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Resource Bars and Activity Bars

14 replies [Last post]
Sun, 2008-11-16 02:22
Keyel Isorena
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Have a problem much related to my previous post.
sorry Anoon, had to make new post.

just want to know how does p3 derives the resources’ early starts & finishes? because displaying both the activity bar and the resource bar in p3.1, the resource bars are longer than that of the activity’s. this happened after i updated a schedule for the first time. isnt p3 suppose to distribute the resource of an activity over the duration of the activity? in my case, this didnt happen and so in the resource table, previous week’s progress werent shown on a weekly resource profile, rather, they are accumulated in this weeks progress.

please share some advice.
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Replies

Mon, 2008-12-01 18:16
#1
Keyel Isorena
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Erdem, i did not specified the resource durations in the first place, it is only after i found out that the resource bars doesnt coinside (ES & EF) with the activity bars when i used the global change. my resource lags are 0
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Thu, 2008-11-27 07:30
#2
Erdem Uysal
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Dear Keyel,
Regarding your statement "... found out that, still, resource’s duration doesnt follow the remaining duration of the activity, and so i am stilll using global change to correct this."
A Note from P3.1 Help documents:
"When you specify resource lag and duration, you must reduce the resource duraiton to show progress. P3 does not automatically reduce resource duration when you record activity progress."
I think, you are expecting a calculation that P3.1 is not programmed to do it.
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Thu, 2008-11-27 06:03
#3
Keyel Isorena
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Erdem, maybe you are referring to an schedule that has already an update.

My query is on a schedule that hasnt been updated.

Please refer to my previous post, the one with the example with an activity having 10 day duration..

Supposedly, an activity with a duration of 10 day, will have its resource’s duration to be 10 days too right? but in my case, changing the original duration of the schedule i am revising, doesnt changes the duration of its resource. again, this activity has no progress yet. and so the data date is that of the project start.

Regarding your reply, i tried it now on my updated schedule i found out that, still, resource’s duration doesnt follow the remaining duration of the activity, and so i am stilll using global change to correct this. and checking your advice, i found that both the "at completion" & "to complete" values of both resource & cost of my schedule when i update using import of % complete from a dbf file, are just equal to that of the budget quantities/cost. this is without running a global change i have previously discussed, which will match the resource’s %complete/expended with that of the activities % complete after i have inputed the actual dates of the activities that have progressed. in other words, during an update, p3 only reflects the activity % complete. it is only when i run a the global change that p3 calculted the actual this period and to date values of both resource’s cost & quantity.

Thank you all for the reply, and please if you have other ideas we can try, please dont hesitate to post it.
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Wed, 2008-11-26 23:35
#4
Erdem Uysal
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Dear Keyel and friends,
At the end of an 2 hours investigation, one of my friends and me realized that the problem was the "Budgeted Cost" values that had not been accrued yet because of remaining "Cost To Complete" values.

Keyel, would you pls check the "Cost" values of the "Budgeted Quantities" and confirm all of the "Cost Values" are acrrued. Then the Resource Early Finish date will not come to the DATA DATE.
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Wed, 2008-11-26 12:11
#5
Erdem Uysal
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Dear Peter,
If you check the option of "AutoCost Rules/Resource Rules" as "Link remainig duration and schedule percent complete", there is no way of changing the RD without you changing the OD.

I think the problem here is diffirent. I need to know how P3.1 calculates (or read the data) of "Resource Early Start" and "Resource Early Finish" dates. Because "Resource Early Finish" date is diffirent than Actual Finish date of the activity... How can it be?
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Wed, 2008-11-26 08:59
#6
Peter Ayre
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If the activity has Actual Start checked and percent complete greater than zero, then the resource data is effectively frozen ie. this is your original plan. Changing the OD will have no effect unless you change RD as well, but changing the OD in a status update is not really the right thing to be doing anyway. Leave OD alone, this is after all the original plan. If you decide to do something differently once an activity has started use RD to reflect this.
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Wed, 2008-11-19 23:18
#7
Erdem Uysal
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Hello,

I think I have the same problem. It is been a while I was updating my schedule periodically. But I just realized when I checked the resource distributions among the months with the activity early dates.

As Keyel said, resource dates are not with in the range of activity early dates. I do not know the reason, but it seems to be an error. If I had done my further calculations based on P3.1 "Resource Loading Report" it would have been wrong. I hope the problem is clear. Anybody knows anything about this problem?

Thanks,
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Wed, 2008-11-19 07:42
#8
Keyel Isorena
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The values in the example i have presented is merely of illustrative purposes, and i have choosen the total value instead of peak or average because, as i have said, my activities have about 4 resources and are not purely labor. although my concern is the labor resource, p3’s computation of labor and non labor resources are just the same, right? so i want to be sure p3 is loading the resources at the right time (the duration, ES & EF of its host activity) before i check the labor resources and then do a leveling.

hope this could clear some misunderstandings,
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Wed, 2008-11-19 07:12
#9
Ferdinand Fincale...
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Keyel,

Review well your productivity rates application and thoroughly check your limits for leveling resources to its realistic approach and re-run scheduling and leveling until you get the desired result. Forcing the P3 by using the global change will be helpful only in one step of your program presentation, but in the real aspect of your program in forecasting the required resources for your project, it is not helpful. At this point in time, your program is telling you that you need that much resources for an activity within a specified length of time due to limits that you impose. Therefore, focus on that issue and resolve the problem. You can’t always act as a doctor of your program as it will be a waste of time. Nevertheless, I will try to research and learn as well on that case. Not just possible at this point in time.

Best regards,
Ferdinand
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Wed, 2008-11-19 06:45
#10
Anoon Iimos
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Don’t forget that the program also calculate "average" and "peak" not to mention total. I intend to believe that in order to get accurate figures, you need to do it manually.
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Wed, 2008-11-19 06:23
#11
Keyel Isorena
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Thanks Ferdinand,

The schedule i am revising hasnt been updated with progress yet. I havent leveled it yet though i have set limits to certain resources, moreover, each activity has about 4 different resources.

I want to have the correct values in the resource profile/table so i can be more confident in my revision. i have to check the new resorce loading prior to leveling. and every time i have to do that i have to run the global change to force p3 to have the resource duration equal to that of the activity’s original duration.

I dont have lags/leads in my resource duration. i am checking more on the manpower resource of the activities rather than the materials needed so ther is no need for the leadtimes.

I’ll make an example, let say "activity a" has OD=10 Days, BQ=100, UPT = 10. so that in the profile table i have 70 on week 1 and 30 on week 2(Total Quantities). this is true before i change activity a’s OD. let say activity a’s OD is now 5 Days, we expect to have 100 on the resource table for week 1 alone (Total Quantity, same workday/week) however, this is not true. the resource profile still has 70 on week 1 and 30 on week 2. displaying the resource bar along with the early bars, confirms that activity a’s resource duration is still equal to 10 Days. even if i schedule it, it is still the same. showing the resource details od activity a salso shows that both the UPT & BQ havent change, even if i perform a schedule. but once i run the global change, RDUR=OD, both the resource bars, UPT & UPT, changes to match what we expect earlier.

hope this makes my query clearer.
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Wed, 2008-11-19 05:36
#12
Ferdinand Fincale...
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Hello Keyel,

I don’t think that the auto-cost rule has something to do in your resource duration query. I suspect that the settings or limits that you have imposed in your resources for leveling purposes is the one affecting that situation. Yes, it is possible that the resources duration may not match with your activity duration. Actually, I have done it in my recent work program that I allow 2 weeks more period for my activity duration as compared to lesser than 2 weeks period for my resources utilization so as to give our schedule a buffer time should there be ontowards delay in the project execution. Try to investigate and make some exercise in the leveling and scheduling of your program as I suspect the answer to your question is in there. It could either be caused by program’s usage of early start & finish and the float, and maybe by the limits that you set for your resources, or in the updating of resources that its calculation has accumulated more than your remaining activity duration. It could as well be caused by a variety of inputs and updates. I’ll try some exercise as well to find out the exact reason for that case.

As to the displaying of bars in an activity, yes you can display several bars as you wish in the program.

Hoping to be of service to you.

Ferdinand

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Wed, 2008-11-19 02:49
#13
Keyel Isorena
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i am revising a schedule and i am checking its resource table/profile and i found some inconsistencies, there are periods that have no activity yet there are values in the profile/table. so i displayed the resource bars along with the activities early bars. and found out that the activities that i have changed the durations, its resource duration haven’t adopted the new duration of the activity. so i made a global change just to correct it. this schedule has no target yet, hasnt been updated yet. i am merely modifying the durations of some activities and their precedence.

in autocost rules, remaining duration is linked with percent complete, resource units per time period are not frozen, actuals are subtracted from EAC negative ETC - not allowed all the rest check boxes are checked and variances are calculated as Budget - EAC. it is set to perform autocost rules during each schedule computation and the rules are applied when moving from one cell to another.

i also tried the resource activity details. modifying an activity’s duration, doesnt automatically changes the units per time period. i have to run a global change so that the resource duration are equal to that of the the activities original duration, it is only then the p3 shows a new units per time period. on the resource activity detail.

question is, why is it that resource duration does not automatically adopts the activity’s duration? are there any other setting i am missing or have i overlooked the settings in the autocost rule?

please advice.

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Mon, 2008-11-17 05:04
#14
Anoon Iimos
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"displaying both the activity bar and the resource bar in p3.1" (i’m not sure of this one), Are you referring to the same schedule? (i.e. Target alone or Current Alone?). Or you are comparing resources allocated to your Target against resources in your Current schedule which you have already updated?

try to learn how "units per day" or "units per planning unit" works.
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