Webinar: Schedule Updates

Presenter: Eric Costantino

Slide 1

Okay everyone, the time is one o’clock and we are going to go ahead and start this MnDOT webinar. Today’s webinar is going to be based on the schedule update process. So we have got a couple things that we will go thru, perquisites first just to kind of go over a couple of things here.

Slide 2

So just a few housekeeping items, I have got all lines muted right now during the webinar but you can also submit your questions through the GoToWebinar questions box down on the bottom on the lower right hand side. Then what we will do is we are going to post all of those questions onto the website within five days so everything will be up there just in case you wanted to follow up. We will make those questions available live for this webinar, you can also download the PDF on how to submit live questions for next week’s webinar on the MnDOT website. All of the slides will be available in PDF format within the five days so once we get this done we will post this up there and I will show you guys the link later on in this webinar. The webinar is currently being recorded so if you do want to go through the Windows media recording file you can usually get that from the MnDOT website located down at the bottom of the screen.

Slide 3

So here is where we are going to be posting them. If you notice the MnDOT website that we have here it is going to be under this “learning” section right here. If we click on that “learning” pageit is going to bring us down into this section here and obviously we have all the past webinars located within this page. This is where we are going to see our scheduling float and then schedule baselines webinar. Then also you will notice that down here on the right you can reserve a webinar seat for this scheduling update webinar that we are doing today. So any time that you want to sign up for these future webinars you can usually do that by clicking on “reserve your webinar seat”.

Slide 4

So just as we go through this webinar if you do have some live questions I am not going to answer as they come in. We are going to wait until the end but you can submit them during the webinar and we will be answering them within the final ten minutes of the webinar. So I will go through each one of your questions if you do have them. So all you have to do again is use the questions box on the lower right hand side of your GoToMeeting dialog box and use that “raise hand” feature to ask a live question during the question and answer session. So that is when I am going to go ahead and unmute all of those lines.

Slide 5

Okay so introduction to today’s webinar is going to be based on a quality schedule that only remains effective with proper execution and timely updatingmeaning that your frequency of your updates should be kept the same. So you want to learn those techniques and potential pitfalls in maintaining and updating a good schedule through the Progress Spotlight feature which we are going to be using today.

Slide 6

So when you are updating a schedule we have got several different elements that we are looking at on this screen here. On the right hand side is where we have our typical Gantt chart which are the bars that duration of the activities on the left hand side which we call our activities table. Now what I do like to mention is that some, if not most of you guys, may not even be going down to this level within Primavera P6 for updating the schedules but to me it is imperative that everybody should know the mechanics of how this works so that way when you want to dig a little deeper into some information you at least understand the logistics of how things are being updated and what is required as far as these updates go. So again I am just going to reiterate that you may not be doing this process, you may be the one overseeing it. Where ever in that tree structure you are, it is still good to know the mechanics. So I am going to go through it so just take notes, I always find that it helps out to understand it a little better. So again on the left hand side you will notice that we have several different activities. The activities that are 100% complete are going to show blue and you will notice that we have this yellow bar that is underneath that blue bar. That yellow bar is actually going to represent what is called the baseline plan. So this is going to give us a greater level of analytics to compare our baseline versus where our current schedule is. So we are also going to focus on what this blue line is that goes down, this represents todays date or the status date of your project. I will get into that in a little bit but you will notice that we have activities here that have 22.5%, so that activity is currently in progress. I will show you guys later on within this webinar exactly how that happens.

Slide 7

So the update schedule process. Number one; always create a baseline plan which is going to be your target. And the baseline plan is going to allow people to be able to compare where they are actually at versus where they originally planned in the beginning of the project. Step two is you are going to want to identify that new data date. That blue line represents your status date with that Progress Spotlight. Now Progress Spotlight is a neat feature to use especially if you are printing out reports for people that need to see the activities that are required for updating within that update period. Once you identify when that status update period is, that is when you are going to go through those activities that are highlighted and enter in that activity progress whether it is percent complete or remaining duration. Next, once you status your activities, then you go into updating you resource usage and then your costs to date or your expense cost. You may not be using them yet but just keep on the lookout that it is going to go in that format. Once you have updated those activities that have actual starts and finishes and then you also update those activities in progress, this is where you are going to calculate that schedule using the F9 button. So that is pretty much typically how these schedules get updated is by using this F9 key which is going to allow them to advance that dated date, that blue line. So be sure that you verify that new data date and then once that schedule is updated this is where you are going to perform a target analysis. So that way you can compare your current plan to your baseline target to analyze what the variance is. After that, this is where reporting comes in to play. Obviously the stake holders are going to want to see if there are any delays, those cost overruns due to resource usage, things like that. But this is where reports really powerful is we can have these preloaded reports that are easy to run with the click of a button. That will show these variances between your current plan and your baseline plan.

Slide 8

So once a project has started, a scheduler needs to update that actual schedule information and resource usage at regular intervals. Here at MnDOT we are going to be doing it every two weeks. Now this is important to keep that two week at standardization so that way you don’t have projects that startup dating weekly and then monthly, everything is going to be set standard to a bye weekly status update period meaning I am going to have a look ahead of two weeks worth of activities and then once I am at the end of those two weeks I am going to actualize all of the information such as getting an actual start and an actual finish and then advance that data date. So step one is pay attention to your schedule dates and durations. So once you have that information at the end of the two weeks you are going to go in and apply an actual start date and then an actual finish date and then update your percent complete or remaining duration. One thing that is not in here is that we would also like to start using what is called expected finish dates and as soon as I am done with this webinar I will open up Primavera for you to show you where you can enter that expected finish date so that way you don’t have to calculate the number of days remaining based on what we have called the calendar day. So it is going to automatically compute that for you so that way we have less room for error. After you enter in your schedule dates then we are going to go ahead and update our resource usage. Obviously we may have resources we are going to want to pay attention to see what those actual units are. And then if there are any expense costs on those activities, then you are going to enter in the expense actuals as well.

Slide 9

Okay so schedule, resource and cost data should be entered in the following order above. So enter in the completed activities, actual start and actual finish dates. Once you enter in those actual finish dates, then you enter in your resource regular units and cost. For activities in progress then you are going to enter in an actual start date, update the percent complete remaining duration or give an expected finish date. After you give that expected finish date then you go to the resources and you update any actual regular units and costs and remaining actual units and costs for that resource. Once completed, then you go ahead and enter in you actual costs and remaining expense costs. So it is going to go in this exact order.

Slide 10

Okay so what is that data date? That blue line that we like to call the status date, it kind of holds all of our activities to that date so anything that doesn’t get updated is going to get pushed out by this data date so it is pretty important to understand its use. So the data date is the last date that you recorded progress in the form of actual dates, percent of work completed, revised remaining duration, or actual quantities or costs. Activities are scheduled from the project data date using the project start date in the beginning as the initial data date. So when I create a project and it starts on April 1st of 2013, my data date is going to equal the beginning of that project. So when I start entering in all new activities, they are going to come as planned or forecasted work in the future. So at the first update, that data date will be at the beginning of the schedule and be sure to change that data date, we are going to be using it every two weeks, and reschedule a project each time you record that progress for those activities. During that project the data date moves forward toward the project completion date. As it moves forward the actual dates can serve as historical data for planning another project. so we can always look back something that was already completed and then start using that as maybe a basis for a new project that might be up and coming. By default, the data date is set to the beginning of the day. For any inquiring minds, the beginning of the day in Primavera is 12:00am. So any actualized activities from the data date should be status up to 11:59pm the day before.

Slide 11

So here is a great, very simple graphic to just show and represent what the data date is. So we have actual to the left of our data date, meaning they are in the past, so anything in the past should be completed. You will notice that I have the middle activity that is in progress, so as I have captured this activity I have said that all of this work has been completed up to 11:59 the day before of this black bar going down the center of my line which is 12:00am the next day. So that way we can keep everything that has been actualized to the left of the date. And anything that is forecasted or planned work is going to be on the right of the data date starting with the beginning of the day out to the end of the project. So this is future planned activities down here on the lower right hand side.

Slide 12

So schedule dates relative to that data date. You will notice that we have this in number of days. So the data date which is day 17 is the first day of the remaining schedule meaning it starts at 12:00am. These activities might be on a calendar that governed saying that this is going to start at 8:00am to 5:00pm which is a pretty standard calendar but you will notice that we have this logic which drives the remaining work out to the end of the project. Anything to the left again is going to be historical, actual data and it has all been completed. We want to make sure that avoid anything that has actual data in the future unless it is within your status update period and you plan on advancing this data date past it.

Slide 13

So setting the new data date with Progress Spotlight. Due to my handy dandy little animation here we have got an area here that gets highlighted representing the two week period of activities that need to be updated within that period. So I have historical data date, we will represent this as April 24th, and then we are going to say that two weeks later, May 8th, we are going to advance and we are going to see what activities are in fact going to get updated within that update period.And what is really neat about it is as we highlight those activities and drag this little icon that is called Progress Spotlight over, it is going to highlight the actual listed activities so that way we can get a good idea of what needs to be updated and if we do not update it, it is going to end up pushing it when we advance this data date to our new data date. If I fail to schedule this activity with an actual start, it will then push out to this data date line. That is how finish dates to projects end up getting pushed out.

Slide 14

So all you have to do is just easily left click on this little data date line and you will notice that we have what is called, time scale up here. This is represented by a month and then we have the weeks of those months within. As I go through and I left click, I can choose my new status date by dragging this data date to highlight several activities within that status update period.

Slide 15

As I drag that over representing those activities in the period that I am going to have to update, this is where it highlights those activities within this screen here. It is as simple as press this little print preview button to print it out as a report to say, “Hey these are the activities that we are going to have to status so please give me an update at the end of this two week status update period”. We always want to focus on these red activities as well considering that they are critical. So if I make a delay to one day of these activities, it could delay the finish of the project to one day. So here is my old data date, here is my new data date, once I actualize the information going in the order that I discussed earlier in the slides starting with my actual start dates, my actual finish dates, my resource usage, and them my expense costs. So again just to reiterate, anything that gets highlighted is within that status update period.

Slide 16

So you will notice that we have activities that are 100% completed and my bar turns completely blue. All of these activities, as soon as I move the data date, should be to the left of our data date line. You will notice that we have this status tab here, this is where we mark it as started and finished. Always, if you are marking a started finish date for those of you who are going to be getting into this dynamic, it is highly recommended that when you go through you mark this as started, choose the finish date of your activity first, and then you mark the finished check box. For those of you who may be curious as to why we do it in this exact format, it is because we want to make sure that right here, this at completion/ duration gets completed properly. I have noticed in the integrity within this is sometimes if I just say it started and finished and then I choose the finish date after, my at completion/ duration might not update properly. So it is always in best practice to mark this activity as started, choose the finish date first and then mark it as actually finished. So please take note if you will be doing some of these status updates.

Slide 17

So for any activities that are in progress you will notice that I have a 22.5% activity here but you will notice that as I advance that data date line to the left of it, it kind of made a little chunk of that activity blue. Meaning that I represented an actual amount of information of work that has been completed but to the right I also have forecasted work to be done as well. So this is where we are going to mark it as started and update our percent complete or we update our remaining duration. As I have mentioned before about what we call expected finish dates, this is where I recommend as a consultant to use these expected finish dates instead of have to update the percent complete or the remaining duration because all of these activities here are governed by a calendar. We may get into it, we may have already gotten into what the calendars represent, but if we are on a five day calendar we may have to just say that the expected finish date is this date and we expect it to finish. so it will already calculate the number of calendar days remaining. Okay so I have marked it as started and I have chosen my physical percent complete here.