Customizing Activity Layouts

4) To preview your changes, click Apply.

Activity Usage and Resource Usage Profiles

Activity Usage Profile

The Activity Usage Profile

Use the Activity Usage Profile to view cost or unit values for activities in the open project over time according to a timescale you specify. The Activity Usage Profile displays resource allocations for all activities or for the activities you select in the Activity Table, Activity Usage Spreadsheet, Gantt Chart, or the Activity Network.

The Activity Usage Profile can display labor, nonlabor, material, and expense costs and labor and nonlabor units allocated to the activities in your project over time. Costs and units allocated to activities for each period in the timescale are represented as vertical bars. You can also display curves for charting cumulative costs or units over time.

You can customize the Activity Usage Profile to:

Specify the type of information you want to display, including showing labels with the values of each bar.

Change the timescale.

Customize the bars and background.

Display past period actual or actual to date values.

Display unit and cost values by both remaining early and remaining late dates.

Save any of these changes so that you can always access the same set of activity information, or share your Activity Usage Profile with someone else.

You can filter the Activity Usage Profile to include all activities displayed in the top layout, or to include only the activities you select in the top layout. You can also filter the top layout to display only those activities that correspond to the timeperiod you select in the bottom layout.

Tips

If you apply activity filters to the Activity Table, Gantt Chart, Activity Usage Spreadsheet, or the Activity Network, these filters also apply to the Activity Usage Profile.

When you display a financial period timescale and display data for all projects (rather than for open projects only), activity and resource data must be summarized by financial period to accurately display data for closed projects.

When connected to a P6 Professional database: If you have administrator rights, to ensure that activity and resource data is summarized by financial period when you summarize projects, choose Admin, Admin Preferences, select the Options tab, then mark the 'By financial periods' checkbox.

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When connected to a P6 EPPM database: If you have administrator rights, to ensure that activity and resource data is summarized by financial period when you summarize projects, use the Application Settings, General link in P6, then mark the 'By financial periods' checkbox.

The Planned Value Cost and Earned Value Cost curves may display different values in the profile, even if the total Planned Value Cost and Earned Value Cost values are the same in Activity Table columns. This occurs when an activity has an expense with an Accrual Type of Start of Activity or End of Activity (rather than Uniform over Activity). Since these are one-time expenses, and the planned value and earned value curves are cumulative (representing total values spread over time), the planned value spread is different than the earned value spread, even though the total values are the same.

Display the Activity Usage Profile

With the Activities window active, do one of the following:

Choose View, Show on Bottom, Activity Usage Profile.

Click the Layout Options bar and choose Show on Bottom, Activity Usage Profile.

Click on the Bottom Layout toolbar.

Note

The numbers on the left side of the Activity Usage Profile correspond to the vertical bars. The numbers on the right side of the Activity Usage Profile correspond to the cumulative curves (these numbers appear only if you include cumulative curves in the profile).

Define the Activity Usage Profile

1)Display the Activity Usage Profile, then click the Display Options bar in the profile and choose Activity Usage Profile Options.

You can also right-click in the profile and choose Activity Usage Profile Options.

2)Click the Data tab.

3)Choose the category of information to display: Cost or Units.

4)Mark the Display Actual and Earned Value using Financial Period data option if you want to display past period actual values. Do not mark the checkbox if you want to display actual to date values.

Note: If projects are summarized by financial period (which is controlled by an administrative setting), this option is ignored. When projects are summarized by financial period and you display a financial period timescale, the profile displays past period actual values if performance has been stored for a financial period; for financial periods that do not have stored performance, the profile displays actual to date values in financial period intervals.

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5)To select the data included in the profile, mark the checkbox next to each filter type. Then, select the pattern to use to display each data type.

If you choose to display cost data, you can select more than one filter to view a combination of cost values in the project profile.

To display cost totals, mark the Total checkbox.

6)In the Show Bars/Curves area, mark the checkbox for each category of cost/units you want to display.

To show these data by date, mark the By Date checkbox. To show these data as a curve representing cumulative value, mark the Cumulative checkbox.

To select the color for each bar/curve, click the Color button.

7)In the Show Earned Value Curves area, mark the checkbox for each cumulative earned value curve you want to display.

To select the color for each curve, click the Color button.

8)Click the Graph tab.

9)To display a vertical background line for major and/or minor timescale increments, in the Vertical Lines area, mark the corresponding checkbox. For example, in a Year/Month format timescale, major lines would display between years; minor lines would display between months.

10)To display horizontal lines for each numerical increment listed along the side of the profile, choose the type of line you want to display, then select the line color. Choose None to hide background horizontal lines.

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11)To specify additional profile display options, mark the corresponding checkboxes: Show Legend: Mark to display a legend for the profile's bars/curves.

3D Bars: Mark to display the profile’s bars in 3D.

Background Color: Click to change the profile's background color.

Calculate Average: Mark to specify the values you want to use to divide the timescale interval totals.

Divide Interval Totals By: To divide the timescale interval totals by an increment you specify, type it in this field.

Base on Hours Per Timeperiod: To divide the timescale interval totals by automatic increments, based on the date interval selected, mark this checkbox. When you choose this option, the Divide Interval Totals By field displays the division increment based on the division increment specified in User Preferences for the corresponding date interval: 1h for Hour date interval, 2h for Shift date interval, 8h for Day date interval, 40h for week date interval, and so on.

Unit of Measure: Specify the unit of measure for the timescale intervals.

12)To view your profile options without closing the dialog box, click Apply; to save your selections, click OK.

Show or hide the profile legend in the histogram

1)Display the profile, then click the Display Options bar in the profile and choose the Profile Options.

You can also right-click in the profile to choose the Profile Options.

2)Click the Graph tab.

3)In the Additional Display Options section, mark or clear the Show Legend checkbox.

Note

You can move the profile legend within the profile. Move the mouse over the legend, click and hold the mouse button, and drag the legend.

As well as a legend, you can select the Show Values option to display the value of each bar in the histogram.

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