Dear all,
I am just checking on the actual data input in Spider, which is a bit different from MS Project and Primavera.
Soppuse activity started a bit not when it was supposed to start and / or finished a bit later. How do I enter actual start and actual finish? I do not see columns for actual start and actual finish
Bogdan,
Agree 100%.
To all,
Happy Hollidays,
Rafael
Rafael, it is a bit off topic, but regarding your link with the Great Divorce, I use 4 parameters for project progress, basically I "Divorce" everything.
1. Physical progress: I summ all quantities using Spider functionality and physical progress represents the actual quantities of the project that have been executed till Dta Date.
2. Budget progress (value progress) which represents money correlated with the quatities (some large works may have a small amount of money assigned to them)
3. Financial progress which represents payments toward the contractor (invoices).
4. Time (CPM) contract duration and finish date I find that this way you can get a real evaluation of the project progress.
All are done directly in Spider using user fields and all are expresses as percentage, except for the time parameter.
Best regards and Happy Hollidays
Bogdan
I would add.
In most CPM software when activities finish you cannot add late cost entries. Spider Project is different it does not implement %completion as a standard data entry field as it uses absolute values, still if you need to show percentages just add your own formulas you can save and transfer if using Reference Books. This makes it easier to divorce the schedule progress update information from the cost percentage update for payment.
Best Regards,
Rafael
Yes, you are right.
But since percent complete is subjective and not reliable it is not considered when duration type activities are scheduled. But cost may directly depend on percent complete and remaining.
Vladimir,
ok understood. So, practically, during the progress review meeting for an ativity "Define Technical Requirements" project scheduler shall be asking 2 questions to the resource involved:
And I would expect people to provide these 2 answers in order to satisfy Spider's requirements for progress tracking.
This would probably mean, that people will have to define for themself how they measute % complete of the activity "Define Technical Requirements"
Correct?
Evgeny,
in Spider Project volume is the measure of work planned and done. You may use percents as the estimate of those works that do not have physical measure.
The work is done and an activity is finished if both remaining volume and remaining duration are zero.
If one of them is positive it means that an activity is not finished yet, may be done but not accepted yet.
Vladimir, thanks.
still not clear, is it possible to update remaing work without updating remaining volume in duration type activity?
Say the Activity is "Define Technical Requirements" and it is duration type. You can't really measure it in any volume. You can ask the team though: "how much time do you still need?" What do I do with volume then, do I just not touch it?
And if they say "we have finished it", then remaining duration is 0, but remaning volume I have to put to 0 manually then?
I am asking this because in my test to really have activity finished ahead of time I had to change remaining volume to 0, just changing remaining duration to 0 did not finish activity. Which is not a big problem, but I would expect that if on duration type activity remaining duration is 0, then remaining volume would also be set to 0.
Evgeny, you are almost right.
For productivity type activity Spider ignores remaining duration estimate but not actual duration that may be different from planned.
For duration type activity Spider accept both remaining duration and volume (that may define remaining material requirements and cost).
When I wrote about left to right I meant default order of columns. Spider will accept change in remaining duration without changing of remaining volume.
Marcus,
I watched the video (thank you very much) read relevant sections of your book (VERY comprehensive book), but I must say I still don't understand the following:
I know I miss something, but from logical point of view when tracking progress for Productivity type of activity one shall enter only productivity-related data:
volume [done]
volume [remaining]
duration [Spent] - optionally
But NOT duration [Remaining], because Spider shall calculate it itself. In the same way as for productivity type you cannot enter remaining duration in planning
For duration-type activity one shall enter only duration related data:
duration [Spent] - optionally
duration [Remaining]
how Volume is related to duration type activity and whether it is related at all I must say I don't understand.
Marcus,
thank you for the video, but I now get the following error "This video contains content from SME, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds."
HI Evgeny
in fact the xmas song I used was blocked by copyrights. The song is being substituted . :(,
I am changing it now :((
https://youtu.be/SDynsz6G6k0
Vladimir,
OK, understood. Left to right. But I see, that this means "default order of left to right". Where remaining valume goes before remaining duration.
I tried to drag remaining duration column to the left of remaining volume, but it did not make Spider to set remaining volume to 0 once remaining duration is set to 0.
So, is there a way, where Spider will accept remaining duration only, without working with remaining volume?
Marcus,
thank you for the video, but I now get the following error "This video contains content from SME, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds."
https://youtu.be/SDynsz6G6k0
Evgeny,
filling actual data input table you shall go from the left to the right.
Chahge activity start and finish times if they differ from planned,
Change actual volume (if differs from planned), adjust remaining volume.
When you enter any data Spider Project recalculates everything to the right of entered information ib accordance with the planned activity parameters. So if you changed actual volume Spider adjusts actual and remaining duration, cost, material consumption accordingly. So if an activity is performed as planned you don't need to change anything and when I write change it is necessary if actual data differs only.
Change actual and remaining duration.
Enter actual and remaining material consumption and costs (as usual if differs from the planned).
So the rule is simple: go from the left to the right and change data if differ from planned.
I described the case when actual data is entered for project activities.
If you will enter assignment data then do it before entering activity data because assignment parameters are summarized on activity level and so activity parameters are changed automatically.
Activity is finished if both remaining volune and remaining duration are zero!
Marcus,
thank you very much! But it says, that video has been removed by a user
2 questions - 12 minutes in video + Xmas
see ...
https://youtu.be/SDynsz6G6k0
Marcus,
thank you very much for video?
I was experimenting with this and I see, that to have actual finish filled in one has to do the following:
In this example actual finish is earlier, than planned
1) Update the finish of the period
AND
put remaining volume to 0 (which automatically puts remaining duration to 0)
Just putting remaining duration to 0 doe not work (this is both of duration and productivityu type of activity). Putting remaining duration to 0 does not update remining volume to 0 and does not provide actual finish
which brings me to another question:
Q1) What is the logic of Spider when it comes to updating progress and filling in Actual data. Do I have to update remaning duration or remaining volume or both?
Q2) Also, how Spider resolves conflicts between remaining duration and remaning volume?
hi
just watch the video ...
https://youtu.be/J6tsoI2fZp4
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