Getting Started - Future period bucket planning FAQ

Where can I manually enter future period values?

You can manually enter future period values for an assignment in the Budgeted Units or Planned Units and Remaining (Early) Units fields in the Resource Usage Spreadsheet in the Resource Assignments and Activities windows.

Note

To manually enter future period values in the Resource Usage Spreadsheet in the Activities window, you must choose to display resource assignment data for open projects only. If you are displaying data for all projects, the title of the Display Options bar in the Resource Usage Spreadsheet is "Display: All Projects." To display data for open projects only, click the Display Options bar, then choose Show All Projects to remove the checkmark; the title of the Display Options bar changes to "Display: Open Projects Only."

Can I enter future period values for all assignments to activities?

No. You can manually enter future period values for assignments when:

The activity associated with the assignment has a duration type of Fixed Duration & Units or Fixed Duration and Units/Time. You cannot enter future period values for assignments to activities with a duration type of Fixed Units or Fixed Units/Time.
The activity associated with the assignment is not a milestone activity.

For more information on these and other future period bucket planning restrictions, see the next question below.

Why are some future period buckets gray/uneditable?

When a future period bucket is not eligible for manual future period bucket planning, the spreadsheet cell is gray.

Spreadsheet cells are gray/uneditable when:

The activity associated with the assignment has a duration type of Fixed Units or Fixed Units/Time (you can only enter manual future period values for activities with a duration type of Fixed Duration & Units and Fixed Duration & Units/Time).
The resource or role assigned to the activity does not have any valid worktime for the timeperiod. For resource assignments to task-dependent activities, and for all role assignments to activities, the module determines if there is valid worktime based on the activity calendar. For resource assignments to resource-dependent activities, the module determines if there is valid worktime based on the resource calendar.
The displayed timescale unit in the spreadsheet is smaller than the minimum timescale unit used for time-distributed resource calculations. You can change this setting in the 'Interval for time-distributed resource calculations' field (User Preferences, Resource Analysis tab). For example, if this option is set to Week, you can only enter or edit data in weekly, monthly, or quarterly timescale buckets.

Can I enter values in any time unit?

The values you enter in the Budgeted or Planned Units and Remaining (Early) Units fields are converted to the Unit/Time specified in the User Preferences, Time Units tab. For example, if the Unit/Time user preference is set to Hour and you enter 1d, the value is converted to 8h. To avoid planning mistakes, you should set the Unit/Time user preference to the same time unit you use to plan your work. For example, if you plan your work in hours, set the Unit/Time to Hours.

Can I manually enter or edit values for Remaining Late Units?

No, you can only enter or edit values for budgeted or planned Units and Remaining (Early) Units.

Last Published Thursday, October 9, 2025