Advanced Tab of the Change Details View

The Advanced tab provides time analysis information which is the process of determining the overall schedule of a project by calculating start and finish dates for each activity in the project. Time analysis calculations are based solely on the Time Now date, the duration of the activities, and the logical relationships between them. Unlike resource scheduling, time analysis does not take into consideration the availability or non-availability of resources required by activities.

The Advanced tab is only enabled when you select an activity in the Change Details grid.

Work Package/Activity ID

This field displays the Work Package ID and Activity ID for the activity that you selected in the Change Details grid. PM Compass uses the following format for the activity ID: <changeNumber>_7-digit random number.

Description

This field displays the description for the selected activity.

Status

This field displays the current status for the selected activity: Planned, In-Progress, or Complete.

Earned Value Technique

This group box gives you the ability to change the EVT for the selected activity. For example, assume you have an activity that was originally short in duration with the EVT set to User-Defined Percentage. The change that you are requesting significantly increases the duration; therefore, you change the EVT to Percent Complete. See Earned Value Techniques for additional EVT descriptions.

The available EVT options in the drop-down vary depending on the scheduling tool that you use.   

Open Plan EVT Options

* Although this EVT is available for selection in the EVT fields, Open Plan does not consider it in any calculations

Start % Field

This field only displays when you select User-Defined Percentage EVT.

Constraint Dates and Types

Constraint dates (also known as target dates) act as user-defined constraints on the calculations performed by time analysis and resource scheduling. When the system calculates the dates (early, late and scheduled dates), it uses constraint dates in the calculation.

Review Constraint Dates for more information prior to using these fields.

Try not to use constraint dates unless there is a specific requirement such as a customer delivery date because constraint dates affect the critical path calculation by creating immovable “blocks.”

If you add a Constraint Type and do not select a Constraint Date, when you click Save the Constraint Type will default back to None.

Constraint Date Colors

A red or green highlighted constraint date field warns that the constraint date falls outside of the control account date range:

Open Plan Constraint Date Options

You can enter start and finish constraint dates and define how the constraint should be interpreted by selecting one of the following options:

Open Plan supports constraint types of Fixed Target and On Target that are not supported in PM Compass. These constraint types can be viewed in PM Compass since they were set in Open Plan; however, if you change them to one of the PM Compass constraint types, you can’t change them back again. When these types are set in Open Plan, PM Compass uses one of the supported constraint types in its calculation:

Microsoft Project Constraint Date Options

You can enter a constraint date and define how the constraint should be interpreted by selecting one of the following options:

Actual Start / Actual Finish

The dates displayed are the actual start and finish dates for the activity.

Expected Finish

This field displays the expected completion date for the activity. The Expected Finish date cannot be earlier than the present date.

This field is not available in MSP and is therefore not exported back into the MSP project.

Physical % Complete

This field displays the estimated amount of work completed for the selected activity in percent. See Percent Complete and Physical % Complete for more information including examples.

Progress Type

This field indicates the type of progress being tracked for the selected activity. The value in this field determines how the Progress Value field is used.

Progress Percent / Progress Value

This field displays the amount of work done based on the option selected in the Progress Type field. The field name is Progress Percent when Open Plan is the planning tool and Progress Value when Microsoft Project is the planning tool. The value defaults to zero for new activities.

What do you want to do?

Create a budget change request

Delete a budget change request

Review the change management process


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