Patent ID: 7999810

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for collecting, animating and highlighting in chronological sequence to present a progression and relationship of interrelated Events, the method comprising: providing a computer connected to a screen; presenting a timeline on the screen, the timeline being generated by the computer and representing a range of calendar dates; providing a set of Event data about a protect plan, the Event data comprising a description about a set of project tasks that occurred or are to occur on at least one date and Event description information corresponding to the project tasks occurring in the project plan, information corresponding to when changes occur in the project plan, and information corresponding to when changes occur in Event times for the tasks, to form a database and storing the database in the computer, the database having a schema comprising: a base-events table comprising information corresponding to the project tasks occurring in the project plan and a plurality of fields including a unique Event identifier associated with each Event and a project identifier for a project to which the Event belongs; a snapshots table, wherein a snapshot comprises a snapshot time at which the project plan changes along the timeline, the snapshots table comprising a plurality of fields including a unique snapshot identifier and the snapshot time at which a change in the project plan occurs; a snapshot-events table comprising information corresponding to the changes in Event times at said snapshot times and a plurality of fields including the unique Event identifier from the base-events table, the unique snapshot identifier from the snapshots table, and a new end time for the Event; selecting at least one subset of Events from the set of Event data, the subset of Events to be presented and graphically related to other Events on the screen, by filtering the rows in the base-events table; assigning properties to a manner of presentation of the subset of Events to be presented on the screen, the properties including assigning a color to each Event in the subset of Events and assigning a swim lane to each Event in the subset of Events; presenting event markers on the screen, each event marker being correlated with the timeline and representing the existence of an Event from the subset of Events; and providing an engine for moving a cursor along the timeline to represent a forward or a backward change of snapshot time along the timeline, the engine computing at least one new Event time for the Events presented on the screen by using the cursor time to select a snapshot from the snapshots table and using the snapshots-events table to compute at least one new Event time at the snapshot.