Working with Activities 235
Adding Steps
For more information on creating Activity Step Templates and assigning them to activities, refer to the next section, “Creating and Assigning Activity Step Templates.”
You may want to use weighted steps to status activities when a project consists of large activities that encompass distinct tasks.
You can divide an activity into smaller task increments called steps and then assign weights to the steps to calculate the activity’s percent complete. Weighted steps enable you to track the progress of an activity based on the number of steps completed.
The percentage value is shown, relative to the weights of the other steps. For example, three steps are assigned to an activity; the first step has a weight of 2, and the second and third steps each have a weight of 1. When you mark the first step (weight of 2) complete, the percent complete is 50. When you mark the first and second steps complete, the percent complete is 75. When all three steps are marked complete, the percent complete is 100.
You can add steps unique to each activity. You can also create Activity Step Templates that capture a group of steps common to multiple activities, then assign the step group to activities. This section describes how to add unique steps to activities; the next section describes how to create and assign Activity Step Templates.
Add steps In the Activities window, select the activity to which you want to add a step. Click the Steps tab in Activity Details.
Click Add. Type the name of the new step. Type a brief description of the step for the selected activity. You can use HTML editing features, which include formatting text, inserting pictures, copying and pasting information from other information fields (while retaining formatting), and adding hyperlinks. To move the step to an earlier stage of the activity, click the up arrow. To move the step to a later stage of the activity, click the down arrow.
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236 Part 3: Implementing the Schedule
To indicate that the step is complete, mark the Completed checkbox. To add columns for percent complete, weight, weight percent, and userdefined fields, right-click over the columns in the Steps tab, and choose Customize Steps Columns.
■Step % Complete – Percent complete indicates progress on the step and can be used to calculate percent complete for the activity.
■Step Weight – The weight of the step indicates the step’s importance. The higher the value, the greater the importance. The weight can be any number between 0.0 and 999999.0 and is relative to the other steps listed for the activity.
To change the weight of a step, double-click the Step Weight column and type a new weight for the step.
■Step Weight Percent – The step weight percent value is calculated based on the step weights assigned to the activity. This column is 0 percent for nonweighted steps.
■User-defined fields – You can change the title of user-defined fields and use them to enter values such as finish date, start date, cost, or number of hours worked for a step. Choose Enterprise, User Defined Fields to assign and edit these titles.
Setting Options for Using Weighted Steps
You must select Physical as the percent complete type in the General tab in Activity Details to use weighted steps to calculate an activity’s percent complete. The Physical % field in the Status tab of Activity Details then becomes a calculated field, which displays the percent complete based on the relative weights of the completed steps versus the incomplete steps.
In addition, you must mark the Activity Percent Complete Based on Activity Steps checkbox in the Project Details Calculations tab in the Projects window to base percent complete on weighted activity steps.
If you do not set these options, you can still edit the Step Weight and Completed fields in the Steps tab, but they will not be used in any calculations. You will also be able to edit the Physical % field in the Status tab of Activity Details.
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