Expected finish constraint
In the Open Standard
Yves TrudelMember for 21 years 2 months
- Created
- 16
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Hi everyone
I plan to use systematically "expected finish" constraint in the following way and I wonder if one could have any warning or comment on it.
For any activity that starts, I put Actual start, and in the same time I change its Early finish into Expected finish constraint.
Before rescheduling with a new data date, I will put progress on activity.(I uncheck "link percent complete and remaining duration")
When I will reschedule the data date, the remaining duration will decrease according to the difference between first and second DD, and my activity finish date will stay the same unless expected finish falls before the second DD
The result would ideally be that the project finish date would not move when I will reschedule.
For any activity with an Expected finish constaint not completed on the second data date, I will create a filter and correct their revised expected finish date. More drastically, I could even build a Global Change to select all these less than 100% activities and change their new expected finish dates say one week after the revised Data Date.
I hope that using this procedure, I will concentrate more into fine tuning progress and logic instead of "correcting" the project to bring back the project end date where it had to be.
Note that I also plan to erase all expected finish constraints between 2 different Data Dates rescheduling in a way that regular F9 process would not be affected by this constraint.All of that being done tru Global Change procedure.
I apologize for such a long email!
Regards
Yves Trudel
I plan to use systematically "expected finish" constraint in the following way and I wonder if one could have any warning or comment on it.
For any activity that starts, I put Actual start, and in the same time I change its Early finish into Expected finish constraint.
Before rescheduling with a new data date, I will put progress on activity.(I uncheck "link percent complete and remaining duration")
When I will reschedule the data date, the remaining duration will decrease according to the difference between first and second DD, and my activity finish date will stay the same unless expected finish falls before the second DD
The result would ideally be that the project finish date would not move when I will reschedule.
For any activity with an Expected finish constaint not completed on the second data date, I will create a filter and correct their revised expected finish date. More drastically, I could even build a Global Change to select all these less than 100% activities and change their new expected finish dates say one week after the revised Data Date.
I hope that using this procedure, I will concentrate more into fine tuning progress and logic instead of "correcting" the project to bring back the project end date where it had to be.
Note that I also plan to erase all expected finish constraints between 2 different Data Dates rescheduling in a way that regular F9 process would not be affected by this constraint.All of that being done tru Global Change procedure.
I apologize for such a long email!
Regards
Yves Trudel
16 replies
Oldest first- 0Raja Izat Raja Ibrahim ·Hi again,
Actually, i dont know this is revised schedule or what,
but its seems very tedious works may cause the calculation will give wrong answer(file error) and how about the manhours, budget?. To me instead u do that style of work better u try to find activities can be overlap, can be shorten the duration or double the manhours. I think much proper way. - 0Yves Trudel ·Yes I use Primavera 3.1
What I am suggesting is really to put these expected finish dates only on activities that have an actual start, meaning that I have a strong reference to foresee their finish dates.
It prevents me to be obliged to bring back their end dates after moving the data date. When you have large quantities of activities to update every week, I still believe that this could ease the planner job.
I hope I will find some supporters!
;-)
Yves
- 0Sen Moc ·It seems to me that Yves has found a way to ease the work in updating a schedule. I myself did an updating of schedule and ‘twas pain in the butt rechecking the logics and finish dates after inputting the actual dates especially for those activities that are out of sequence.
What Yves did was to identify those activities that will not anymore be completed as per original plan. In my opinion, temporary constraining some activities for the purpose of updating the schedule is ok.
Just make sure to remove them after the schedule has been finalized and before issuing to the client/project manager.
Cheers!
- 0Yves Trudel ·I guess Sen has got what I have in mind. The Expected "constraint" in this case is no more than planning the remaining duration of an activity just started. By setting a duration we already "constraint" that activity with a "fixed duration constraint" and we know we will have to correct that duration right after rescheduling. But when using Expected finish constraint, we avoid to recalculate that specific activity.
Again, in almost no case I would use and even accept "hard" constraints.
Thank you all for your comments
YVes - 0Jose Frade ·Hello Yves
I support 100% the ideas here refering that you should avoid the use of constraints.
Even though I can support your idea of expected finish constraint in one case:
After placing the Purchase Order for a certain equipment to be supplied by external contractor.
Assuming that the informations you are getting from the field confirm that the contractual delivery time remains - then i would accept, after the manufacturing phase realy started (actual start) to use the expected finish date.
Meanhwile, periodic updates from the supplier will need to be checked for accuracy and consistency towards the constraint.
Please be aware that P3.1 will update automaticaly the activity during the further updates of the project but when the expected date arrives it places there automaticaly 100% (even though displays an error message concerning that particular activity in the reschedule log.
Best regards
JMFrade - 0Yves Trudel ·In calculating that estimated value of effort, I deduct the end date of that started activity. The moment after, I push my data date. I hope my mind will not have change in between.
That is the only point I’m trying to validate
...Or as you say, I miss the point!
Regards
Yves - 0Alex Wong ·Yves
Let me guess, what you try to do is to maintain the schedule in a fastest way where when the schedule change data date you want the finish date more or less same as before prior to schedule except the updated task.
From what I can see and experienced, during this process, you may lost some of the critical path activity. Ie prior to last update certain activity may be not fall into the CP and if you maintain those date and thinking they are mostly on track then you may miss report the end date. I guess what others are very correct is to avoid using constraint during or after progress update; except some of the critical dates such as milestone, equipment delivery date etc...
Remember there is no short cut comes to updating your schedule.
You have to update all activities in order to see the full picture of the CPM network. Of course some data will not be availiable, then you have to have a educated guess, but still you need to update it all.
HTH
Alex
- 0Zhang Haixiang ·Yves,
If your project is almost on schedule, the way you use is good. If you have lot of activities delayed,ahead or out of sequence,what you do will give you wrong forecast.
I used this kind of method before but only for some activities as someone mentioned before,e.g. procurement,delivery...(but if i have more information about these activities, i will update them manually)
Anyway,you need to update progress according to what actually happened.
You can use this method,after that remove the constraints,then check your schedule,do some manual update if needed. - 0Sen Moc ·Alex,
Yves already clarified that the “constraint” was only applied on the activities that “has started”. Refer to post#12, second sentence. By this, he meant that he wanted to maintain the finish dates of the updated task…well, hoping that the finished dates or remaining durations were already confirmed.
Cheers!
Sen
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