Terms of Service

These Terms of Service (the "Terms") govern your use of the Critical Path Partners website and the services described on it. Critical Path Partners ("CPP", "we", "us") is a boutique forensic scheduling and claims consulting practice operating from Ontario, Canada. By using this website, submitting files through it, or engaging CPP, you agree to these Terms.

1. What CPP Offers

The practice runs on six distinct service levels. They differ in cost, in what you receive, and in how much reliance you may place on the output. Read the level that applies to you.

2. Free Tools

CPP publishes free tools at criticalpathpartners.ca/viewer/ (CPP Lens, a Primavera P6 viewer and schedule screening tool), mcp.criticalpathpartners.ca/ask (a topic-limited AI assistant), and mcp.criticalpathpartners.ca/mcp (an open endpoint exposing the CPP forensic tools to an AI client you connect yourself). This section applies to all three.

CPP Lens runs inside your own browser. Primavera P6 .xer and .xml schedules you open in it are not transmitted to CPP or to anyone else. There are two exceptions. First, a Microsoft Project .mpp file cannot be read in a browser, so Lens uploads it to the CPP engine, which converts it to XER and returns it. That is a format conversion and nothing else, and it happens as part of opening the file. Export as .xer or .xml first if you do not want the file to leave your machine. Second, the Deep Forensic feature submits your schedule to the CPP engine only when you explicitly click to run it, and anonymizes it by default before sending. Data handling for every workflow is set out in the Privacy Policy.

By using a free tool you acknowledge and agree that:

• Output is not a forensic opinion and has not been reviewed, signed, or endorsed by a CPP analyst.
• Output shall not be relied upon for delay claims, contractual notices, change-order submissions, schedule rejections, depositions, owner submissions, expert reports, litigation, arbitration, mediation, or any other contested or formal proceeding.
• Output is generated automatically from raw inputs and may contain errors, omissions, or misinterpretations that a qualified analyst would catch.
• You retain sole responsibility for any business, contractual, or legal decision you make on the basis of it.
• The tools are provided as they are, with no guarantee of availability, uptime, or continued existence. CPP may change or withdraw a free tool at any time.

CPP disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to free tool output, including fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, completeness, and merchantability. Use of the free tools is at your sole risk.

3. Free Claim Check and Schedule Health Assessment

The Free Claim Check lets you send schedule files and receive a short written read on what the schedule can and cannot support. It carries no fee and no obligation to retain CPP.

The Schedule Health Assessment lets you send a baseline and a current schedule and receive the scored DCMA-14 and GAO-16-89G assessment as an HTML dashboard and PDF. It also carries no fee and no obligation to retain CPP, and it covers one schedule pair per project. Forensic delay analysis and claim preparation on the same schedule are retained engagements under section 4. The file limits and handling in this section apply to both services.

What you send

• Accepted formats are .xer, .xml, and .zip.
• Limits are 100 MB per file, 200 MB per submission, and 25 files maximum. Zip a larger set into a single archive.
• You must have authority to share the files. See section 6.

What comes back

For the Free Claim Check: a one-page read within a few business days, delivered by email from dana@criticalpathpartners.ca. The read states whether the schedule appears strong, mixed, or weak in support of the position you describe, and what further evidence would be needed.

For the Schedule Health Assessment: the scored DCMA-14 and GAO-16-89G assessment as a self-contained HTML dashboard plus a filed-copy PDF, with the analyst conclusion, delivered by email from the same address within a few business days.

For both services, turnaround is a good-faith target, not a contractual commitment, and CPP may decline any submission without giving reasons.

What it is not

• It is not a forensic opinion and is not suitable for submission in any contested or formal proceeding.
• It does not create a retainer, an engagement, or any professional relationship between you and CPP.
• It is provided without warranty of any kind.

Conflicts

Tell CPP the parties when you submit. A conflict screen is run against those names before anyone at CPP opens your files. If the screen shows a conflict, the submission is declined and the files are deleted unread, and you are told that a conflict exists without being told anything further about it.

Where the screen is clear and the files are reviewed, CPP will not thereafter act adversely to you on that matter, whether or not you go on to retain CPP. A free Claim Check is not a retainer and does not oblige CPP to take the engagement, but it does close the matter to the other side.

This is a commitment about CPP's own conduct. Whether it is sufficient for your purposes, and whether sending files to a non-retained consultant is appropriate at all in a matter that is or may become contested, are questions for your counsel. Where the matter is contested, the cleaner route is to have counsel retain CPP so the work sits under their retainer.

Files submitted through the Claim Check are treated as confidential, on the same footing as a retained engagement, whether or not you ever retain CPP. They are never used as public samples. Storage, retention, and deletion are set out in the Privacy Policy.

4. Retained Engagements

Paid work is performed only under a written engagement letter signed before work begins. The engagement letter sets out scope, deliverables, fee, timeline, and any terms specific to the matter, and it prevails over these Terms wherever the two differ.

Hourly rates are published in Canadian dollars on the Pricing page. Every engagement is billed at those rates within a not-to-exceed set in writing at scoping, after the free schedule read, and invoiced on delivery of the deliverable. Where the matter proves materially different from what was described at scoping, CPP will say so and re-scope in writing rather than exceed the agreed ceiling silently. Cost quantum is outside the scope of every CPP engagement. All amounts are in CAD, for every matter, including matters outside Canada.

Deliverables vary by engagement and are enumerated on the Pricing page. Timelines stated there are working estimates that assume timely delivery of the records CPP has requested.

5. Not Legal Advice, and Independence

CPP provides forensic scheduling and claims analysis. It does not provide legal advice, and nothing on this website or in any CPP deliverable is legal advice. Engaging CPP does not create a solicitor-client relationship, and CPP communications are not privileged unless privilege arises through your counsel's retainer of CPP. If your matter is or may become contested, retain CPP through counsel.

Where CPP is engaged to provide expert evidence, the analyst's overriding duty is to the tribunal, not to the retaining party. CPP will not adjust a methodology, a result, or an opinion to suit a desired outcome, and reserves the right to withdraw from an engagement rather than do so.

6. Your Responsibilities

• Authority to share. You confirm you are entitled to disclose every file you send, and that doing so breaches no contract, protective order, confidentiality undertaking, or third-party right.
• Completeness. Forensic conclusions are only as good as the record behind them. You will not withhold records that bear materially on the analysis, and CPP may qualify or withdraw a conclusion if it later learns that records were withheld.
• Accuracy. Context and factual narrative you supply are taken as given unless CPP has independently verified them, and deliverables will say which is which.
• Lawful use. You will not use this website or its tools to attempt unauthorized access, to disrupt service, or to scrape or redistribute content at scale.

7. Confidentiality

All schedule files, project records, correspondence, and results are treated as confidential. CPP will not disclose them to third parties without your consent, except where required to deliver the engagement or compelled by law or a tribunal. CPP will sign a standard mutual non-disclosure agreement on request before any documents move.

Client identities and matter details are never published without separate, specific, written permission for that publication. Case studies on this website either use demonstration data, which is labelled as such, or describe real matters in anonymised form: identifying details are withheld or generalised, the work is labelled as performed in-house for the contractor, and no live-dispute strategy is disclosed.

8. Intellectual Property

You retain ownership of your schedule files and project data. CPP retains ownership of its methodologies, engine, report templates, and software, including the open-source components published under their own licences. Deliverables are licensed to you for use in the matter for which they were prepared, and for internal business use, on payment of the agreed fee.

Website content, including copy, report designs, and sample dashboards, remains the property of CPP.

9. Limitation of Liability

CPP's analyses are professional opinions based on the records provided. CPP is not liable for project outcomes, scheduling decisions, commercial results, or financial impacts arising from use of its reports. For paid engagements, CPP's total aggregate liability is limited to the fee paid for the specific service giving rise to the claim. For free tools, the Free Claim Check, and the Schedule Health Assessment, which carry no fee, CPP accepts no liability at all. Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited at law.

10. Cancellation

A retained engagement may be cancelled by either party in writing. Work completed and expenses committed up to the cancellation date remain payable. Where an engagement is cancelled before any work begins, no fee is payable. Cancellation terms specific to a matter are set out in its engagement letter.

11. Changes to These Terms

CPP may update these Terms. Changes are posted on this page with a revised date. The Terms in force when an engagement letter is signed govern that engagement for its duration.

12. Governing Law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada applicable in Ontario. The courts of Ontario have exclusive jurisdiction.

13. Contact

Questions about these Terms go to dana@criticalpathpartners.ca or 519-532-6300.