You can download my file from the following link.

http://www.mediafire.com/?341w1xpb7x60hgb

Best Regards,

Rafael

Bodgan,

It works as expected though somewhat cumbersome to set up when this is something you do not do frequently, it would be good to have more paint options for activity types at the workspace level in a similar interface as it is now and keep the complicated but more functional at the activity level as it is now (with your help I got it). Fortunately Reference Books makes it easy to transfer Signals as well as other data as needed.

•  there is also a Piority for Painting button which lets you select a field, but I have no ideea how that works exactly.

I will be looking at it, might be what I am looking for.

• Still I understand why you would desire this option and also the one about the patterns (asta power project, if I'm not mistaking has the option to color bars according to resources assigned - e.g. if the activity uses bricks and you define the a pattern for the brick the activity will have a brick pattern fill, but this can be annoying to set up or even look at).

Painting activities based on resources (can be hundreds) is too much for my stomach, in any case based on resource type and if idle or non-idle, I am looking for some basic painting and patterns on resource bars independent of the setup for activity bars bars.

The issue/bug you mentioned is still unresolved and I am looking to see what Vladimir says regarding your comments as well as regarding my comments about resource assignment on Hammocks. I can live without tweaking the colors, can live without patters but about resource assignment I care very much.

Thanks a lot,

Rafael

In other software you paint/color activities in certain order you specify when formatting Bars. You apply the paint/color only if conditions are met and in certain order. You change preference by shifting up/down the bar description.  Similar to the order on Spider Signals, but signals are limited to 3 colors.

• I might want all hammocks to be grey no matter if critical.
• I might want critical hammocks to be displayed same as critical activities in red, but if non-critical in grey.

I do not want to become a Picasso, just a few basic formatting is enough, too much is overwhelming. To me an additional option to define bar colors by type would do it, of course keeping actual options. Something like the one available for workspace, just that jobs settings will override global workspace.It should include the move  up/down, shall include all types of activities as well as all types of resources including regular resources teams/shifts, skills, materials, crews/teams, idle and assigned resources.

• 
  • Say Item shall include all activity type in addition to the two types shown: Duration, Productivity, Hammock, Milestone, Switch, Trigger.
  • Say Item shall also include status of resource assignment: Assigned, Unassigned, Idle, Un-attained (on hammocks only), leveling/non-leveling.
  • a bit more detailed breakdown that fits.

Bodgan,

I did not know that hammocks are not leveled in spider, I was always under the impression that they are. Also as a coincidence the resources I have loaded my hammock with are used only by the predecessor and the hammock, activities which will never overlap.

• It seems like Spider do not level Hammocks and do not enforce resource loading if overloaded, if partially overloaded using variable quantity it shall assign resources if available if none of activity required resources is available it shall be collapsed. That would make sense to me but not sure it is working in this way.
• the following figure shows the idea
• 
• If I change Variable Work load and Number to "No" for Activity 3 it will be partially collapsed after resource leveling. http://www.mediafire.com/?9nyfvlblbucbmd1
• 
• Just I did not know or perhaps new functionality I shall investigate further, some things still do not make sense to me.
• 
• The software increased availability by itself, initially one resource A and never used resource production. Why availability  increased, that I do not understand.
• Maybe Hammocks shall never be collapsed beyond its links, only resource assignments when not available or displayed in different color.
  • Also some field shall identify when resources assigned to a Hammock could not be assigned. In this way you can filter an look for hammocks with such issue. Then you may accept the assignment or take corrective measures such as increasing resource availability or use partial quantities and workloads.
  • A hammock then shall be able to display under separate lines assigned, unassigned and unattainable assignments. Unassigned as well as unattainable assignments are of concern.
  • Over allocations shall only happen in unleveled schedules and on non-leveling resources and do not accept partially leveled schedules, I believe a philosophy of Spider team with regard to leveling.

I was talking about the message when doing resource leveling and about the implication (if there are any) when leveling. In other words is it just an error message bug or something else.

• Your question was always clear, maybe the message can be improved.

About coloring hammocks in the Gantt->Options there is something called Activity color depends on parameter,..

• I know about it but did not got to where you did, kind of too difficult for something that shall be easier therefore I will continue doing it manually.

PS: you can select another float, I used the Finish Float, Days.

• I like the idea if colors are executed in some controllable order, so if Start Float Critical one color, if Finish Float Critical another color.
• It seems you are pretty good at tweaking colors. Do you have control on the order of colors? Please something simple to apply when considering many colors, say 7 colors.

Best Regards,

Rafael

Bodgan,

Because resources on Spider Hammocks are not leveled, making it possible for overloads I never resource load my Hammocks but seems like you are right, there is something wrong. Just resource load activity 3 and look what happens to the hammock.

I do/would not allow hammocks to be resource loaded except with non leveling resources. Then I would look at the allocation of non leveling resources and take appropriate action if needed. Resource loading on hammocks can create unsuspected overloads, when using partial assignments can be very confusing.

Perhaps non leveling resources shall be colored differently as for you to visually distinguish them.

I also would like to color differently my Hammocks but have not figured it out, maybe you can help me with this. I wish patterns on bars would be available as colors on B&W copies cannot be distinguished except as shades of grey.

Best Regards

Rafael

I will ask to check this tomorrow and fix.

I suspect that showing link properties was sent as default.

Best Regards,

Vladimir

Try with the Gantt Diagram Options.

Untick last box, Show link property window when creating link.

Untick this

Best Regards,

Vladimir

Bogdan,

thank you for discovering.

Solving the problem is easy when it is discovered.

Regards,

Vladimir

Hi Bogdan,

thank you for the example.

This is certainly bug and we will look at it tomorrow.

I missed your post, thank you for reminding.

Best Regards,

Vladimir

Done,

http://www.planningplanet.com/forums/spider-project/533431/monte-carlo-risk-analysis

Best regards,

Rafael

Bogdan,

I noticed you have a Hammock that is cost loaded, but when resource leveling I am missing the usual warning that resources, in this case hammock costs, are not being considered on resource leveling.

Thanks for the clarification about the negative sign, I am hard wired into negative, being in red, means trouble. I had to think it twice, I was hearing but not listening.

If the cash flow is spent because you are not considering any revenue to make up for full financing doesn't it means the project runs out of money at some point and financial resource leveling is unfeasible and whatever the output is it is not valid?

About "consider in scheduling" I still do not understand what to expect from this, at times the descriptions fall short of what it is, sometimes are even confusing to me. I suspect it is possible that the mere addition of this functionality might be the reason why financial constraints stopped working as expected, if it ever did worked on unexpected way, and as Vladimir said it is a matter of debugging.

Best Regards,

Rafael

Bodgan,

I will be loking at it during the week, for the moment I noticed nothing strange, but this is new to me.

It seems like there are insufficient funds to realize the job (-875.00) and therefore the resource leveling was stopped.

Once again, 1,000 thanks for your sample job, a clean cut good to learn about financial resource leveling.

Best Regards,

Rafael

Bogdan,

if an activity is not considered when scheduling it means that optimization will work even if some activities will finish later than the project finish. Optimization will be done on the subset of project activities. But it does not mean that these activities will not be considered when floats will be calculated.

So you shall set NLT constraint or define that critical activities shall have float not more than the float of the last project activity excluding those milestones that you do not want to consider.

Regards,

Vladimir