(1) Explain your problem, don't simply post "This isn't working". What were you doing when you faced the problem? What have you tried to resolve - did you look for a solution using "Search" ? Has it happened just once or several times?
(2) It's also good to get feedback when a solution is found, return to the original post to explain how it was resolved so that more people can also use the results.
I am thinking in the old P3 asterisk which told me what activity was driving.
I have one activity with many predecesors, how do I know which one is driving?
Best regards,
Carlos.
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Mark,
I agree that it can be of some help if using software 100% compatible, and especially when analyzing intermediate contract milestones. The problem is that it is not necessary valid for resource leveled schedules, it can miss the resource dependencies and therefore get lost.
By the way in order for this to be valid it must be fully compatible with Spider Project functionality and to my understanding no two CPM software are 100% compatible, different functionalities, different math, different results. Even when schedules are not perfect their analysis and comparison must be based on some uniform rules, you cannot change software as if a change of tie.
I doubt yours is tailored for 100% compatibility with Spider Project, in our case it does not matter if it does or does not get lost with resource leveld project, in our case it can get lost with any.
Best regards,
Rafael
Have you tried Longest Path Approximator? http://scheduling.spacetechnology.net It is capable of moving the data date back to the beginning of the month, and then you can see the critical path. Hint: Ask for a free sample!
Marcus you got it right.
Traditional ladder activities such as those in my masonry example are not true continuous feed. You can finish the masonry installation and vary the rate of progress for tie beams and columns. On the other hand the concrete finishing operation are more like continuous feed, as pouring progress the rate of concrete spreading shall be continuous or you will get into problems.
Although this kind of activities shall not enforce resource leveling this by no means imply no resource loading at all. It can be very interesting how resource loading constraint the activities. If you assign special resources to this activity type and set a minimum and maximum feeding rate then how much you shorten or expand the ladder can be constrained by incoming and outgoing feeding rates. For example in the concrete pouring operation for a certain thickness of slab you can progress the area of concrete pouring at a certain rate limited by the pouring equipment, the rate of concrete spreading might be limited by the allowable time for concrete to be workable for spreading, the rate of concrete floating might also be limited to a different range. While pure continuous feed activities will have no free float under limited variable feed conditions they could have some free float.
Yes construction industry have true continuous feed processes similar to a factory production line.
About Carlos request for Spider to have a formula bar to display the contents of the active cell how about having the option for the formula bar be similar to that in Excel and to be detached as a separate window as a right click option, always on top of other Spider windows, in this way I can keep my project window on my big monitor while the other windows are displayed on the small laptop screen. In detached mode the window can be resized, moved around and maybe can even display a preview of linked files.
Best regards,
Rafael
Hi Rafael,
I agree- strict links must be stable and should not be eliminated.
When you say “This is why I believe a stable implementation shall be done at the activity type definition as to control how links operate on this special activity type.” it seems that you are demanding a “Process Activity”. SurellySpider Project would overtake itself, implementing as continuous feed activity relationship model modeling a real production, like a “factory”.
The majority of our books selling is due to our courses and not due to buyers’ interests. They exists just to support our classes and some Distance Learning quality criteria.
Best Regards,
Marcus POssi
Marcus,
I agree, if strict links can be stable they should not be eliminated. I want this functionality, but it got to be 100% predictable. But first you got to take out the inconsistencies, you shall take out incompatible requirements. This is why I believe a stable implementation shall be done at the activity type definition as to control how links operate on this special activity type. If this can be programmed in this way perhaps Spider will be the first to implement predictable strict links and with predictable strict links other activity types such as true continuous feed activity relationships can be modeled, where a delay in a predecessor/successor will adjust predecesso/successor finish as to keep the continuous feed uniform, in other words keeping either time or volume lag strict relationships.
About the concrete masonry partitions, this is typical in our jobs as masonry partitions are present in over 90% of all our jobs. The school example is real, is a kind of frequent everyday neighborhood job, this is our bulk. Still the power of Spider Project is welcomed for our day to day schedules.
The price of your book is very competitive, both the electronic version as well as the paper version.
Best regards,
Rafael
Hi Rafael :)
I understood you concrete masonry partitions example clearly now. Yes you can make it simple.
About strict links, we got today the last release, and I think some new ads were done there to make it more consistent. I have written to Vladimir and asked him if my suspicions are correct.
I have made the same tests on the same file every new release. This last one seems to respect strict link modeling with two exceptions. It seems that does not work under “standard resource level method”, and It seems to respect and obey to the “resource leveling” constraint but consider not schedule under the “exceptions” applied on activities’ calendars.
If strict link functionality becomes stable I consider it should not be eliminated, it gives us some strong (strict) opportunity in modeling. Best Regards,
Marcus Possi
Visit www.spiderproject-book.com (there is the new 4th spider book edition there :) )
Marcus,
"Continuous feed activities do exists in construction projects so why not using all these “tasks” inside the main activity." - Yes you got to be practical, we do not schedule our jobs with such granularity, it was just an example. But for some process we must keep the details.
Take for example concrete masonry partitions in our typical schools. At home in our schools we do not use gypsum partitions but cement plastered concrete walls and masonry partitions. We schedule the operations overlapping the activities by dividing the areas into manageable chunks with activity durations of 2 to 4 weeks as required in our specifications.
The following is typical fragment of a rural elementary school.
Each wing might consist of several classrooms, laboratories, storage etc. It make no sense to create the four activities per room, there might be 1 to 30 rooms per wing, and you do not know in advance the exact sequence that will be followed on the field. Maybe there are only a couple of rooms so you will not finish in a single day a room, in such case it makes sense to work several activities in parallel in the same room as long as you keep a reasonable distance within the crews. Most project managers follow the production rate, the volume of work per time, they look for ways to make it steady and not leapfrogging.
It shall be obvious our need to keep separate the overlapping activities. If you use a single activity and a single masonry installation crew then you would not be able to start masonry on other wing until the single activity finishes.
In this case there no such thing as a pure FS sequence, it is arbitrary no matter how you paint it. How would you schedule the above if a wing consists of 30 rooms and if a wing consists of 3 rooms with equal total volume of work per wing but different volume per room? No need to display resource loading using partial workloads for crews/multi-resources, we both understand the method, keep it simple, it took me 4 rows per wing.
Good luck with the strict links, I never figured out how to make them work consistently. Because Spider hammocks are different that those in other software and they by-pass resource leveling I use them for my strict links activities. You can even define a fixed duration hammock by linking its start and finish predecessor to the same node (start/finish) of a predecessor activity.
I believe strict link functionality shall be eliminated until a compromise is figured out, it creates more confusion than whatever it does. One possible compromise can be to define the link through new activity type that will only have a single predecessor (the strict link), will not resource level and will have as many successors as desired. For other activity types the strict link shall not be available.
Best regards,
Rafael
Hi Rafael,
You said that “even the most basic and common operations … might require a continuous feed from one activity to another”. Should it be considered as tasks under one activity? The activity “concrete pillars” requires doubtless “pour concrete” and “spread the concrete” and “float concrete” and “trowel it”? Of course these tasks must be performed sequenced one after other. Sometimes the delay is not relevant and the resources applied could be considered together. When I asked about mandatory against the arbitrary was to initiate the debate about modeling. I have always get away of such sequencing once they make the schedule crowd and heavy. Is it really profitable to make such identification, on finish to finish and start to start links and lags?
Imagine that when you finish the “trowel concrete” of course the “pour concrete” will be already finished.
Continuous feed activities do exists in construction projects so why not using all these “tasks” inside the main activity?
Sometimes I challenge the class to find up a real mandatory finish to finish and a start to start link . They never find a pratical case.
The other example you gave about laying of underground pipes, tunneling, epoxy for structural binding of two concrete surfaces, inspection services, concrete curing, earth surcharges and monitoring was much more interesting.
Now I am studying the “strict link” feature of Spider Project, it is a very strong concept, that will help us a lot here J
Best regards,
Even the most basic and common operations in construction jobs might require a continuous feed from one activity to another. Take for example placing and finishing of a slab on ground. You first pour concrete but as you pour you must spread the concrete, then you float it and then you trowel it. The activities must be performed on a timed sequence and succeeding activities cannot be scheduled too far.
In the following screen you will see a figure displaying the concreting operations, somewhat simplified. You can use activities of the duration type or activities of the hammock type. The hammock type method is a better representation of true continuous feed even when for some updating can be a challenge.
These types of schedules are common in production operations and here using volume lag is the appropriate type of lag and not the time lag.
It is a misconception that continuous feed does not exists in construction activities, it is rather common. Modeling continuous feed using discrete activities as to mimic the lag is in error.
Other examples can be; laying of underground pipes, tunneling, epoxy for structural binding of two concrete surfaces, inspection services, concrete curing, earth surcharges and monitoring and many others.
For your information in our schedules about 5% to 10% of our activities are scheduled with some overlapping, usually the overlapping is as arbitrary as if using separate activities when it is a preferential quantity, not always we use overlapping on pure continuous feed operations, it is an arbitrary lag but better than using two arbitrary duration activities, is even more transparent as the intention of keeping the activities in sync can be inferred. Keep in mind that resource leveling might break the continuity among the splits and this can result in error, be careful on how you set your logic when you need to keep in sync such overlaps. You got to keep control on the splits.
When you start a job and decide to start a road from one end to another or from the middle to the ends, this is preferential logic, it is somewhat arbitrary, and we got to accept schedules are kind of arbitrary, otherwise at the click of the mouse all software would yield exactly the same schedule.
Hi Rafael, Every time I deal with students and professionals I mention that the "finish - start" is the natural (and sometimes an obligation) link type we should use, all the other ones are arbitrary. Could you please present me an example of such allien link as shown in "escavation fundation" iwe read in Asta notes you attached ? Some example that are really an obligation (mandatory) to a planner instead of arbitrary? I have been working with eletrical engineer for a long time and I never modeled something so "complex" :) best regards, marcus possi Best Regards,
The following print screen displays how Asta implements interruptible tasks.
I do not know if Asta use a single rule, an individual rule or a combination that uses the general rule unless overridden by an individual rule. In any case it is better than nothing because you can use the general rule as a reference and then decide how to manually split your activities.
In summary the interruptible task shall be applied at the option of the scheduler when:
1- Splitting will result in a lower duration resource leveled job.
2- Splitting will result in a lower duration job when an activity start and finish links compete for the scheduling of the activity. This might occur when an activity has predecessor links to its start and its finish and the activity has a successor linked to its start. In Spider the effect of double links, if any, shall be considered.
The splitting options and rules for both conditions shall be available on the same screen/heading as to make it easier to understand what each splitting rule means, using different screens/headings can be confusing, for example possible splitting rules can be;
Allow Activity Splitting for:
___Resource leveling............___ Min split size= xx hours/days.....Max number of splits= xx splits.
___Reverse logic condition....___ First split size= xx hours/days
As a matter of fact after running the splitting rules by the software I would always manually split my activities as to see full details of every split; like early start, float ... perhaps this could be an enhancement of this functionality.
Best regards,
Rafael
Hello Rafael !!!
"I never liked the idea of applying splitting using a rule across the board for any reason, now we can have a splitting rule per activity for resource leveling and use the across the board rule for comparison purposes. This is good."
Msproject applied it "splitable" to their activities. Of course it does not work, as well as the whole resource level algorithm. But I am experiment a work with "boat travel " where it became "the" solution. I have also asked to move the overall "Continuous performance not less than ..." into each activity. Let's wait.
"I never liked the idea of applying interruptible activity durations using a rule across the board, but same as above liked the idea on allowing for interruptible activity durations on a one by one case. To me both reasons for splitting individual activities are justified. Applying any of these two rules to all activities across the board is usually not good planning as continuous activities are more efficient and you need individual rules. What I do not understand is why Spider accepts the first idea and not the second."
The first idea means is spliting and the second is continuous. Well continuous in Spider is not Continuous as you imagine, I could call it "attending to first hour" instead. And I am using it as well on my "boats" :)
"P3 automatically schedules a project using contiguous activity duration, which requires that work be continuous but adhere to the network logic. Interruptible activity duration schedules activities so the number of work periods between the start and finish may be greater than the duration. The remaining duration remains the same, but work is not performed continuously. For example, some activities have finish dates that are constrained by a finish to finish or start to finish relationship or by an early finish constraint. When using contiguous activity duration, the finish relationship or constraint affects the start and finish dates of the activity. When using interruptible activity duration, the finish relationship or constraint, but not the start date, affects the finish date. The activity can start earlier, based on its predecessors or constraints."
I am not a Primavera hard user so I cant comment it :(
Best Regards to you all,
marcus possi
.......................................................................Why?
Hi,
In release 10.03.39, September the 8th, we find three more fields in Activity Gantt:
"Restrict Performance Interruptions "
"Restrict Performance Interruptions [Duration] "
"Restrict Performance Interruptions [Unit]"
With these three adjusts we are able to set specific conditions to each desired Activity . If a specific Activity is interruptible or not, and under which conditions.
Besides the "Continuous" and "Splitable" fields it makes or modeling really too much rich and too less risky.
The transport activities now are very well and particularly placed.
See the preview.
Take a look at the following schedule:
SureTrak identifies driving/delaying activity links for activity 1 to activity 5 and activity 2 to activity 5 in two ways, at the links pane and at the activity Gantt by displaying in solid lines driving links. SureTrak does not identifies delaying resources.
Spider only identifies activity 2 to activity 5 link, the same goes for delaying resources, only one at a time. If the activity was delayed at some point in time due to the lack of one or several resources my concern would be to find out all that could have delayed the activity and the difference between the resource(s) need and the available(s) at time of delay. In other words the minimum amount of each extra resource I need to provide to the particular activity to un-delay it due to resource availability keeping all other constraints (including activity prioritization) constant. Obviously unlimited resources will un-delay all activities but this is very rare, resources are limited.
The functionality works and gives you all information if you know how to use it, though not without some "what-if" manipulation. To me, identifying delaying relationships is like using an x-ray machine but for identifying delaying resources you need an MRI machine and this Spider functionality can identify driving resources. This is the beginning of this functionality, if eventually we know the missing amount of resources that caused the delay it will even be better, an open MRI.
Also the delay reason takes much space so I will repeat Carlos request for Spider to be able to display contents of active cell on a "formula bar" similar to Excel.
As you can see even if the expanded rows and width are not enough you can still scroll the formula bas as to see the full contents of the cell. This is particularly needed in Spider Project as many if not all fields have no limit as to the amount of characters, even activity codes as long as code requirements are met can be a thousand characters or more, very convenient when working with Portfolio codes as a few characters can always still be added, an issue I have seen other users have when their thousands activities jobs cannot be loaded into the Portfolio because they already are on the limit and the software cannot add a portfolio prefix as required. Unlimited field size are great functionality but require a more flexible formula bar, similar to Excel that can be multi line and scrolled.
Hi,
With so many new features I think I will have to upgrade my brain. :)
Carlos, the pictures were taken off from my screen too :(
The help and "what’s new" are more difficult to maintain than the program source code. Different from other companies that promote PM tools, Spider Project is very intensive in better performance and behavior than Highlight in shadowy “degradeè” bubble charts :)
The use of "Delay Reasons" in assignment lines will produce a very strong effect to simulations and schedule analysis, for planners and controllers.
Really “I think I will have to upgrade my brain twice at the end of this ‘delay reason’ ”.
marcus possi
Vladimir, this new feature works great. I like it a lot! It identifies exactly the delaying factor, it could not be in other way given the multiple kind of constraints available in Spider.
Thank you.
By the way, am I the only who could not see the schedules posted by Marcus? They seem very interesting.
Best regards!
-Carlos.
Vladimir,
Besides when skill scheduling is applied activity delay may cause an assignment of different resource.
This is one of the reasons why I was thinking about the resource delay be displayed not in the activity row but in the particular resource row, in case of skills it would bo on the skill level row and not on an individual resource. Being honest this I was thinking but about partial assignments, never passed through my mind the issue on skills. Also resource name and code would be identified by the row itself and display of delay on the resource row would be enough.
If activity is delayed due to some constraint for several hours and new start is delayed due to calendar exception it may be confusing to see that the delay is only several hours when an activity starts a week later.
I never thought about it, but only to display the delay due to the date constraint. Displaying all individual calendar exceptions might be too much but a note saying some calendar exceptions ocurred during the delay period might help.
We are working on further improvements like making some scheduling conditions individual for project activities (as Marcus proposed).
I cannot be in more agreement with Marcus request, to me it is very rare for some conditions to be applied to all activities across the board. But to have the ability to compare the condition across the board to actual individual conditions at a single click can be very convenient, same as when comparing unleveled to leveled schedule.
Thanks for the clarification, at times what seems easy is not because of some unsuspecting reasons, we need your assistance to understand these.
Best regards,
Rafael
Rafael,
we decided to show elapsed tme when activty is delayed.
Activity is scheduled during hours that are working for an actvty itself and for assigned resources. So no single calendar can be used for calculating activity delay. Besides when skill scheduling is applied activity delay may cause an assignment of different resource. If activty is delayed due to some constraint for several hours and new start is delayed due to calendar exception it may be confusing to see that the delay is only several hours when an activity starts a week later.
We are working on further improvements like making some scheduling conditions individual for project activities (as Marcus proposed). They will be available soon. Unfortunately the package is developed very fast and Help is always behind.
Best Regards,
Vladimir
Marcus,
Perhaps the new functionality is still on the works. Spider keep us with updates almost every other day, this because it is so easy to make a full upgrade or even a new installation that it takes about 2 to 4 minutes including the download time, but keeping what is new on a dally basis can create confusion. To me it is not just about what is new but also about Spider Help in due time.
Some of these functionalities are complex, for example the delay reason, as of now, only identifies one reason at a time, perhaps because it is still on the works or maybe because the computations to disclose all at once will impose too much overhead on schedule calculations. Even if only one delay reason is/(will be) displayed at a time the functionality does its work very well as we usually deal with complex resource issues one resource at a time. It does not matter in what order as a single resource can make the schedule to be delayed.
Best regards,
Rafael
HI !
It is time to refresh the "Whats New " :)
The amount of new features happens as an avalanche.
http://www.spiderproject.ru/whn_r.php?p=2|6
marcus possi
Vladimir,
A few days ago only resource delays were displayed, today also logic delays and duration of delay are shown.
Look at the next figure, time constraints delays are still missing and wonder about activities delayed due to financial constraints. Although time constraints are graphically displayed by Spider Project and are easy to identify when driving, financial constraint delays might be more difficult to identify. I do not make much use of financial constraints but at some time I will need them.
What calendar is being used for delay durations? The activity calendar, the link calendar, calendar days or other? Calendar days would keep uniformity and believe this was your choice, please confirm or clarify.
Now there will be no constant need to go back and forth to logic diagrams or resource histograms, I got much of the information right next to my activities.
I understand this will not give me the solution of how to get my job on track as there are many possibilities that shall be decided by management and not a limited set of rules. But it gives me much understanding at the blink of the eye.
Thanks again for this functionality, finally my question on what is driving/delaying my activities have been answered in a better way I thought possible.
Best regards,
Rafael
Accepted and will be done soon.
Best Regards,
Vladimir
Hi Vladimir,
Now I know, this new field is part of my layout !!!!
Please do not forget to inform that the "Splitable" option was also improved. Now we may turn on an option "Allow performance interruptions not longer than "x" days" in order all activities (splitable or not) will be performed completely before or after the exception period. The "splitable activities" are now ignored in this option – they may start before an exception and finish after.
There are some ideas I would share with you all.
This case with 3 boats to level under a non working time (exception) in june 2011 (CPM) :( presents this schedule.
If resource scheduled, the same case (with 3 boats) under a "non working time" (exception) in june 2011 - although not splitable - "cod-001-042" was scheduled in two different periods. I did not used the combination "allow.. than" with "not splitable" yet.
Now, the same case with 3 boatsis under "not splitable" - "cod-001-042" but with 0 hour of "Alow Interruptions .. than".
Could we think that the "allow performance interruptions not longer than " and "Continuous performance not less than ..." should be applied to each activity ?
In this example my problems is only in transport acitivities, not all of them. I could allow interruptions on the rest of them.
Best Regards to All,
marcus possi
WOW, BEAUTIFULL, THAT IS WHAT I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR YEARS !
Forget about schedule report, this is an always available field, this is better. I got the information right next to my activities where I need it not on a separate report.
Rafael,
n current version of Spider you may see what resource delayed activity execution.
In the future versions you will also see the duration of the delay that was caused by this resource shortage and the number of additional resources that were needed for delayed activty.
By the way schedule report is stored as text fle and may be opened by any word processor.
Look at the screenshot:
Just take a look at the following image.
It is statement 4 what I am looking for. If I increase resource A availability then Activity 3 can be brought back two weeks while if I decrease Activity 2 resource A demand from two to one I can bring back Activity 3 only one week. The statement not only tells me about how much but also which resources so I do not waste time looking for other resources nor assign more than needed resources. What if will always be needed, it is a matter of giving some clues.
It does not matter no software provides this information within a simple report, the need is still there.
Best regards,
Rafael
Vladimir,
"Do you know that Spider can keep schedule reports in the Log file, that can be opened at any time? I suspect that you missed this."
I did not missed the fact, what I am missing is where and how to get the last scheduled report when I change schedule or schedule versions.
The disclosing of resources delaying an activity I understand is a very complex issue, perhaps avoided by many developers. I do not expect the disclosure will give me complete understanding as at the same time other activities in the leveling queue were delayed at the same time with higher priority. Just an extra bit of information I do not know yet how best to disclose. Please work on the idea and the need, don't get contaminated by my details, they are just for illustration purposes of my need.
About MSP initially I liked the idea on disclosing on a separate pane the delays on an activity, but now I realize it falls very short of my expectations. I wanted you to know it is not like I initially posted, my mistake.
Best regards,
Rafael
Rafael,
why bother if nobody uses MSP for automatic resource leveling?
Do you know that Spider can keep schedule reports in the Log file, that can be opened at any time? I suspect that you missed this.
Best Regards,
Vladimir
Vladimir,
I no longer use MSP and was looking for how it identifies delaying resources, seems it does not. Excuse me if this caused some inconveniences.
Best regards,
Rafael
Vladimir,
After you implement what you have said I will be able to do a few things I have never before been able to do before, such as the filtering of activities delayed by a specific resource availability. There is more than just logic links.
Yes the information about links is available in other views but being able to see if a link is critical at the activity pane is handy, especially when changing the logic and you are interested in knowing, after the deletion of a driving link which is the new driving link.
Additional functionality must be of practical use, otherwise it is a waste, adding overhead to the software must be weighted and justified.
Once again, thanks for your unparalleled response.
Rafael
PS. By the way, your continuous improvement on the diagrams (histograms) interface is welcomed, the addition of a new tab and few options that are self explaining makes it even easier. It is a blessing full software updates takes less than two minutes.
Rafael,
in the Links table you have a field that shows if the dependency is driving.
Filters may be applied and you can filter only driving activities.
Besides the filters applied to Links table may be shown in the Gantt Chart. So you may see only driving activity dependencies or dependencies selected by any other rule.
I cannot imagine what else could be needed.
We will discuss where to show driving resources - information is available (as I wrote earlier - in the schedule report) but is not shown in Spider tables.
Best Regards,
Vladimir
Vladimir,
I almost never print Schedule Report but would like to be able to print it not just after a Schedule run but at any time, perhaps with the date and time of last schedule run as a reference. This I was unable to do with P3 nor SureTrak, only just after a schedule run. On a job with many activities with complicated resource leveling or even on a portfolio I might need to take a look at the report without having to perform a schedule run.
About creating new field would be great, but, would it be a multi-valued-field as not one but a few can be driving at the same time? I cannot wait to see how it will be implemented. On the activities table? This will enable me to filter for activities driven by specific resources, something I have never been able to do, it would be a bit better than Super. This will guide me to concentrate on the relevant resource histograms.
Also remember about the convenience of having the driving links on the activity links tab as requested by Carlos, this wil make it a check mate at first move.
Best regards,
Rafael
Rafael,
iScarce resources for all activities that are delayed due to resource constraints are listed in Spider schedule report. We shall just define where to put this information. Create a new field?
Best Regards,
Vladimir
Steve,
Reverse logic SF/FF driving link followed by a SS driving link is not necessary, many other scenarios can be developed, perhaps the statement is true only when using SF links.
SS, SF and FF links as well as calendars, date constraints and resource allocation add to the difficulty but are needed to model real life scheduling issues. At times even these are not enough.
To me, resource allocation is the most difficult but is what drives my schedules unless artificially some preferential logic takes precedence. In theory if I can build in 3 months a BK store from earth moving to first hamburger then any housing development can be done in 3 months, no matter if 3 or 3,000 units. It is about resources, even money is a constraint.
Vladimir,
I consider the creation of a resource dependencies very valuable, it unveils the critical path in a way it is "less unclear", to me it does not matter if displays only one resource critical activity, displaying all can be a major mess. But displaying what resources made this activity critical is a bit of information that can be of some help.
Note that when I refer to driving resources I am talking about resources that delay the start of an activity not to resources that drive the duration of a resource driven activity, similar but different. I am using the name driver as to its meaning be similar to driving predecessors.
Best regards,
Rafael
Hi Steve,
Depending on the calendars each activity uses it is quite possible for a successor to have 2 predecessors with less float than it, and to be driven by a 3rd predecessor with more float.
Cheers,
G
Okay, Rafael, got it. Thanks. (Interesting that this example again is based on an SF-driven task being pred of an SS-driven task!)
Can we say that the driving task will always have float that is EQUAL TO OR LESS than the successor? Is it possible to have more than one predecessor with less float than a given activity? And if so there are TWO preds with float that is less than the successor, the one with the LESS float is the driving activity? Might make the process of identifying the driving activity easier...
Fraternally in project management,
Steve the Bajan
Vladimir,
The driver is the resource being used by several activities. What I am interested is which of the many resources used by any of the previous activities, linked or not, is or are are driving. I am interested in knowing what resource availability delayed the activity. In MSP there is a view that disclose what resource delayed an activity. Good functionality under poor resource leveling, I want this particular functionality under Spider Project exceptional resource leveling.
If someone ask me what is delaying this activity I want to be able to tell it was becaus of the availability of certain resource being used by other activities. If asked how much time is the availability of this resource delaying the start of the activity that would be another 20 bucks.
Best regards,
Rafael
Steve,
if activities have different calendars they will have different floats.
If to filter Links table leaving only driving activities you will get the Gantt Chart with only driving relationships. Filters applied to Links table may show only Driving, or only Hard, or only Soft, or only SS, or FS, or only relationships with some user defined properties, or some combination of above, etc.
This is easy and powerful.
With resource links it is more complicated because sometimes it is impossible to decide which of two activities is preceding if both used the same resources, finish at the same time and delayed another activity but necessary number of resources became available when each of them finished. Spider selects one but could select another.
Best Regards,
Vladimir
Activity 5 is driven by start of activity 4, activity 4 start and finish float are equal but different to successor. If to this you add resource leveling without activity splitting it get a bit more complicated, if you add resource leveling splitting this add another bit of complication as start float and finish float might differ.
Guess a sample with activities driven only by logic is enough to prove not necessarily driving predecessor float must equal to successor activity float.
Okay, folks, call me stupid, but then please explain to me:
Why wouldn't the driving activity(ies) always be the one(s) that has (have) exactly the same amount of total float as the successor?
I suspect that there is something I'm missing, but what is it? Can someone give me an example where the driving activity, in either a CPM or resource schedule, wouldn't have the same amount of TF as its successor?
Fraternally in project management,
Steve the Bajan
Carlos,
On the Gantt chart would not disclose which specific link is driving as between any two activities there might be more than two links.
Whay you are asking I believe I have asked before but to be displayed at the links tab similar to P3 and SureTrak.
This I have asked before as well as for when an activity is delayed by resource leveling I would like to know which one(s) of the activity resources availability delayed the activity. My favorite statement being "I want to know what is driving my activities" and it is not only about logic links but also about resources.
Mike,
About displaying driving links using pink dots seems to me a useless request as on real life jobs links displayed on the Gantt and on the PERT are impossible to follow. Only of value on very few activities sample jobs. Spider display resource dependencies using slashed lines but this does not tells you about which resource is driving as MSP does.
To me it is more about substance than the mere looks when talking about scheduling.
Carlos is being honest on his requests, the difference lies on the direct and honest responses we are getting from Spider Team.
Best regards,
Rafael
Oh I have just noticed the "DRIVING" field on the links table- It would be good to see this field in the gantt chart.
Mike, you got the post #1000 on Spider Project Forum.
Spider project can filter all concurring paths to one activity, but when the activity has many links it is hard to identify which one is driving.
But I take your advice on deleting links, it is a good workaround to having an asterisk which tells what link is driving.
Best Regards.
Carlos.
Hi Carlos
In Asta there is an option to hide non driving links.
Another way is to save the file and delete the links in turn and see what the task does on reschedule.
If the task moves thats a non driving link - if it stays still thats your driver.
Best regards
Mike Testro
Email: PPadmin@planningplanet.com
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