New Spider Project Functionalities

Vladimir,

The new formula modifier dialog is awesome, finally not only specific cell references are easy but the conditional selection adds even more power. This improved functionality adds power while simplifying the interface, it is a double bonus. So easy and intuitive no instructions are needed. 

Best Regards,

Rafael

Vladimir,

Got it, it is a Gantt Option you got to setup, it works as expected, it is great. Now I can see in the same Gantt the activities in compared schedule missing on current.

DIFFERENCE fields on absent activities is empty, some value shall be considered for purpose of filtering, maybe an asterisk. 

This reminds me of a minor request for functionality to save and load Gantt Options in a way similar to Layout.

Maybe saved Layout in Project and saved Gantt Options in Project shall be stored on Report Template upon creation. In this way even the time scale zoom size and range on the report will be remembered. 

Best Regards

Rafael

Among the new Spider functionalities I am exploring are:

1. the display of Start/Finish Flex,
2. the display of a difference flag when comparing text fields and
3. the display of activities from the compared project that are absent in the current + place them into separate phase.

Items 1 and 2 are awesome and work as expected, they work on the Gantt as well as on the other tables such as the Calendars Table and Calendars Exceptions Tables.  

Now I will be able to visually see Flex on activities durations, great to determine if, when and how to split activities with Flex. On average about 10% of my activities display Flex, 10% of 600 activities on my typical schedule is 60 activities, and this is a significant number. This is something I have been looking for years, once again many thanks. 

Now I will be able to filter for "Different" and then compare difference in text on changed text only, great for checking changes on calendar details, of most value to those on the other side checking different file versions. 

I am having problems with item 3, another new functionality of great value I cannot wait to use, here I need your help as probably I am doing something wrong with this new functionality fresh from the oven. This functionality is going to be a killer as never before I have been able to do so, great for when you are submitting an update as when submitting a revised baseline schedule, of most value to those on the other side checking the new schedule.  

Best Regards,

Rafael

Found it, it allows me to highlight all or any combination overloaded resources as per my request. By the way the filter for selected resource overloaded activities is very handy.

In the following figure I selected to highlights overloads for resource B only [on the overloads bar], now I see when the overloads occur and can filter for activities at a specific occurrence. As you can see I selected 12/02/2011.

It is perfect just I was not aware.

Perhaps adding to the right click options the <<Resource Peak Work Load Options>> and the <<Resource Peak Work Load>> Calculation menu items will make it even easier.

I would like for the resource overloads bar to roll up the red highlight whenever there is a resource overload, in this way even if I cannot see overloads on my histograms of one among hundreds of resources I would know the times/dates some resource is overloaded and by merely clicking on the appropriate spot I would get the requested information. Maybe black for overloads of any resource(s) of my selection and red for any other overloaded resource.

Maybe the bar shall turn back to completely green after you make any changes to resource loading as a reminder a schedule run must be performed for it to be correct.

Also would like some other options so that when you right click the resource overloads bar you can have the option to select date/time not by clicking but by entering the date/time of interest.

Perhaps an option [as a sticky option] for the selection to jump to nearest overload occurrence if the selection yields no overload at the specific time might make it easier to look for overloads without need to expand the time scale.

Right click in Spider Project is context sensitive and easy to use, better than adding hundreds of menu items that can get on your way.

Resource Overload Report is invaluable for reporting but when solving resource overallocations the overloads bar becomes handy, so much the report is no effective substitute for this function.

Best Regards,

Rafael

P.S. ....  so much functionality in such dumb looking bar it took me some time to notice

Handy but my favorite new functionality is;

When a new user defined field is created it can be shown in all the project tables by default.

This makes it easir to transfer and combine values of different tables into my formulas, there was a way but this is so much easier.

Regards,

Rafael

Vladimir,

About "Link will not be shown as driving if you will select Ignore preceding activity links if activity is in progress." is there a way to make this option not the default when creating new jobs. I do not like it, though I am tolerant to those who plan with it. I believe the planner shall keep the options and others shall be able to identify it, Spider Provides for both, it is just an issue with the default, at times I miss overriding such settings.

Perhaps not only to expand the selection of options but to make it an option to keep the settings when updating the software.

Of course this shall not be a substitute to job templates nor to Reference Books. I would like to have access to a table with those single value fields I can edit given the access rights and I can transfer with Standard Reference Books plus I can report on them.

Regards,

Rafael

Vladimir,

Thanks for this functionality, it will keep true planning intent when predecessor duration varies and lag is a function of the duration instead of a fixed value. This satisfies my modeling needs for continuous PDM activities (99%) as well for those duly splitted, the one percent I split on case by case and not by an across the board unpredictable rule.

Best Regards,

Rafael

Links to something in between start and finish of predecessor and successor.

We have a new functionality for "double links" to fix links to other than activity start or activity finish, it can be based on time or volume of work and can be expressed as percentage. Perhaps a betterment on a functionality I have seen requested by many.

The following link is an example of how this is applied as a percentage of a SS "double link" plus a standard FF link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpHuVC_Dicg

The following example shows how two different SS links type behave, one SS+5 days, another SS after 50% duration of activity 1. Activity 2 will start after 50% of duration of activity 1 or after 5 days, the larger of these two will govern, in no case SS will be less than 5 days based on link calendar which can be equal or different to successor or predecessor calendars. As duration of activity changes as result of skills substitution with different productivity or any other reason the start of activity two will at times be driven by the first link while at times the second link will be the driver.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PbJmy1kiLo

My questions are;

1. Recently I have seen in other forums how out-of-sequence mask CPM logic, the recommended good practice to correct out-of-sequence logic is very relevant. Will broken "double links" that generate out-of-sequence occurrences be duly identified so I can filter for out-of-sequence events?
2. Will I be able to identify driving "double links"?
3. There are many ways by which the duration of an activity might be adjusted, at times by changes in skills productivity, at times as result of actual progress an perhaps others. In the case of partial progress how the duration or volume for link computations is calculated, as actual(s) + remaining?

Regards,

Rafael

From http://cmaanet.org/files/pentagon.pdf you will see the term Banana Curve refers to the combination of Early and Late S-Curves. The following illustration, from the above reference shows the concept but Spider Project in a similar way P3 was able to do, will display a split for the current schedule progress curves, one split representing projected early and the other representing projected late while before the data date the curves converge to the actuals. Spider representation as well as P3 are the most adequate representations.

Because the progress line is almost always below the early finish line, the contractor almost always appears to be “behind schedule. ” This can be an unfair assessment—or it could be a valid assessment. There is insufficient information to judge! A better method of graphing the status is to plot both the early finish curve and the late finish curve together. As shown in Figure 5, this forms the so-called “banana curve. ”

 About Conditional Scheduling, to my understanding this is novel functionality but not a novel need, in fact I believe it to be old and common. It is not unusual to make plans with options that will depend upon the occurrence of some events whose timing is unknown at the initial stages of planning. For the moment we have to make the assumptions and manually change the schedule as these events do happen, even when ahead of time we know the rules for the moment we do not have the tools to embed them into our model. To my view this will be a very welcomed functionality not only because it will prevent omissions but because it will make it transparent as everyone will be informed and aware of these.

About the new functions I believe they are still on the works and a few more are to be released, therefore the English language documentation of these is perhaps on hold for a while, same as the syntax for specific table cell references in formulas. They will be welcomed as I cannot live without the formula functionality as is.

Now in case you have an owner who insists in using his Excel template it is very easy to create the required tabular report with Early and Late values for Cumulative, Per Period or both although it is no longer needed, it would be a caprice. Why wasting a few valuable minutes when it is already there? Yes, now very easy but for these purposes the Excel icon is not needed anymore, the Graph as generated by Spider Project is perfect, even the table of values can be displayed.

As a matter of fact I would trust more on the projected values by the software than those by an Excel spreadsheet that can be manipulated, it makes validation easier, easier for the contractor and easier for the owner's rep who has to certify the projected curve is correct.

Note: The above graph is from a sample job that was updated by delaying the start of the job, therefore no activity show actual start or finish, this is only for a fast illustration of the S Curves. The sample current schedule S-Curve values were obtained by creating a second graph using monthly periods while the graph per se was generated using daily periods. The sample below my posting before DD displays a single line that splits into two just after the DD as expected.

Marcus,

This is even better, we now are able to display Actual, Baseline Early and Baseline Late plus Current Early and Curren late Diagrams, no need to use Excel and with the ability to display multiple Diagrams.

The following functionality, I am still wondering how it is to evolve, is as novel as other resource loading functionalities unique of Spider Project. The software will be able to toggle on/off links based on formula values that might change as the schedule is updated.

Best regards,

Rafael

Muhammad

The following link can be of help for the new Spider Project user.

http://www.spiderproject.ro/pdf/first_project__project_planning.pdf

Regards,

Rafael

oops

Vladimir,

This new view will add a new dimension to reporting, I like the idea of keeping it at the Main Window instead of at the Project Window, it keeps the core easily accessible, excellent choice.

That you do not expect loops is good news, give me some peace of mind, Dynamic/Conditional links I believe will add additional advantage to Spider over the rest.

Best Regards,

Rafael

Vladimir,

So far so good, but as you said it is under development, to me it is not just about the Gantt but also about the view giving access to material usage reports and some extra fields not available in other views. Are we going to have some reporting capabilities here?

By the way, about "dynamic links" that can be toggled on and off by formula execution my anxiety is based on the fear it might be an imposible dream, I fear that as schedule logic varies with these dynamic links then resource leveling will vary and if you run several times the schedule computation in some ocassions might converge to the same solution while in other ocassions it might not. Not sure about how this is to be implemented but fear the possibility of never ending "do-loops" and how are you to mange the issue if there is such possibility.

I feel like a kid to which a box of candies is shown but not allowed to reach it.

Best regards,

Rafael

P.S. You shall click "Disable rich-text" paste your links and go back to rich text to continue with your reply.

Vladimir,

A few moths ago I read on the internet that optimization algorithms although all search for the optimum how close will depend on the particular schedule, some schedules will be better optimized by a certain algorithm while others by other algorithm. Perhaps the response is so complicated that only by running the different algorithms you will know which is best for your particular schedule.

If Optimization and Optimization + target the same group of schedules then is ok to remove the first, and keep the space for other algorithms that target other schedule groups.

The trick to select previous optimization after selecting optimization plus in order to speed it up is a good one, thanks for the advice.

I have noticed (I believe), that the use of certain functionalities such as Skills can also impose some extra burden on the resource leveling and therefore can slow the computations. Am I correct?  I ask because most of my schedules are of about 600 activities, so small that the difference is not much.

Best regards,

Rafael

Vladimir,



Thanks, the materials display is very welcomed and so will be the Materials Gantt as fields particular of material resources will be available on the table view.



I would not oppose if a Time Distribution Table View is also added for resources, materials and costs. I do not pretend the view to be a substitute to the tabular reports I can generate with my templates, it is a matter of speed while navigating on the computer screen. Perhaps something faster to setup at the expense of the versatility of the report generator. It would be great if by adjusting time scale it would automatically adjust periods. I am used so much to the slider to adjust timescale that whenever I use other software the lack of this simple functionality annoys me.



I was also thinking about scrolling vertical and horizontal icons bars. The vertical similar to MS Project, this concept can be applied to the horizontal bar. In this way if you have a reduced window you will still be able to reach all icons. I do not like menus to be customizable as every time I must use other person computer where the menus have been customized I get lost, I prefer standardization of menus.



I clocked the real time to download last upgrade, it took less than 2 minutes and install less than one, is this is an improvement on the server? This is how all enterprise and portfolio capable software should be. Sorry but good things you got to celebrate. Download and install takes two clicks of the mouse maybe you can set it up to auto-install to save one click.



Best regards,

Rafael

Vladimir,



“When you decide to crash the schedule you think not about just shortening some activity duration but about something real - use additional resources, different technology, or increasing resource work time. Any measure is complex and will lead to many changes in your schedule.”



Yes I realized that in my simplified mechanical model the spring constant might represent resistance to compression (a cost issue) but the element of resources is missing, therefore compression of the schedule is not that simple even when disregarding the extra resources for the activities being crashed you still cannot disregard original resources. Anyway I was kind of uncomfortable with not considering the new resources in my wish to find a simplified procedure.



About material resources being shown in the Gantt chart this is quite convenient; in what version number it will be displayed? I just downloaded new version 10.01.69 but could not see them. Are these resource bars to have different color than regular resource bars? I was looking at the sample construction job, so you can make reference to it.



Materials resources I do not use much, but when needed there is no substitute for the modeling of these, still on my mind the modeling of space as a material resource.



Best regards,

Rafael