some Activities in your map or maps, marked with one of the Task Complete Icons,  through to . ResultsManager will only pick up Activities marked with Task Icons, and will ignore everything else.

 

This can happen if you move the "My Dashboards" folder from its original location relative to MindManager's default documents folder. Ensure that the Dashboard and demonstration maps are in a folder called "My Dashboards" in the default documents folder configured in the MindManager options.

 

• Check that you have specified some Activities in your map or maps, marked with one of the "incomplete" Task Icons,  (new task) through to  (90% complete). ResultsManager will normally only display incomplete Activities, and will ignore everything else.
• Check that you have entered your name in the box labelled "Me" in the ResultsManager Options dialogue, and this name matches the one used in the maps.
• Check that you have enabled the option "Activities with no Owner are mine" in the ResultsManager Options dialogue.
• Check that you have assigned yourself as the Owner of activities. The simplest way to ensure that all Activities in a map are yours are to select the Central Topic of a map, click the ResultsManager tab | Activity group | Edit Activity, and select yourself as the Owner. This will be inherited by all other activities in the map, unless you define another owner on certain activities.
• Check that you have not accidentally left your name as the demonstration user name after using the demonstration maps.
• Check you have not disabled hyperlinks in the ResultsManager Options dialogue.
• Check you are not relying on Hyperlinks to other MindManager maps in the Topic Notes. ResultsManager only follows Multimap hyperlinks in the Topic, not the Notes.

 

If you suspect that you are missing Activities from the Dashboards, you can troubleshoot it in two ways:

• Change to Power User mode and generate the Maintenance Dashboard from the same map. This will show exactly what information ResultsManager is picking up, without filtering things out. Look for activities assigned to incorrectly spelled names, or activities with no owner.
• The Notes in the central topic of a Dashboard map contain a list of the maps visited by ResultsManager. Check that it is sweeping the maps you expected it to. If some maps are missing, check that they have valid hyperlinks, and that hyperlinks are not blocked with the "Exclude from Dashboard" icon ().

 

If you used the "Exclude from Dashboard" icon () to exclude a map from the dashboard, but its Activities are still included, then look for another link to the same map from elsewhere. The icon only disables an individual hyperlink, and the linked map can still be scanned if it is accessible through another unblocked hyperlink.

Look in the Central Topic Notes in the dashboard map. The maps that have been scanned are listed, and the indentation shows you which parent map they were first referenced in. Look for the map that you wanted to exclude, and then look at the line above - this will be the map that contains the unblocked hyperlink.

 

If MindManager encounters an internal error during the current session, even an error unconnected with ResultsManager, the transaction event may not fire and the Dashboard map will be left unpopulated. The solution is to close and restart MindManager, and create the dashboard again. If you see this error repeatedly, please contact us.

 

To make activities that have been delegated to you appear in the "Relationship Central" sections in the Dashboards, populate the Owner of the task as follows:

 

Their name; Your name

 

and check that you have enabled the "Automatic Delegation" dashboard option. ResultsManager will then show this activity in the Relationship Central sections of Dashboards as something that someone else is waiting for from you.

 

To make activities that have you have delegated appear in the "Relationship Central" sections in the Dashboards, populate the Owner of the task as follows:

 

Your name; Their name

 

and check that you have enabled the "Automatic Delegation" dashboard option. ResultsManager will then show this activity in the "Relationship Central" sections in the Dashboards as something that you are waiting for from someone else.

 

Sometimes, you make an edit to a Dashboard map (e.g. mark an activity as complete), but the next time you recreate this dashboard, the same activity is still shown as incomplete. This can be caused by a number of possibilities, shown in order of likelihood:

 

1. You used MindManager's normal edit commands (e.g. right-clicking on an Icon to change it), and forgot to run the ResultsManager tab | Dashboard group | Send Changes after making changes to the Dashboard.
2. You made changes to an original Project map, but when you closed it, you did not save changes. This is easily done, especially if the map was opened automatically.
3. You made a change in the Dashboard using MindManager's normal edit commands, and you also made a different change to another copy of the same Activity in the dashboard. One of the changes will get overwritten by the other. ResultsManager does not synchronise multiple copies of the same Activity.
4. You made changes in the Dashboard, and you also made a change to the same activity in the original project map. Changes sent from the dashboard will overwrite changes made in the project map.
5. You are deferring the sending of changes, and forgot to run the Send Dashboard changes command after making changes to the Dashboard.
6. You are using shared maps, and the project map was already in use by someone else when ResultsManager tried to update it. You should have seen a warning message on the screen during the update process.
7. The changes were made to the original project map, but some error condition caused MindManager to close prematurely (heaven forbid!) and the changes were lost.

 

 

Tip: it's a good habit to always run the Send Dashboard changes command before closing a Dashboard map. This will ensure that all changes are sent to the original project maps.

 

ResultsManager Dashboards are not created instantaneously - they can take up to a few minutes for large numbers of projects and maps. The factors that balance this out include:

 

• ResultsManager is not really designed for minute-by-minute refresh. Typically, you might generate your daily dashboards a couple of times a day
• You can work within your Dashboard maps and make modifications directly in them (edit activities and add new ones) without regenerating the dashboard or returning to the project maps. The original project maps get synchronised
• You can have several projects in one map. There is an overhead in opening and scanning each map
• Simpler dashboards are faster to create. You can create custom dashboards that list just the information you need for the range of use of the dashboard. There is no particular advantage in generating a dashboard that contains the next month's work every hour, for example
• .. and last but not necessarily least, the manual alternative is not really an option! It would take hours to create the same lists by hand, especially where projects are dynamic.

 

Tips for speeding up Dashboard generation include:

 

• Dashboard creation might run more quickly if you cancel it, close MindManager (saving your maps), restart MindManager and try again. Sometimes MindManager gets tired and needs a fresh start.
• Try enabling Power User mode, then enabling pagination of Topics in the Dashboard Options (click  the ResultsManager tab | Options group | Options | ResultsManager Options | Dashboard Options). When large numbers of subtopics are added to a single Topic, MindManager can become slow to respond. Using pagination in Dashboard map will help improve performance.
• The option for showing empty headings in Dashboard maps can significantly slow down their creation by adding a lot of extra Topics to the Dashboard map. Turn this option off unless you really require it for diagnosis purposes.
• Try excluding Topic Notes from the Dashboard. Extensive Topic Notes can be very slow for MindManager to access. There is an option in the Dashboard Settings dialogue that ignores Topics Notes when building Dashboards. (This means you cannot edit them from the Dashboard map, though).

 

This can happen when a dependent activity has an earlier date. For example, if you have set a date of 10th September for "Complete report", and you have accidentally set a date of 25th September for the predecessor activity "Research info for report", then ResultsManager will bring the second activity forward to 10th September. Otherwise, you might only see something when it is too late and its date has passed.

 

ResultsManager will automatically inherit Priorities from a parent Activity, where the parent either has higher priority. The logic behind this is that you risk losing sight of a high-priority item if the next action is not also the same priority level.

 

If you use two successive sort-only filters in the Dashboard, the results might not be what you expected or wanted. For example, if you sort by priority, then sort by Committed / uncommitted, the resulting list will not have all the Committed items grouped together. A list can only really be sorted by one attribute at a time. The workaround is to use a displayed filter instead of sort-only filter, so that the groupings are explicit.

 

When you use Express mode, the following option settings are automatically used, even if they are set differently in Power User mode:

 

• You are always prompted for permission to add new items to Master lists
• Confirmation messages are not suppressed
• Shared maps are automatically closed (Professional Edition only)
• Edit in Dashboards is enabled, with immediate updates (Professional Edition only)
• Warnings are issued for missing Multimaps
• Completed Activities are not included
• Empty Headings are not shown
• Funnel Timeline layout is enabled
• Activity settings are automatically inherited
• Automatic delegation of Activities is enabled
• Topic Pagination in dashboard maps is disabled (assumed zero)

 

In ResultManager v1, the names of parent items could be prepended to task names in the Dashboard map, so that you could see where the task belonged.

 

In ResultsManager v2, this is handled by adding Callout Topics to the Activities, for several reasons:

 

• Activities can now be edited from within the Dashboard map. This means that all their properties, including their text, must be identical to the original copy, so that editing does not introduce unintended changes.
• Callouts can be turned on and off in MindManager, so that Dashboard maps do not look too overloaded with detail.
• More than one generation of parent Result or Project can be shown, with Callouts on the Callouts.

 

Parent Results and Projects shown in Callout Topics

 

If you are not seeing the parent Result or Project Callouts in your Dashboard map, then either they are disabled in the Dashboard Details dialogue for this Dashboard, or you have Callout Topics hidden from view in MindManager (View | Show/Hide | Callouts). The latter is more likely, as this setting is remembered by each map, and is turned off by default in the Dashboards.

 

The option in Power User Mode to refer to Results as "Subprojects" only affects ResultsManager's own dialogues. Any fixed text in the Dashboard templates is not automatically edited. You can modify these texts by hand, by editing the Dashboard Templates.

 

If ResultsManager encounters a password-protected map while scanning for the Dashboard, it will prompt you for the password. If you cancel the password entry, this map will be excluded from the Dashboard.