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Time Analysis Rules and Conditions

Review the rules and conditions on Time Analysis.

Rules for the Rollup of Actual Dates to the Actual Start/Finish Fields in the Parent Subproject(s)

These rules are applicable whether the child task is also a subproject or just a lowest-level task.

  • An actual start date is rolled up to the Actual Start field of its subproject parent, provided that the actual start date is the earliest of any of the actual start or early start dates of any of its siblings.
  • An actual finish date is rolled up to the Actual Finish field of its subproject parent, provided that all its siblings also have actual finish dates, and the actual finish date is the latest of any of the actual finish dates of any of its siblings. Actual finish dates are rolled up even if the corresponding actual start date on a task is blank.
  • If an actual start date appears at a particular level in the task hierarchy, this means that no actual start date or early start date, in the absence of an actual start date, is earlier among all lower levels of child tasks.
  • If a project contains an external subproject that is not open, Open Plan is not able to recalculate the schedule for the external subproject. In this case, Open Plan uses the saved time analysis dates (if available) for the external project when summarizing actual dates.

Rules for EARLY Start/Finish Rollup When Both the Actual Date Option AND Observe Actual Future Dates Option are Enabled

These rules apply for early start and finish rollup.

  • A future actual start date is rolled up to the Early Start field of its subproject parent, provided that the actual start date is the earliest of any of the actual start OR early start dates of any of its siblings.
  • A future actual finish date is rolled up to the Early Finish field of its subproject parent, provided that its actual finish date is the latest of any of the actual OR early finish dates of any of its siblings. In this case, its siblings do not need to have actual finish dates.
  • If the Observe Actual Future Dates option is NOT enabled, rollup will observe the aforementioned rules, provided that the actual dates are ON or BEFORE time now.

Effect of Actual Dates on the Schedule with the Actual Date Option Enabled

Review how actual dates affect the schedule when the Actual Date option is enabled.

  • If an actual date occurs ON or BEFORE time now, whether or not the Observe Actual Future Dates option IS enabled, actual dates do not "influence" the schedule. Influence means changing the early dates of predecessor or successor activities. This is due to the fact that actual dates are usually in the past, or at the latest, starting at time now, which is the point from which future work is scheduled. In the time analysis process, with "normal" actual dates, Open Plan replaces early dates with actual dates at the end of the process when early dates for activities have already been scheduled.
  • If an actual start date occurs AFTER time now without an actual finish date, and the future actual dates option is NOT enabled, the actual start date is ignored.
  • If an actual start date occurs BEFORE or AT time now with an actual future finish date, the early finish date is set to be equal to time now and the early start date is set to the actual start if the Observe Actual Future Dates option is NOT enabled.
  • If both the actual start and actual finish dates occur AFTER time now, both the early start and finish dates are set to be equal to time now if the Observe Actual Future Dates option is NOT enabled.
  • If an actual date occurs AFTER time now, and the Observe Actual Future Dates option IS enabled (regardless of the setting of the Actual Date option), that activity may influence the scheduled dates of its predecessors and successors.
    • When an actual start date is added to a predecessor task, the early finish is recalculated based on the actual start date (ASDATE) plus the remaining duration. The successor task's early start date in a finish-to-start relationship is recalculated so that the new calculated finish date of its predecessor is taken into account.
    • For example, you have two sibling tasks, 1.03.03 and 1.03.04, and 1.03.03 is the predecessor to 1.03.04. If time analysis is performed with time now = 01Jan20, you may get the results in the following table.
      Activity ID Duration ASDATE T/A ESDATE T/A EFDATE
      1.03.03 50d None 01May20 09Jul20
      1.03.04 38d None 10Jul20 01Sep20
    • If you add a future actual start date to the predecessor task (1.03.03), the early start date for the successor task gets shifted to allow for the new calculated finish of the predecessor if the Observe Actual Future Dates is ON, as detailed in the following table.
      Activity ID Duration ASDATE T/A ESDATE T/A EFDATE
      1.03.03 50d 01Sep20 01Sep20 09Nov20
      1.03.04 38d None 10Nov20 04Jan21
    • If you turn off the Observe Actual Future Dates option and re-run time analysis, you will get the same results as if you had no actual start date at all on activity 1.03.03.

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