Segmentable Activities and Their Segmentation

A segmentable activity is a complex task that is segmented, so that the segments can be scheduled and managed individually. This means, a segmentable comprises a set of activities, each representing a single-day task with definite start and end times. You can assign each segment to a different resource. Further, you can start and complete an individual segment or the entire activity. Before you create a segmentable activity, you must create a segmentable activity type.

Segmentable activities progress through a lifecycle that is similar to regular activities. They are created in the pending status, they can then be started, canceled, deleted, and suspended. A started segmentable activity can be completed or set to not done. A canceled, completed or not-done activity can be reopened if necessary. However, as opposed to regular activities, actions with scheduled segmentable activities are performed at the level of their segments and may either affect only the current segment or involve the entire activity. For non-scheduled activities with no segments, the Cancel action affects the entire non-scheduled activity. If a segment of a segmentable activity is longer than four hours, its bar is shown with a break in the List view. Non-scheduled segmentable activities are displayed in the similar manner.

Note: Single day activities that are longer than four hours are also shown as a bar with a break.

In this example, the actual length of a segment or activity bar is shorter than the duration of the segment or activity for better visual representation:

You can distinguish segmentable activity from normal activities on the page displaying multiple routes. When you hover the mouse over a segment of a segmentable activity, all segments of the same activity are highlighted by diagonal lines, as shown in this screenshot:

This helps you find all segments of the same segmentable activity quickly, especially when they are assigned to different resources.

This table provides the individual segment and segmentable activity property value sharing and inheritance rules.

System/Custom	Property	Behavior When Individual Segment is Generated	Behavior When Property is Changed Within Individual Segment	Behavior When Property is Changed Within Segmentable Activity Level
System	Status (for example, Pending, Started)	Segments are created in Pending status	Segments hold their own Status, no sharing or inheritance	Transition of segmentable activity to a terminal state causes: completion/deletion of pending segments
System	Position in route	Segments are created with the ability to be ordered or non-ordered, according to the activity type feature defined for the Segmentable activity.	Segments hold their own Status, no sharing or inheritance.	Position in route for segmentable activity is either ordered or non-ordered. If the value is changed, pending segments are updated: from being not "Non-ordered" to "Ordered" and vice-versa.
System	Duration	Segments are created with the Duration value, within the constraints and optimized route in presence of other activities.	Segments hold their own Duration values. Within a segment, to access the overall activity duration explicitly, Time to complete is used.	Non-scheduled portion of the segmentable activity is a buffer for difference between total activity duration and the sum of created segment durations.
System	Time to complete	Segments have access to segmentable activity's "Time to complete", but don't hold own values. Value doesn't include finished segments.	Segmentable activity's "Time to complete" field is updated.	Segments have access to the updated value of the segmentable activity's "Time to complete".
System	Other system properties	Segments are created with the value of property from Segmentable activity.	If Segment is Pending: When a property value is updated in any segment, the new value is updated in all other pending segments and the segmentable activity. If Segment is not Pending: segment retains its own value.	When a property value is updated in a segmentable activity, the new value is updated in all pending segments. Property values for segments not in Pending status are not updated.
Custom	File	Segments are created with the refence to the file from Segmentable activity. System doesn't make a clone of the file content itself. Instead, it creates a reference.	When a new file is uploaded for one of the segments, there is no change in other segments and no change in segmentable activity - they retain the file they had before.	When a new file is uploaded for a Segmentable activity, there is no change in other segments - they retain the file they used to have. The observed behavior is the same as for any other "custom property".
Custom	Other custom properties	Segments are created with the custom property value from the segmentable activity.	If a segment is pending: When a custom property value is updated in any segment, the new value is updated in all other pending segments and the segmentable activity. All non-pending segments retain their values of custom properties.	When a custom property value is updated in a segmentable activity, the new value is updated in all pending segments. All non-pending segments retain their values of custom properties.