Creation - Scheduling

OVERVIEW – The Critical Path Method (CPM) scheduling technique is used to calculate project schedules. CPM uses activity durations and relationships between activities to calculate the project schedule. - Primavera

1. Hopefully, you’ve noticed that up until this point the activities in the schedule we have been working with have had the same start and end dates.  This is because the project needs to be “scheduled”.  Before we begin learning one of the most foundational elements of Primavera, let’s copy the project COD and rename the new project as follows:  ID – SCH,  Name – Scheduling (F9).
   
   
2. In the Activity View, let’s give our activities the following Original Durations instead of the default 5 day duration.
   
   L2-1000 – 2
   L2-1010 – 2   
   L2-1020 – 1
   L2-1030 – 2
   L2-1060 – 2
   L2-1040 – 3
   L2-1050 – 1
   L2-1070 – 4
   L2-1080 – 2
   L2-1090 – 2
   L2-1100 – 2
   L2-1110 – 2
   L2-1120 – 3
   L2-1130 – 2
   L2-1140 – 1   
   
   
3. The activities now all have different original durations that more accurately reflect the actual construction and will help in estimating its completion date.  Go ahead and press F9 on your keyboard.
   
   
4. The Schedule window is displayed.  Click Options to view how the project will be scheduled.
   
   
5. Now back to the Schedule window let’s go ahead and change the Data Date to June 15, 2011.  The data date is the date from which all schedule data is computed.  If the data date is June 15, 2011 all activity status needs to be inputted up until June 15, 2011 in order to get an accurate completion date.  No actual status should be inputted beyond the data date either since this too will cause inaccuracies.
   
   Note – If multiple projects are open when scheduling you need to go to the Project View and change the data dates there before scheduling.  To do so, make the column Data Date visible in the project table and then manually
   
   TIP – If you are producing a monthly progress schedule, the data date needs to be the 1st day of the next month in order to be accurate.  If the last day of the month is used instead, uncompleted activities will appear to take place on that day.
   
   
6. Go ahead and press Schedule now.
   
   Note – Depending upon several factors, this can take up to 30 seconds but usually a lot less especially on small schedules.
   
   
7. Over on the Gantt Chart, scroll over to June 2011.  The activities no longer are stacked one on top of the other, but instead spaced across time. We now have a true schedule, one that is driven by activity relationships and durations. 
   
   
8. Lastly, let’s take a look at the schedule log.  Press F9 on your keyboard once again to bring up the Schedule dialogue box.
   
   
9. Check the “Log to file” box and then choose the location where the log file will be saved.  In this case, I chose my desktop so that I can easily find it.
   
   Note - It can be a good idea to create a folder where all schedule logs are saved and dated for documentation.
   
   
10. Click Schedule.
    
    
11. Since the Schedule Dialogue box goes away after scheduling, press F9 again to bring it back.
    

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