Ihab Saad – Tue, Apr 10, 11 30 AM
AI: Summary ©
The speaker explains how to add costs and resources to a schedule, create filters and calendars, and use the "actuated activity" tool to allocate resources to different activities. They also explain how to create a new graph and create a new calendar for a project. The speaker provides information on how to create a schedule and use the filters for certain activities, and how to add reserves and construction activities to a project. They also explain how to create a professional or look ahead schedule filter and how to add resources and costs to the project. The speaker provides information on how to use the filters and add them to the schedule, and reminds the audience to see the speaker in another lesson about working with a Phoenix project.
AI: Summary ©
Good afternoon today, we're going to start talking about Phoenix
Project scheduler, and as you can see on the screen here, we have a
basic schedule, and what we're going to learn about today is how
to add costs and resources to the schedule. We're also going to
learn about how to create filters, how to change calendars and how to
show the BCWS or planned value curve once we add the costs to the
schedule. So the first thing that we're going to do here is, let's
just have a look at the screen. On the left side of the screen, we
have information about the activities, including the activity
ID, activity description, original duration, start and finish.
Remember that when you are entering the information in the
schedule, you do not add anything in the actual data, actual start
and actual finish. This is not done once you initiate the
schedule. It's done later on when you update the schedule on a
regular basis. So what we're going to be doing right now, we're going
to start learning about what's called the resource calendar. So,
as we mentioned in class, resources can be added in
different ways. One way is to do it in the very detailed way,
entering individual resources, like, for example, carpenters or
electricians or rebar or concrete or individual resources. That's
one way of doing it. And each resource, in this case, is going
to have its own unit. But again, the common unit among all of these
resources, in the end, is going to be the cost of these resources, as
we have agreed before resources can be explained or translated
into their money value. So that's one way of adding the resources,
which is the most detailed and accurate way. However, there's
another shortcut, which is a simplified way. It's not
inaccurate, but it saves a lot of time, which is basically going
through the step of translating all the resources into their money
value, which means we're going to represent only one resource, and
in this case, we're going to call it cache. So let's go ahead and
see how we're going to do that. If you go to the drop down menu
called info and you click on Resource Library, this is the tab
that we're looking for. So we're going to look at this resource
library tab. We're going to click on it, and as you can see, it
shows a blank screen, since we haven't added any resources yet.
So what we're going to do next is going to add a new resource. Click
on Add, and here we're going to enter the name of the resource,
the name for of this resource. We're going to call it cache,
and it's asking us whether it's labor, non labor, or material.
It's neither labor nor material. So we're going to select non labor
and the unit label. We're going to call it US Dollars
maximum. What is the maximum amount that you can that's going
to be available to you on a time unit basis? We selected the time
unit to be the day. So basically, we're asking here, what's the
maximum allowable amount for you to spend every day? Let's add
300,000 for example.
And that is asking us about the monetary value of that resource.
The translation between this resource and money is one to one,
because the units are dollars, and the cost is in dollars, so it's
going to be build per day, and the rate is going to be one,
and the cost per use is going to be one.
So now that we have identified the resource that we're going to be
using, we're just going to add it to our resource library, and here
it appears that's the resource that we have. So now we're going
to click, OK, accepting this resource.
That's the very simple way of selecting resources for our
project. The next step is going to be to apply these resources to the
different activities. So I'm going to go to one activity here, for
example. Let's say site mobilization.
And
what we're going to do here, as you can see, these are the
different drop down menus. So now we are going to assign this
resource to the activity. So here
we are going to select
double click on the activity to show the Activity Viewer at the
bottom of the screen, we can
the activity editor here. Remember here we do not enter anything
under budget. We do not enter anything under cost today for the
time being. So this is not where we're going to be adding our
resources. So now we're going to select the
resource assignment window. So we're going to click on this icon
here,
and this shows the resource assignment window for this
activity. So now we're going to go to.
The library to select which resource, assuming that you have
multiple resources. In this case, we have only one resource. So if I
click on Library, it's going to show me the available resource
that we have. So I'm going to select this and click on Add.
We're going to we're just going to select this
and add it to our activity and
see here.
So we're going to add the resource, we're going to select
cache, and how much are we going to spend for this activity? So the
question now is, how are we going to allocate this resource to the
activity? Is it going to be distributed along the duration of
the activity? As we have a greeting class, we have three
different types of allocations. If it's going to be self performed,
if the activity is going to be self performed, we're going to
spend each and every day of performing this activity. So we're
going to have it as prorated. On the other hand, if the activity is
going to be subcontracted, you are going to pay your subcontractor at
the end of doing the activity. So it's going to be at the end. If
it's a long lead item that you have to pay for in advance, then
in this case, we're going to select Start. So what we're going
to do here, we're going to allocate how much money are we
going to stand on site mobilization, for example, let's
say $25,000
now this is going to be a self performed activity, so we're going
to leave it as prorated. And now we're going to click OK.
Notice what happened here. The duration of this activity was five
days. The budgeted amount was 25,020 $5,000 we agreed that it's
going to be prorated. So it's showing us the daily cost for this
activity, which is going to be the 25,000 divided by the duration
five days. So it's 5000
now let's go to the next activity, site clearing. And here again,
we're going to add the resource.
We're going to select this cash. How much money are we going to
allocate for that? Let's say it's going to be $12,000
and let's say that we're going to hire a subcontractor to clear the
site. So in this case, it's going to be paid in the end.
And we're going to say, OK, so now it shows that the $12,000 are
going to be applied to this activity. If it were to be
prorated, it would have been $1,200 per day the next activity,
excavation for foundations, again, let's say it's going to be
subcontracted, so we're going to select our resource, and the
excavation, let's say, is going to be $32,000
and this is also going to be in the end, and OK, and this is
basically the idea you can see how to add the resources to the
different activities, assuming now that we have added the resources
for all of these activities, we want to have a look at, how is the
S curve going to look like? How is the planned cost curve going to
look like? So basically, in this case, we're going to go to this
tab, this icon, toggle time scale graphs,
and we're going to create a new graph. Notice here it opened this
window at the bottom of the screen. We're going to create a
new graph. So the graph that we're going to do is for the resource
that we have, which is cache. We're going to select cache. And
in this case, it doesn't matter whether you're going to do costs
or units, because the translation is one to one.
We do not want current dates because, again, current date means
that, after updating the project that includes the actual start,
the actual finish, etc. But for the time being, we're going to use
the original dates, and we're going to select the early dates.
That's how we're going to
portray this S curve for the original dates. Do you want to
show it as a histogram or as a curve? Let's say for the
beginning, we're going to show it as a curve,
and now we're going to add it,
and we're going to say, okay,
and now we want to show it here at the bottom of the screen. So this
is for the activities that we have added. Of course, if you have
added it for all the activities, it would show you the S curve for
the whole project. Let's say now I want to show this curve in a
different way. I want to show it as a histogram, showing day by day
how much money is going to be allocated or spent. I can create a
new curve, and in this case, it's going to be pretty much the same
thing. The
only difference is going to be, I'm going to select Histogram
instead of selecting curve, and I'm going to add and I'm going to
select, OK,
and now I can select this one. And here it shows the resource
allocation pretty much per day.
Or per time period, showing how much money is going to be spent.
Again, if you do that for all the activities, it's going to show you
the ups and downs of the resource profile, or the resource
allocation curve. So this is the first part of our discussion about
how to add costs and resources to the different activities. Now
let's proceed to the next part, which is talking about calendars.
Let's say you have an Arctic engineer who works only five days
a week, whereas the site is going to work six days a week. The
Arctic engineer has some activities related to the approval
of submittals, the approval of shop drawings, some inspections
and so on. So these are going to be done only on a five day basis,
whereas the site is going to be working on a six workday basis.
Can we allocate more than one calendar for the same project? The
answer is yes. How many calendars can we apply for one project? As
many as you want, or as many as the project needs? So let's go
ahead and see. How are we going to create a calendar or modify an
existing calendar? And how can we allocate different calendars to
different activities? So if you go again to the tab called info,
you're going to find that the second selection here is
calendars. We are going to click on this calendars, and now it
shows here some default calendars that have been built into the
schedule. One of them is a five day calendar, and notice this
check mark here that shows that this is the default calendar,
which means if you do not change it, all the activities are going
to be following that five workday calendar. The second one is a six
day, and the third one is a seven day. We can add other calendars as
we want, as needed for the project. Now notice on the right
side of the screen, here we have
it shows by default, our day today as highlighted. And if I click on
the five day calendar, notice that all the days have the same color
when it comes to work days, none of these boxes is checked. Notice
what's going to happen when I click on the five day calendar.
Now it shows that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are
checked, whereas Sunday and Saturday are not checked, which
means these are the non work days and the other five are the work
days. Now if I go to the six day calendar, what's going to happen
is that Saturday is going to be considered as a work day. So
notice here that Saturday also is checked, and the only day that
appears in red, which is the non work day, this is Sunday for the
seventh day. Of course, all the days are going to be checked,
which means the site is working seven days a week. So let's go
back to the five day calendar, assuming that, for example, our
project is going to
last for a year. Are we going to work on the Fourth of July?
Probably not. Are we going to work on december 25 Christmas Day?
Probably not. So let us designate these as non work days so that if
work comes through these days, it's going to jump over that day
and count the following work day as a continuation of the previous
work. So let's go to July,
and July 4 this year is going to be on a Wednesday. So I'm going to
click on July 4 and I'm going to select it as set as non work
notice what's going to happen when I do that. It has changed its
color to red, which means now it's a non work day. I can do the same
thing for December, and I can select december 25 currently it's
a work day. So we're going to change that, and we're going to
call it a non work day. And there it is.
Now, let's say I want to assign a six
workday calendar to backfilling and compaction, for example. So
here I'm going to accept these calendars, okay?
And now I'm going to go to the activity backfilling and
compaction, highlight it and look at the activity editor here. At
the bottom, it shows calendar, a tab called calendar. If you click
on this down arrow, it's going to show you what are the available
calendars based on what we have created or what we have edited. So
if I click on this arrow, it's going to show me the five day
calendar, the six day calendar of the seven day calendar. Let's say
we're going to select the six day calendar for this activity. So
here it is six day and enter
now we have assigned this activity to a six workday week. We can do
the same for the other activities as well. So you might, as we
mentioned, we you can have multiple calendars for the same
project, depending on the needs and depending on the different
parties work schedule.
So that's the second part that covers the area of calendars. Of
course, you can change a work day into a non work day and vice versa
by checking the box that has this day or just sell.
One particular day and marking it as a non work day, or as a work
day.
The third step that we want to achieve today is
looking at creating sub schedules from my master schedule. If I have
a project that has 3000 activities, 5000 activities, and I
have multiple subcontractors, let's say I have 30
subcontractors. Some of them have activities that are maybe 150
activities, but some of them have maybe three or four activities. It
doesn't make much sense to give all of them copies of the same
master schedule that has 5000 activities. They're going to be
totally lost. So the solution in this case, is for me to create a
sub schedule from the master schedule. Does that mean that for
each one of these different subcontractors, I'm going to
create a new schedule? Again? That would be a waste of time, but if
you develop your schedule correctly, the first time, we are
going to add tags to certain activities, or we are going to
create filters through which we're going to pull all the activities
and then set criteria for the opening of that filter, which
activities can pass through and which activities are going to be
withheld. So this concept is called filters, and that's one of
the strong features of any scheduling software. Some
softwares do have it. Some softwares do not have it, so that
would be an indication of whether that software is really
professional and practical or not. So let's go ahead. How to create a
filter. Again, look at these icons. You're going to find one
that looks like a funnel, and that's basically what a filter is.
So now we're going to create a filter. Let's say, for example, as
you can see here on the screen, that's first of all, let's make
these parts disappear. We don't need them,
and we don't need the activity editor either. If you look at the
schedule, you're gonna have that, you're gonna find that we have
some critical activities, the ones that are shown in red, and some
non critical activities, which are the ones that that are shown in
green.
And let's say now I want to focus primarily on the critical
activities. That's going to be my main concern, because these are
the ones that really affect the total duration of the project. So
how are we going to do that? I want to tell the software. Look at
all the activities.
If the activity is critical, select it. If it is not critical,
set it aside, what is the main criterion for a critical activity?
A critical activity has a total float equal to zero before
updating the project, or anything like that, before having negative
total float, which may happen if the project is behind schedule. So
for the time being, a critical activity is one that has zero
total float. So we're going to tell the filter. We're going to
create a filter, telling it, please select the activity if its
total float is equal to zero, if it's more than zero, do not select
it, which means, if it's non critical, we're not currently
interested in it. So I'm going to click on Filters, and here it's
going to show that it already has some filters built in. Let's say
I'm going to create a new filter to start from scratch, and I'm
going to call it critical activities only.
So
we're going to add new criteria. So what the criteria? Which field
am I going to be looking at? I'm going to be looking at the total
float. So on this, in this drop down menu, I'm going to scroll
down until I find the total float. Here it is.
Now, do I want to select critical or non critical activities? If I
look at the equality here, it says either is equal to or is greater
than, greater than or equal to less than less than or equal to
and so on and so forth. So the one that I'm looking for is is equal
to zero. That's basically the value that I'm looking for for the
critical activities. So I'm going to select is equal to and we
accept zero, and I'm going to say, OK.
And now I'm going to select this filter critical activities only.
I'm going to add to the active filters, which is at the bottom of
the screen, and I'm going to say, apply.
And OK. And there it is. Now we have only the critical activities.
Let's say I'm done with that, and I want to go back to the whole
schedule, including critical and non critical. So I'm going to go
to the filters again, and I'm going to clear the filter. I don't
want to delete it, I just want to clear it from this box. So it's
going to go back to the top box, so Clear Filters apply. And OK,
and here I have all the activities at that.
Now let's create another very common and popular and
professional filter, which is, I want to focus only on the
activities that are going to be done next month or next.
Six weeks or next eight weeks, which is called a look ahead
schedule. It could be the most common one is a six week look
ahead schedule, or eight week look ahead schedule. So how are we
going to designate that it's going to be based on dates? So
basically, I'm going to tell the software that I want to create a
filter that shows the activities that have a start date or an early
date start or finish. So if this activity is going to start or
finish between today and the next six weeks, select this activity.
If not, do not select it. So I'm going to go here again to filters,
and I'm going to create a new filter, and I'm going to call it
six week.
Look ahead.
Now we're going to add the criteria.
So what am I going am I going to be looking for? I'm looking for,
is it looking at actual start or actual finish or actual dates? No,
is it looking at early start to early finish, not only that, but
both of them. So I'm going to select early dates, select if
early dates is equal to something or is within a certain range. Now
I want it to be between today and six weeks later, so I'm going to
go again to my equality, and I'm going to select within range.
Notice that as soon as I said dates, it recognized that the
values are going to be dates, so it showed me a calendar. So I'm
going to select between, let's say the project here starts on in
February of 2017 so I'm going to go to the calendar of 2017
and and let's say beginning February 1, 2017
and ending on six weeks later. So let's say mid March, 2017
so that's a six week look ahead. I'm going to say, Okay.
And now I'm going to add my filter to the active filters. I'm going
to say, apply.
And okay. And now it shows me the activities that are going to take
place, if their early dates are between February 1 and March 15.
Notice that it shows an activity that ends after March 15 because
its start was within that range. So if the start or the end of the
activity fall within that range, is going to be selected.
Now I have seen this. So what I'm going to do go back to now is I'm
going to go back to remove this filter,
Clear Filters and apply ok, and we're back to the whole scale.
So in our discussion today, we have learned a few things. One is
learning about resources and cost, how to add resources and cost of
the project, and how to apply these costs to the different
activities, and how to draw the graph, the smooth curve, the S
curve, BCWS, or planned value, and how also to show the resource
loading histogram for individual units of time. And then we learned
about the calendars, how to create new calendars, or how to edit
existing calendars by adding work days or non work days, and how to
assign or allocate these calendars to the different activities. And
we agreed that the project can have multiple calendars. And then
finally, we learned about the filters. How can we from one
master schedule? How can we select sub schedules depending on what
are we looking for, whether it's on the critical activities or
activities that are done within a period of time. Later on, we are
going to learn about another kind of tags, which is called activity
codes, that also enables us which are
fields that we create on our own. We can customize the schedule
whichever way we want, and these are going to be tools or tags that
are going to enable us to select and sort different activities and
different filters based on these codes. That is the end of our
discussion for today. So until next time, I'm going to see you in
another lesson about working with Phoenix project schedule, thank
you. Thank.