Fix issues with your schedule

Once you've found the issues in a schedule, the next job is clearing them. You can hand a failing guardrail to Owl, work the fix out with it in the chat, or edit the schedule yourself. Whichever you choose, the guardrails are checked again as soon as the change is saved, so you see at once whether it's resolved.

The workflow is a loop: fix, check, repeat until it's green.

Option 1: Let Owl fix it

Open a failing guardrail and click Propose fix.

A failing guardrail page with the failing activities on the right and a Propose fix button at the top.121Propose fix hands this guardrail and its failures to Owl.2The failing activities Owl starts from, each with the value that broke the rule.

Owl opens a new thread named Fix: and the guardrail's name, on the Guardrail fixer agent. It reads the rule and every failing row, works out why each one fails, and fixes the cause, activity by activity:

  • Open ends get linked to the work they really depend on, usually in the same area or phase, not tied to a far-off completion milestone just to clear the check.
  • Durations, constraints and calendars are set to what the work needs, not the nearest value that passes.
  • When the right answer depends on something it can't know (a contract date, a crew size, a supplier's lead time), Owl asks you instead of guessing.
  • If a proper fix would move a contract milestone or the project finish, Owl says so and asks first.

It then checks the guardrail it fixed, and all the others, so a fix doesn't break something else. It finishes with what was wrong, what it changed (activity codes, links, durations), and anything it left for you to decide.

Note: Owl never deletes a guardrail, turns it off, or loosens it to make it pass unless you ask. If it thinks the rule is wrong for this project, it explains why and asks.

Tip: Want to see the fix before it touches the main schedule? Ask for it in a scenario: "Fix the Nothing follows this activity failures in a new scenario so I can compare before merging." See Explore scenarios.

Option 2: Work it out with Owl in the chat

Often a fix needs judgment, and a back-and-forth is faster than a single button. Start a thread and give Owl direction, see what it proposes, and refine.

Ask Owl
PERM_004 runs 15 days and fails Too long to status outside procurement. Split it into submission, agency review and approval, and keep the downstream logic.
That pushed the permit approval too far. Keep the submission where it is and only split the review.
Fix the crews booked beyond what they can do, but don't move the boiler shutdown window.
Fix all failing guardrails, errors first, and tell me how the finish date moves.

Because you're steering, you can trade off the fix against everything else (the finish date, the critical path, other guardrails) instead of taking a mechanical change you then have to unwind.

Option 3: Fix it yourself

Some issues are quicker to correct by hand: set a missing predecessor, shorten a duration, move an activity to the right calendar. Edit the schedule directly in the Gantt or the details pane (see Work in the schedule).

The guardrails follow your edit as you make it. The pill on the bar disappears when the activity stops failing, and the status pills and the guardrail's page update with it.

Close the loop: check it's resolved

You don't need to re-run anything after a fix: every saved change, yours or Owl's, is checked against every guardrail. Watch the counts in the status pills drop, and open the guardrail to confirm its failing list is empty.

The guardrails summary, with the pass rate, the Needs attention list and a Revalidate button.1231The status pills update as you fix.2A guardrail you fixed leaves Needs attention.3Revalidate re-checks every guardrail on demand.

If a guardrail is still failing, open it again: its list shows exactly which rows still break the rule, and why. Repeat until everything's green.

Tip: Fixing one issue can surface another. Splitting a long activity can create an open end; pulling work out of a busy month can overbook a crew in the next one. That's the loop working as intended: fix, check, and handle what the next pass shows.

When the rule is the problem, not the schedule

Sometimes a guardrail fails because the rule itself is off: a limit that changed, a date window that no longer applies, a rule that catches rows it shouldn't. Then fix the rule, not the schedule.

  • Tell Owl what the rule should be: "The duration cap is 15 working days now, not 10." or "Leave the weekly OAC meetings out of Too long to status."
  • Edit it yourself: click Edit on the guardrail's page. As you change the rule, the right-hand column previews what it would flag if saved, and Values per activity shows why each row passes or fails. See How guardrails work.
  • Turn it off from the ⋯ menu if it doesn't apply for now. Off keeps the rule for later.
The guardrail's more menu, with Turn off and Delete.11Turn off stops checking it but keeps the rule. Delete removes it.

A broken guardrail (violet, "This guardrail can't check the schedule right now") always needs the rule fixed: usually a column it reads was deleted or changed. Propose fix on a broken guardrail asks Owl to repair the formula and keep what it checks.

What to do next

  • Prevent the issue next time: the fix you just made can become a guardrail, so the problem is caught on every future change.
  • Re-audit after big fixes: a round of fixes is a good moment to audit the schedule again and confirm nothing drifted.