Developing Projects

Tips

To display additional step columns for updating, right-click in the Steps tab and click Customize Steps Columns. Select the columns to display in the Steps tab.

Add user-defined columns to the Steps tab to update additional information, such as the finish date, start date, cost, and the number of hours worked for a step.

Add weights to steps

Weighted steps enable you to track the progress of an activity based on the number of steps completed. To calculate weighted steps you must first mark the Activity Percent Complete Based on Activity Steps checkbox for the project you want to use (this checkbox is located on the Calculations tab in the Project details view). Then, for each activity containing weighted steps, set the percent complete type to Physical.

When you add a step to an activity that already has steps defined, the default weight for the new step is 1, providing no steps have been marked Completed, and no steps have a Step % Complete of 100%. If some of the steps for the activity have already been completed, the default weight for the new step is 0.

1)Choose Project, Activities.

2)Select the activity to which you want to add a step weight.

3)Display Activity Details, then click the Steps tab.

4)Double-click the Step Weight column of the step you want to modify.

5)Type a value for the weight of the step.

The higher the value you enter, the greater the importance of the step in the activity. Based on the total weight for all steps in the activity, the percent for each step is calculated and displayed in the Step Weight Percent column.

Notes

To change the weight of a step, double-click the Step Weight column and type the new weight for the step.

Select Physical as the percent complete type on the General tab of Activity Details to calculate the percent for each weighted step.

Creating and Assigning Activity Step Templates

Activity step templates

Activity step templates enable you to define a group of steps common to multiple activities, then assign the template to activities.

Your organization might have several activities that repeat within a project or across projects. For example, every time you start a project, several specifications must be written and approved. Developing a specification is a multi-step process that never changes.

As an example, the “Write Specifications” activity could have the following steps:

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1)Submit initial spec

2)Review initial spec

3)Revise initial spec

4)Final review

5)Final revision

These steps might 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.

If a commonly used step or set of steps have already been defined for an activity, you can convert the steps to a template.

Create activity step templates manually

1)Choose Enterprise, Activity Step Templates.

2)In the upper grid, click Add.

3)In the Step Template Name field, enter a descriptive name for the template.

4)In the lower grid, click Add.

The Step Count field in the upper grid automatically updates the number of steps in the template.

5)In the Step Name field, enter the name of the step.

6)In the Step Weight field, enter a step weight (at least 1.0).

The higher the value you enter, the greater the importance of the step in the activity.

Notes

You can add an unlimited number of templates. There is no limit on the number of steps per 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.

Convert steps into an activity step template

You can convert existing step(s) into an activity step template rather than creating the template manually.

1)In the Activity Table, select the activity that contains the step(s) you want to convert to a template.

2)Display Activity Details.

3)In the Steps tab of Activity Details, ctrl-click to select the steps.

4)Right-click on the selected steps and choose Create Template.

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