Level of Effort...

Andrew,

What often happens is that LOE activities are not properly connected (i.e hanging). If this happens, the duration will become 0 days (when you reschedule) and you lose the assignment.

H.T.H.

sorry I can’t help for now, it is my first day today to navigate P5, and i’m also confused by that type of activity (LOE); other confusing matters (if you don’t mind) are:

weightings on steps - how this affects the duration weightings and/or cost weightings? Or is there an option to choose the governing weighting factor to calculate percent progress?

other items are - Unit Formats; Duration Units; Resource Units; Duration Types! Do you need to be cosistent with these items to calculate your schedule properly? Or is P5 really calculating properly? Why do they need to release P6, when majority of Planners (I suppose) never seen P5?!

I cannot use the filter function the way I use in P3!

my honest and first impression about P5 - !!!!?X?!!!?>????#!!????GRRRRR!!!!!

Anoon,

A LOE activity is a hammock in P3.

At a project level, you can set the activity performance %complete calculation to be based on steps for all activities that have a physical % complete type. Performance % complete for activities based on Units % complete or Duration % complete type will not be affected. P5 offers great flexibility but the advise is to use it consistently.

You should forget how P3 works and concentrate on how things are done in P5 (at least that worked best for me)

The Windows client of P6 will not be different from P5; it will just have a few additional features, like bucket planning.

H.T.H.

Anoon

do you know all functions of e.g. Excel or just 5% of it? Nevertheless you use it. Do you know mor than half of P3’s functions ...?

It will be the same with P3e. After a training you’ll know the basics; two more days (almost) all functions you’ll need. Primavera’s terms all follow PMBoK-standard. You’ll see: P3e is very easy to use.

Good luck!
Dieter

Thanks All,

I found that P5 is more similar to MSP (at least I used ver. 2000) than P3. Yes you got choices for percent complete, one is they called Physical percentage (which I supposed you have to input manually), others are based on Duration and Resource units (I prefer to use the latter two choices). Filters I think are working fine (sorry for my previous comment).

Regarding Summarization - I haven’t checked all, but I found that some labels are not working properly, and I presume that calculations are not working properly as well!

Resources; OBS; Roles; Labor; Non Labor; Primary Resource; Strategic Priorities; Risk Level - I guess some of these functions are redundant or unnecessary! I have no idea if what’s the driving resource!

One thing I cannot stand straight is Task Relationships - Please note that you can define relationships for the same task several times (which is not allowed in P3), for exanple: activity A was assigned as predecessor for activity B with FS relationship and you can assign it again with SS or whatever you want without removing the previous relationship, for me this is B**L S**T!!!

anyway, i’m enjoying to learn it, so I hope there’ll be positive results

another thing before I forget (If you would allow me?)

Regarding Constraints - I found that Project Must Finish Constraint is overruled by constraints in Activities, I’m not sure but that came out on my sample project. Can anyone tell me if what’s the governing constraint in P5?

Anoon,

the summarizations do work, but for some attributes they are recalculated - weighted, sometimes they are calculated on a different basis, e.g. durations with the default calendar and not those in the activities.

The functions you assume redundant: they aren’t but it depends from the environment if you’ll need them.

Much success and good luck!

Dieter

Hi Dieter,

I’m really after how the program calculates and I find it quite confusing, Why? Say for Percent Complete: as i’ve said there are three (3) choices - Duration; Physical Progress; and Units. I haven’t found the definition of Planning Unit in P5, what you’ll get are Units Format and Durations Format, which are all in time, i.e. hours, days, weeks etc.

Please note that "Physical Progress" option is to be feed in manually (from what i’ve seen in the program), while Durations % and Units % can be calculated automatically.

Please note further that Units % has lots of variables, i.e. I suppose you can reckon it from Resource units (Productivity Rates) and maybe Costs or maybe Steps Weightings not to mention Expenses Option with Accrual Function...sorry i’m already lost! Oh I forgot about the Roles and the Priority level! and there are Risk Level and Strategic Priorities or whatever!!

maybe I need some rest!

Hi Anoon,
did you learn the "hint help" function during your training?

It is excellent, after you switched on you can use it in two ways:

- You move with your mouse into any table area and a small window appears with an explanation of that column
- You have a selection window and are confused on the different %-complete or dates. Then you click once on one of the data items and you can read the meaning of this item.

Hopefully your admin creates a test area in a test database for you to "play" with the system.

Good luck and be confident: you’ll learn it.

Dieter

Anoon,

Dieter is right, it’s really important to play around with the software in a test DB; Where you have full access rights and can try things out without having to worry what you destroy.

As I pointed out earlier, Physical % Complete can also be calculated based on (weighted) step completion.

Duration % Complete is typically used in combination with LOE activities, where half of the time spent normally also means half of the effort completed.

Unit % complete is calculated as Actual Units / (Actual Units + Remaining Units), like it should.

Furthermore, P5 keeps track of almost all possible percent complete fields, independent of the settings you choose, except for Performance % Complete field. Just open the Column window in your activity view and go to the "percent completes" category and you’ll see what I mean.

HTH

All,

I need to clarify important things like Dates - in P5, there were lots of things like: Start; Finish; BL Start; BL Finish; Early Start; Early Finish; Late Start; Late Finish; and so on...

In reality I only need the following: Early Start & Finish; Late Start & Finish (For my Current Schedule); and the same for my Baseline or Target Schedule. I wonder why P5 has descriptions such as Start and/or Finish only, where does these descriptions apply? It is not specifying whether it is early or late or intended for Baseline or Current Schedules?

Another thing: I wonder why LOE activities doesn’t have bars? Is there an option to show Bars for LOE activities?

Resources and Expenses: I would like to refer to costings of these two functions, I suppose there are differences in the calculations, Do I need to be always consistent to get reliable results? Why is it that accrual function is only applicable to expenses? And what’s the effect of this function to Step Weighting?

I think P5 is a powerful tool when it comes to costings if it really functions properly.

Hi Anoon,

For Start/Finish:
The start field will be equal to:
1- the early start (when the activity isn’t started).
2- the actual start (when the activity started).
Same applies for Finish field.

For LOE bars:
Right click on the gannt chart and click on "Bars", search and mark the fields named "Remaining Level of Effort" and "Actual Level of Effort".

For further assistance, u can turn on the "Hint Help" function, if u hover over a field that supports this function, it’ll shows u a small yellow rectangle describing this field.
U can turn it on by clicking on "View" and tick on "Hint Help".

HTH

Regards,
Karim

Hi,

You start the "Hint Help" (under "VIEW") --> move your mouse into the table area --> click right button --> "Columns" --> "dates" --> one click with the left mouse button onto the item you are interested. A window will open with a good explanation. Alternatively have a look into the reference manual. there is an excellent overview on the different dates.
The bars of LOE activities: it is the same behaviour as in P3: --> move your mouse into the Gantt/bars area --> click right button --> "Bars" --> The firs column is "visible" --> you mark it with the left mouse button.
Resources/expenses: you assign them activities. P3-curves for resource assignments still exist in P3e.
Behaviour of steps-weighting is similiar to that of the WBS-milestones. Don’t forget the parameter for a project, that the steps are used for %-complete and duration type "physical".
But you wrote that you attended a training?! These items belong to its content.

Regards
Dieter

As for the different types of dates refer to page 304 of the Primavera’s PM reference manual.

Doku\Construction and Engineering\PMRefMan.pdf on the documentation CD

Regards

Dieter

Karim,

I can understand it, what I cannot understand is that why do you need to use it (Start/Finish) when there’s a straight forward Early/Late and Actuals? And what if you’re in the process of updating, meaning you’re comparing with your Baseline? I think too many options doesn’t make things easier.

Dieter,

Would you mind elaborating the meaning of "Physical Progress"? (from P5)

cheers

% complete type has different values:
- Duration: progress stricly calculated from time, independent from real work
- Units progress calculated from actual vs. planned units
- Physical: Someone has to estimate the progress of an activity or based on the completed weighted steps. BUT you know that if you ask a programmer after 3 days of work for his progress, the answer will be 90%, three months later: 90% - a saying in Germany. It’s my experience, too: this estimation in general is unrealistic.

Then you have the attribute "physical % complete". If the % complete type is duration or units, ignore this value because it will be 100 % if finished, 0% if not started and either 0 or 100% if it’s ongoing.
So it’s helpful to remember the parameter settings of a project.

Just a personal hint: don’t try to know everything from the first moment, you’ll fail. Just do it step by step. Automatically you’ll find very soon, P3e is easy to use.

Dieter

Hi Anoon,

Each activity can has the following dates:
Actual dates, Anticipated dates, Early dates, Late dates & Planned dates.

I believe that they invented the "Start & Finish" fields in order not to cause confusion for the users.

Regards,
Karim

Hi Karim
Start and Finish I like for reporting because:
- Activity not started: = Early Start
- Activity ongoing or finished: = Actual Start
Since an activity Actual Start maybe not equal to Early start, its the best information in one attribute.
Finish is analogue.

Regards

Dieter

In my opinion, Primavera created the “Start” and “Finish” columns to keep the customers happy and to stop them calling for technical support. If you look closely at the Early/Late Start/Finish columns, you will note that completed activities also have these calculated dates. This is correct according to CPM theory and practice but not what the ‘average user’ expects to see.

The Start and Finish columns contain the early start and finish dates, minus those dates for the competed activities. This is a “P3-compatible” listing. I hope that this helps!

Hi everyone,

are you guys aware, how to use LEVEL OF EFFORT??? wht shd b d successors & wht relationships hv to b placed to get d desired output of LOE???

give ur comments so tht things can b discussed in details.

regards

Gaurav Chawla

Hi Gaurav

Sorry, it was rather difficult for me, to understand your post, but it seems to be back to the headline of this thread.

This is out of Primavera’s help function:
Level of effort activity
A level of effort activity’s duration is dependent on its predecessor and/or successor activities. Level of effort activities cannot have constraints assigned to them. Level of effort activities are not included when leveling resources.
Use level of effort activities for on-going tasks that depend on other activities. For example, you could assign level of effort activities for clerical work, a security guard, or even some aspects of project management.
A level of effort activity uses its assigned calendar to summarize its dates.
Any type of relationship can be assigned to a level of effort activity.
A level of effort activity’s duration is calculated from the earliest early start of its predecessors/successors (linked to the start end of the level of effort activity) to the latest early finish of its predecessors/successors (linked to the finish end of the level of effort activity).

But there are some additions to be made:
- No need, that the LOE-Activity is in the same project as the activities from which it depends - but all related projects must be open during scheduling.
- The first predecessor activity, started, automatically starts the LOE. The last successor activity finished, automatically finishs the LOE.
- A LOE cannot drive another LOE

Regards

Dieter
You have

Hi

U r absolutely correct & this was the only thing i was asking other guys. they were discussing abt LOE & i felt tht they r not properly aware abt the use of LOE.

Anyways, Thanks a lot.

Regards

Gaurav Chawla