Open Plan 8.8 Help

Schedule Tab

This tab displays summary information about an activity’s schedule.

Contents

FieldDescription
IDAn activity ID can consist of from 1 to 59 characters, including the periods that are used to indicate hierarchical levels.

IDs containing the following four symbols ", \ |; are used as delimiters in Open Plan and may cause problems when importing or exporting data.

The activity ID serves as the default sort order for most views and reports.

Although Open Plan supports almost any activity numbering system, most organizations use activity IDs that have some significance built in such as a prefix that refers to the project. Another approach might be to use the activity ID to associate activities with specific elements in a work breakdown structure.

Attention: For information on automatic numbering, see Automatic Numbering.
DescriptionA description can contain up to 60 characters.

You may use both upper- and lowercase characters.

By default, Open Plan defines the maximum field lengths of 59 characters for activity and resource IDs, and 60 characters for activity descriptions, resource descriptions, code IDs, and code descriptions. It is possible, however, to modify the standard data structure and data dictionary so that any of these field lengths can be as long as 255 characters for new projects.

Attention: For information about customizing the Open Plan standard data structure and data dictionary, contact the Deltek technical support staff.

Grid

The grid on this tab provides the following schedule information about the activity:

  • Early Start: The earliest date on which an activity can start. This date is calculated by time analysis.
  • Early Finish: The earliest date on which an activity can finish. This date is calculated by time analysis.
  • Late Start: The latest date on which an activity must start if the project completion date and finish targets are to be met. This date is calculated by time analysis.
  • Late Finish: The latest date on which an activity must be completed if the project completion date and any finish targets are to be met. This date is calculated by time analysis.
  • Scheduled Start: The date calculated by the resource scheduling program as the earliest date on which an activity can start, having regard to resource constraints as well as project logic.
  • Scheduled Finish: The date calculated by the resource scheduling program as the earliest date on which an activity can finish, having regard to resource constraints as well as project logic.
  • Baseline Start: The start date for the activity in the currently selected baseline(s). Open Plan allows you to select up to 3 baselines for a project.
  • Baseline Finish: The finish date for the activity in the currently selected baseline(s). Open Plan allows you to select up to 3 baselines for a project.
  • Target Start: A start date imposed on an activity or project by the user.
  • Target Finish: A finish date imposed on an activity or project by the user.
  • Target Start/Finish Type: Open Plan allows you to specify three types of target dates for activity start and finish dates:
    • Not Earlier Than: The earliest date on which the activity can start or finish. This constraint affects the early dates calculated by time analysis.
    • Not Later Than: The latest date on which the activity can start or finish. This constraint affects the late dates calculated by time analysis.
    • On Target: Combines the effects of both Not Earlier Than and Not Later Than target dates and affects both the early and late dates calculated by time analysis.
  • Actual Start: Date on which an activity was started.

  • Actual Finish: Date on which an activity was completed.

  • Status

    The status of an activity is displayed on all tabs of the Activity Details dialog box except the Notes tab.

    The status of an activity can be one of the following:

    • Planned: The activity has not yet started.
    • In Progress: The activity has started, but is not yet complete.
    • Complete: The activity is complete.

  • Original Duration

    May be entered on any tab of the Activity Details dialog box except the Notes tab. This value should represent the most likely duration for the activity.

    Durations may use any of the following duration units:

    • m: months
    • w: weeks
    • d: days
    • h: hours
    • t: minutes
      While a duration may contain decimal values (for example, 4.5 D), you cannot enter duration using mixed duration units. (For example, 4D4H is not allowed.) Open plan interprets an activity with a blank duration field as having zero duration.

    You can use decimal values for durations (for example, 1.5d), but you cannot mix date formats by entering durations such as 1w2d.

    If you enter a duration that is not consistent with fixed target start and finish dates for the activity, Open Plan will use the duration implied by the target dates when performing time analysis and resource scheduling calculations.

    You can avoid having to specify a time unit when entering durations by assigning a default duration unit for a project through the Preferences tab in the Project Properties dialog box.

    If the activity type is Subproject, Hammock, Effort Driven, or External Subproject, Open Plan ignores any value you enter in this field and recalculates the duration each time you perform time analysis.

  • Remaining Duration

    This field represents the duration remaining for the activity.

  • Total Float

    The maximum number of work periods by which an activity can be delayed without delaying project completion or violating a target finish date.

  • Free Float

    The maximum amount by which an activity can be delayed beyond its early dates without delaying any successor activity beyond its early dates. In the absence of finish targets, free float is always less than or equal to total float.

  • Critical Flag

    Open Plan can identify four types of criticality:

    • Critical: An activity is considered critical when its total float is zero, meaning any delay in its start or finish will directly impact the project's completion date. True criticality depends on both start and finish float. If the activity has finish total float, it may still be completed later without delaying the overall project and therefore is not critical.
    • Most Critical: The activity is not complete, has a total float that is zero or negative, and is also equal to the lowest total float in the network.
    • Controlling Critical: The activity, while not necessarily critical itself, controls a successor with some type of critical status (critical, most critical, or controlling critical).
    • Non-critical: All other activities, including completed activities.
      Attention: For more information on the Critical field, refer to the Deltek Open Plan Developer’s Guide.

  • Type

    The activity type defines how the activity is treated during time analysis. Open Plan supports the following activity types:

    • ASAP
    • ALAP
    • Start Milestone
    • Finish Milestone
    • Discontinuous
    • Subproject
    • Hammock
    • Effort Driven
    • External Subproject
    • Foreign Project
    • Foreign Subproject
    • Foreign Activity
      Attention: For more information about subprojects, see Hierarchical Projects and Subprojects.

      For more information about hammocks, see Hammocks in Open Plan.