Ignore relationships to and from other projects: Mark to ignore activity relationships between projects.
Note
- Do not mark this option if you want to preserve activity dates dependent on external relationships to projects that are not in the same database as the project being scheduled.
Make open-ended activities critical: Mark to designate open-ended activities as critical activities when you schedule the projects.
Use Expected Finish Dates: Mark to schedule activity finish dates as the expected finish dates. This option is checked by default.
Schedule automatically when a change affects dates: Mark to calculate the schedule each time a significant change is made to an activity, relationship, or resource. If you clear this checkbox, changes to activities are reflected in the schedule after you calculate the schedule.
Level resources during scheduling: Mark to level resources automatically each time you schedule projects.
Recalculate assignment costs after scheduling: Mark to recalculate resource and role costs after scheduling the open projects. Use this option to calculate the costs of resource and role assignments that are assigned multiple rates.
When scheduling progressed activities use: Specify the type of logic used to schedule activities that are in progress. When you choose Retained Logic, the remaining duration of a progressed activity is not scheduled until all predecessors are complete. When you choose Progress Override, network logic is ignored and the activity can progress without delay. When you choose Actual Dates, backward and forward passes are scheduled using actual dates.
Note
- The Actual Dates option can cause negative total float if the schedule has actuals after the Data Date.
Calculate start-to-start lag from: When a start-to-start relationship exists and the predecessor starts out of sequence, the successor activity is delayed until that expires and all predecessor relationships have been satisfied. You can choose to subtract the lag from the predecessor's actual start date or its internal early start date.
Choose Actual Start when you want the successor's start to depend on the time elapsed from the predecessor's actual start (regardless of the amount of work that has been accomplished in the predecessor activity). The successor's start date is the data date plus any remaining lag.
Choose Early Start when the successor's start depends on the amount of work that the predecessor activity accomplishes. The expired lag is calculated as the number of workperiods between the actual start and the data date. The successor's start date is the predecessor's internal early start plus any remaining lag.
Note
- This option is disabled when Actual Dates are used to schedule progressed activities.
Define critical activities as: Choose the method to use to identify critical activities in the project. When more than one project is open, the critical activities are identified based on the setting in the default project.
Choose Total Float less than or equal to if you want to identify your critical activities based on total float. Specify the maximum float time for activities before they are marked critical. You can type a new number and time unit.
Notes
- The value you enter in this field is automatically converted to hours, regardless of your user preference settings for duration display (User Preferences, Time Units tab).
When connected to a P6 Professional database: The value is converted to hours based on hours per timeperiod settings defined in Admin Preferences or in the default project calendar, depending on an administrative preference (Admin Preferences, Time Periods tab).
When connected to a P6 EPPM database: The value is converted to hours based on hours per timeperiod settings defined in Applications Settings page in P6 or in the default project calendar, depending on an administrative preference (Application Settings in P6).
- If you do not specify a unit when entering a value (for example, you enter 2 rather than 2d), the value is displayed in hours, regardless of your user preference settings for duration display (User Preferences, Time Units tab).
Choose Longest Path if you want to identify your critical activities based on the longest path in the project network. In a multicalendar project, the longest path is calculated by identifying the activities that have an early finish equal to the latest calculated early finish for the project and tracing all driving relationships for those activities back to the project start date.
Note
- Determining critical activities using either of these methods may yield some critical activities that are not necessarily critical to the project schedule (such as open-ended activities or activities with constraints that do not affect the project end date). You can obtain more accurate results by choosing to calculate multiple critical float paths in the Advanced tab. Choosing this option identifies the most critical float path (sequence of activities), as well as multiple sub-critical float paths, in the project schedule.
Calculate float based on end date of: Choose the method by which to calculate the float period:
Choose Each project: schedules relationships on the backward pass using each project's finish date for open-ended activities, including activities that have an external relationship.
Choose Opened projects: schedules relationships on the backward pass using the latest finish date of all opened projects and external relationship dates to calculate late dates of activities. Float for open-ended activities is calculated using the latest finish date of all opened projects, allowing for more float than the Each project option. Each Project's Scheduled Finish date field is calculated as the latest finish date of all opened projects.
Compute Total Float as: Select the method to calculate total float for all activities. Start Float is the difference between the early and late start dates (Start Float = Late Start – Early Start); Finish Float is the difference between the early and late finish dates (Finish Float = Late Finish – Early Finish); and Smallest of Start Float and Finish Float is the most critical float value.
Calendar for scheduling Relationship Lag: Select a calendar to calculate the lag between predecessors and successors for all activities. If you do not select a calendar, Successor Activity Calendar is used to calculate lag. You can calculate lag based on the Predecessor Activity Calendar; calculate lag based on the 24 Hour Calendar that uses continuous work periods; or calculate lag using the Project Default Calendar which is the calendar selected as Default for New Activities on the Defaults tab of Project Details.
Note
- Lag entered in a unit other than hours is converted to hours based on the predecessor activity's calendar.
Default (button): Resets changes to default scheduling settings.