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Longest Path of a Filtered View?

13 replies [Last post]
Wed, 2010-04-28 10:33
Dean Pearcy
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If I have an area of works, say a generator and bund. In the whole program, this area of works is not critical. If I filter for just the generator, then I get the activities for just the generator, as expected. However, there are activities within just this isolated section that are on the driving path of this isolated section and others that are not. Do you know how I can filter for the selected area and THEN filter for the longest path only within this section? The global Longest path filter does not work as there may be other works areas that are critical to the delivery of the programme, which are hidden but STILL active, of course. The longest path filter, applied to a works area that is not critical, returns no activities at all. This makes sense, but not the result I was looking for.

Can this be done in P6?

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Thu, 2010-04-29 10:33
#1
Rafael Davila
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Yes Dean, you got it 100%. I use predefined filters for linked predecessors, successors or all and they get resource dependences when I select create resource dependences in one of the options, otherwise it won’t get them.

Best regards,
Rafael
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Thu, 2010-04-29 10:18
#2
Dean Pearcy
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Rafael,

I don’t know what you mean by resource links. Do you mean activities that are on the longest path due to resource constraints? If they are on the longest path, then I assume they would be caught by the filter. I don’t know as my current programme is not resource driven, but I will investigate.

BBFN
Dean.
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Wed, 2022-06-15 16:27
#3
Rafael Davila
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I am still wondering abut when links are resource dependencies as the longest path before and after resource leveling can be different.

Are resource links shown in the longest path when longest path is driven by resource constraining?

Best Regards,
Rafael

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Thu, 2010-04-29 08:23
#4
Dean Pearcy
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No, the problem is that if you filter for longest path, the programme correctly assumes the longest path through the whole project. Even if the critical activities are currently hidden from view, the programme still accounts for them, as it should do. It is just useful, at times, to see the critical activities per section, which the filter just can not (indeed shouldn’t) take into account. The fix is to "hard constrain" the section under scrutiny to, say, a day before it is scheduled to end, and then that section, just for the moment, becomes falsely critical also. When you have finished, just remove the constraint and everything is as before.
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Thu, 2010-04-29 07:32
#5
Rafael Davila
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If you have to use other methodology to get what the filter was supposed, shall I assume the filter does not work, just another Bug?
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Thu, 2010-04-29 03:45
#6
Dean Pearcy
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Mark,

I just read the article you recommended...

http://www.ronwinterconsulting.com/multi_milestones.pdf

This is perfect, and I can see many more opportunities than just solving my initial query, so thank you for your input.

Regards,
Dean.
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Thu, 2010-04-29 03:31
#7
Dean Pearcy
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Thanks guys for all your input.

I think Rodel has nailed it. This is exactly what I needed as a quick and easy method of finding the driving activities within a section. In a situation of working with an audience of PM and engineers, they really don’t want to wait while I mess around with programming issues. This method is an instant fix to the query and can be done in seconds.

This solution (as always), leaves me thinking "that’s genius and simple, now why didn’t I think of that?"

Thanks Rodel.

Thanks everyone!!!
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Wed, 2010-04-28 19:43
#8
Rodel Marasigan
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Dean,
This is the process that I used when analysing the schedule.
First filter the area that you need to analyse say Generator (suggestion: use an intelligent Act ID or Activity code so filtering will be easy).
After filtering all the activities sort the activities by start date.
Show the link so it is easy to read the logic.
Go to the last activity and put a constrain “Finish on or Before” same date as finish date of activity constraining.
Run Schedule (F9) then it will show all critical activities then trace the logic of what’s driving.
After the review remove constrain and run schedule again (F9) to go back to original status.

Alternatively you can put milestone of the last activity you’re reviewing and put the constrain on the milestone (“Finish on or Before”)
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Wed, 2010-04-28 19:23
#9
Rafael Davila
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Dan,

Another issue that comes to my mind is, what if longest path as computed by P6 only looks at logic links and pays no attention to resource links? Perhaps after resource leveling the logic path becomes discontinuous and the software cannot identify it, not sure, but would suggest to try the following.

1-Filter for longest path once before and once after resource leveling and see if there is any difference. Make sure there is no auto-level setting and that the schedule is unleveled before any run.
2-If there is any difference it might be an indication is due to resource critical activities of the path. But would be suspicions as for why not a warning screen is issued.
3-If there is no difference it does not necessarily means it is considering resource critical path as many times the critical path is not resource driven.
4-If you get a longest path by any of the above then filter by Generator.

It would be interesting to compare P6 results against Ron Winter software under different conditions as to make sure there is always a match.

Best Regards,
Rafael
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Wed, 2010-04-28 17:16
#10
Mark M
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Hi Dean

Have a look at the following White Paper by Ron Winter;

http://www.ronwinterconsulting.com/multi_milestones.pdf

Hope that helps.

Regards
Mark
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Wed, 2010-04-28 17:06
#11
Rafael Davila
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What if you filter first for Longest Path and then for Generator, maybe the sequencing of filters will allow you to get what you want?

I am not a P6 user therefore I do not know how complex filters do work here.

Suppose you want to filter for activities after October 2010 and activities before March 2010, as to exclude those in between, this can be even harder without creating a filter definition first.

If the above does not work maybe you can try by creating a filter definition.
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Wed, 2010-04-28 12:30
#12
Dean Pearcy
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Hi Muhammad,

Thanks for your reply.

I may not have explained it very well, but none of the activities in the section of works described as "generator" are critical as far as the project is concerned. Therefore they would not be captured in a critical filter.

Lets say my project has two areas of work, a generator section and a transformer section. Lets also say that I know the transformer section (with all it’s activities)is the critical path of the whole project. If I filter only for critical path, then the transformer section is correctly highlighted. Now suppose I filter instead for generator. The critical section of transformer is filtered out, BUT as far as the project is concerned, the transformer is STILL the critical path.

Now in the generator section alone, there ARE activities that are critical to the completion of the generator, BUT they are NOT critical to the project. What I want to see is the activities that are critical to the completion of the generator. These are not captured by a critical or longest path filter because they are NOT critical to the project as far as P6 is concerned.

What I am trying to determine is which activities within the generator section can be shortened, to deliver the generator in isolation of delivering the project.

I hope that makes sense :-)

Regards,
Dean.
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Wed, 2010-04-28 12:07
#13
muhammad anwar
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Dean,

What you need to do is define firt parameter with the section which you want to see[in th above case for Generator] and in the second parameter define criterria for critical activities.

In P6 queries are implemented in the given order. If this does not help respond back.

regards

Muhammad
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