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Creating and Assigning Activity Step Templates
For more information on weighted steps, refer to the previous section, “Adding Steps.”
Your organization may have several activities that repeat within a project or across projects. For example, every time you construct a building, several specifications must be written and approved. Developing a specification is a multi-step process that never changes.
For example, the “Write Specifications” or “System Design” activity could have the following steps:
■Submit initial spec
■Review initial spec
■Revise initial spec
■Final review
■Final revision
These steps may apply to many or all “Write Specifications” activities in a project or across all projects. Rather than manually inputting these steps into each “Write Specifications” activity, you can create an activity step template containing these steps and assign the template to each applicable activity at once. You can create activity step templates manually or convert existing step(s) into a template.
Creating activity step templates manually Choose Enterprise, Activity Step Templates. In the top grid of the Activity Step Templates dialog, click Add. Type a name in the Step Template Name field (e.g., Specification steps). To add steps to the template, click Add in the bottom grid. Type a Step Name and a Step Weight. The Step Weight is used to calculate the progress of an activity; the greater the weight of the step, the more progress has been made on the activity when you mark a step complete. You can add an unlimited number steps to a template.
You can customize the bottom grid to display user-defined field columns in which you can add step data such as dates and costs. Any user-defined field data you enter in an activity step template is saved as part of the template.
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You can customize these columns to display user-defined fields.
Converting existing step(s) into an activity step template In the Activity Table, select the activity that contains the step(s) you want to convert to a template. In the Steps tab of Activity Details, ctrl-click to select the desired step(s), then right-click on the selected step(s) and choose Create Template. Enter a name for the template when prompted. The step(s) and their associated name, description, and weight are added to the new template. You can also choose to add the steps’ UDFs to the template.
Highlight the steps to include in the template, then rightclick and choose Create Template.
Mark to add UDFs assigned to the step(s) to the step template.
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The module automatically updates step UDF data in activity step templates when a step UDF is added, deleted, or modified in the User Defined Fields dialog box.
Assigning activity step templates to activities You can assign an activity step template to activities separately or to several activities at once. To assign a template to one activity, select the activity in the Activity Table. Click the Layout Options bar and choose Show on Bottom, Activity Details. In the Steps tab, click Add From Template. In the Assign Activity Step Templates dialog, select the template you want to add and click the Select icon (+ symbol). The Steps tab is automatically populated with the steps listed in the template.
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You can also assign an activity step template to multiple activities at once. In the Activity Table, Ctrl-click each activity to which you want to assign a template. From the Command Bar, click Steps to launch the Assign Activity Step Templates dialog. Choose the template you want to add to the selected activities, then click Assign.
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Viewing Activity Summaries
In the Activities window, select the activity whose summary information you want to view. Click the Summary tab in Activity Details.
To view summary information about the activity’s units, choose Display
Units. To view summary information about the activity’s costs, choose
Display Cost. To view all of the activity’s start and finish dates, choose
Display Dates.
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