Advanced Tab of the Schedule Dialog Box of the Activities Page

Overview

Use this tab to specify calculations specific to multiple float paths.

Screen Elements

Use scheduling options from list

The project whose scheduling options will be used when scheduling multiple projects.

Calculate multiple float paths option

Determines whether to calculate multiple critical float paths (sequences of activities) in the project schedule.

Multiple Path Float Method options

Determines whether to calculate multiple paths using Total Float or Free Float.

Total Float: Based on the activity you want the paths to end on, P6 determines which predecessor activity has the most critical Relationship Total Float on the backward pass. This process repeats until an activity is reached that has no relationship. P6 begins the forward pass from this activity and determines which successor activity has the most critical Relationship Successor Total Float. These activities represent the most critical float path. The process begins again until the remaining sub-critical paths are calculated.

Free Float: Defines critical float paths based on longest path. The most critical path will be identical to the critical path that is derived when you select Define critical activities as: Longest Path on the General tab. In a multi-calendar 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. After the most critical path is identified, P6 will calculate the remaining sub-critical paths.

Display multiple float paths ending with the following activity field

The activity in the WBS to represent the end of the float paths.

Typically, this is a milestone activity or some other significant activity that has a start date or end date that cannot change.

Number of paths to calculate field

The number of critical float paths the application will calculate.

For example, if you calculate five float paths, a value of 1 is stored in the Float Path field for each activity in the most critical float path; a value of 5 is stored for each activity in the least critical float path.

If you specify five, the application will calculate the five most critical float paths ending with the activity you selected. The application ranks each float path from most critical to least critical and stores the value for each activity in the Float Path field.

To view the critical float paths after you schedule the project, on the Activities page, create a view that groups activities by Float Path and sort them by Float Path Order. A Float Path value of 1 indicates that those activities are part of the most critical float path. The Float Path Order value indicates the order in which the activities were processed.

Getting Here

Click Projects.
On the Projects navigation bar, click Activities.
On the Activities page, click Schedule....
In the Schedule dialog box, click Settings.

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