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PC-SIG Diskette Library (Disk #1341)
[PCjs Machine "ibm5150"]
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Information about “PC-PROJECT 2 OF 2 (ALSO 1340)”
PC-PROJECT lets you organize and control complex projects. It uses the
critical path method to produce a project schedule displayed in the form
of a Gantt chart. It is designed to help you manage complex jobs so you
can finish them on time and under budget.
PC-PROJECT views a project as a group of tasks or activities. When you
supply the estimated duration of each task and the relationships between
the tasks (the predecessor tasks and successor tasks), it automatically
calculates a schedule for you and displays it as a Gantt chart. With
the chart, you can see when each task should begin and end, the current
status of each task and whether or not the task is on the critical path.
Like a spreadsheet, PC-Project can immediately show you how any change
alters the project's finish date and cost. This allows you to try
repeated what-if scenarios until you have reached the optimal project
schedule.
PC-Project also has a resource worksheet to track payroll,supplies, and
equipment costs. The worksheet allows you to list your employees and
equipment and assign them to tasks, so you can coordinate your resources
efficiently. The resource worksheet tracks costs to date, anticipated
costs, final cost, and cashflow.
The program is completely menu-driven and contains excellent on-line
help, plus a detailed 75+ page on-disk manual. If you are moderately
familiar with project management and critical path method, you will be
able to use this program with relative ease. It is written in C for
increased speed.
FILE1341.TXT
Disk No: 1341
Disk Title: PC-Project 2 of 2 (also 1340) (Disk 2 of 2)
PC-SIG Version: S1.1
Program Title: PC-Project
Author Version: V1.2
Author Registration: $25.00.
Special Requirements: None.
PC-PROJECT lets you organize and control complex projects. It uses the
critical path method to produce a project schedule displayed in the
form of a Gantt chart. It is designed to help you manage complex jobs
so you can finish them on time and under budget.
PC-PROJECT views a project as a group of tasks or activities. When you
supply the estimated duration of each task and the relationships between
the tasks (the predecessor tasks and successor tasks), it automatically
calculates a schedule for you and displays it as a Gantt chart. With
the chart, you can see when each task should begin and end, the current
status of each task and whether or not the task is on the critical path.
Like a spreadsheet, PC-Project can immediately show you how any change
alters the project's finish date and cost. This allows you to try
repeated what-if scenarios until you have reached the optimal project
schedule.
PC-Project also has a resource worksheet to track payroll,supplies, and
equipment costs. The worksheet allows you to list your employees and
equipment and assign them to tasks, so you can coordinate your resources
efficiently. The resource worksheet tracks costs to date, anticipated
costs, final cost, and cashflow.
The program is completely menu-driven and contains excellent on-line
help, plus a detailed 75+ page on-disk manual. If you are moderately
familiar with project management and critical path method, you will be
able to use this program with relative ease. It is written in C for
increased speed.
PC-SIG
1030D East Duane Avenue
Sunnyvale Ca. 94086
(408) 730-9291
(c) Copyright 1989 PC-SIG, Inc.
FORM.DOC
ORDERING PC-PROJECT
Registration of PC-Project entitles you to the following:
The current release package.
The bound printed manual.
The right to use future releases of PC-Project.
Notification of updates.
Registration costs $25.00. Please use the enclosed order form
when placing an order. You may order by phone as well. Call
(206) 783-6783.
An evaluation package is also available for $10.00. Included is
the current release of PC-Project, with documentation on disk.
Thank you for supporting shareware.
QUANTITY DISCOUNTS AND SITE LICENSING
Quantity discounts, site licenses, and educational licenses are
available. Please call or write for details.
ALL PRICES AND DISCOUNTS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE.
ORDER FORM
Remit to: BIG PICTURE
Greenwood PO Box 30851
Seattle, WA 98103
Ship to: Name: _____________________________________________
Company: _____________________________________________
Address: _____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
Phone: (________) ________ - ______________
Please send:
_____ Full PC-Project Registration @ $25.00 ea $______
_____ PC-Project Evaluation Package @ $10.00 ea $______
Purchase Order, COD, non-USA add $5.00 $______
Subtotal $______
WA residents add 8.1% sales tax $______
Total $______
Payment By: ( ) Check ( ) COD ( ) PO # _________
Call for information on quantity orders and site licenses.
Checks must be drawn in US dollars. You may order by phone.
Please have order information ready. (206) 783-6783.
FOLD AND STAPLE FOR MAILER
-------------------------------------------------------
PLACE
STAMP
HERE
PC-PROJECT
BIG PICTURE
GREENWOOD PO BOX 30851
SEATTLE, WA 98103
-------------------------------------------------------
GO.TXT
╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ <<<< Disk #1341 PC-PROJECT (Disk 2 of 2, #1340 also) >>>> ║
╠═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣
║ ║
║ To print the documentation and installation instructions, type: ║
║ COPY PCPROJ.DOC PRN (press Enter) ║
║ also, COPY README.DOC PRN (press Enter) ║
║ and, COPY FORM.DOC PRN (press Enter) ║
║ ║
║ To install PC-PROJECT, insert Disk #1340, type: INSTALL (Enter) ║
║ ║
╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
(c) Copyright 1990, PC-SIG Inc.
PCPROJ.DOC
ORDERING PC-PROJECT
Registration of PC-Project entitles you to the following:
The current release package.
The bound printed manual.
The right to use future releases of PC-Project.
Notification of updates.
Registration costs $25.00. Please use the enclosed order form
when placing an order. You may order by phone as well. Call
(206) 783-6783.
An evaluation package is also available for $10.00. Included is
the current release of PC-Project, with documentation on disk.
Thank you for supporting shareware.
QUANTITY DISCOUNTS AND SITE LICENSING
Quantity discounts, site licenses, and educational licenses are
available. Please call or write for details.
ALL PRICES AND DISCOUNTS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE.
ORDER FORM
Remit to: BIG PICTURE
Greenwood PO Box 30851
Seattle, WA 98103
Ship to: Name: _____________________________________________
Company: _____________________________________________
Address: _____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
Phone: (________) ________ - ______________
Please send:
_____ Full PC-Project Registration @ $25.00 ea $______
_____ PC-Project Evaluation Package @ $10.00 ea $______
Purchase Order, COD, non-USA add $5.00 $______
Subtotal $______
WA residents add 8.1% sales tax $______
Total $______
Payment By: ( ) Check ( ) COD ( ) PO # _________
Call for information on quantity orders and site licenses.
Checks must be drawn in US dollars. You may order by phone.
Please have order information ready. (206) 783-6783.
FOLD AND STAPLE FOR MAILER
-------------------------------------------------------
PLACE
STAMP
HERE
PC-PROJECT
BIG PICTURE
GREENWOOD PO BOX 30851
SEATTLE, WA 98103
-------------------------------------------------------
LICENSE
All versions of PC-Project, including version 1.2, are not public
domain software and are not free software. PC-Project is
distributed as "Shareware" or "User-Supported" software.
PC-Project version 1.2 is (c) Copyright 1986,1988,1990 by James
Howey. All rights reserved.
Use of non-registered copies of PC-Project by any person,
business, corporation, governmental agency or any other entity or
institution is strictly forbidden with the following single
exception. Non-registered users are granted a limited license to
use PC-Project on a trial basis to determine whether PC-Project
is suitable for their needs.
A registered copy of PC-Project may be used by multiple users on
multiple CPUs so long as there is no possibility of it being used
on more than one CPU at the same time.
No user may modify PC-Project in any way, including but not
limited to decompiling, disassembling, or otherwise reverse
engineering the program.
All users are granted a limited license to copy PC-Project only
for the trial use of others subject to the above limitations, and
also the following:
PC-Project must be copied in unmodified form, complete with
the full PC-Project documentation and the file containing
this license information.
PC-Project may not be distributed in conjunction with any
product or service.
No fee in excess of $10 may be requested or accepted for the
distribution of PC-Project.
Printed documentation may not be copied.
Operators of electronic bulletin board systems may post
PC-Project for downloading by their users, subject to the above
conditions.
A site license is available. Call or write for details.
PC-Project
for
The IBM PC and compatibles
by
James K. Howey
This document describes version 1.2 of the software
Document Revision 1.2
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 by James K. Howey
All Rights Reserved
Published by
BIG PICTURE
Greenwood PO Box 30851
Seattle WA, 98103
PC-Project Software (C) Copyright 1986, 1988, 1990 by James
Howey. All rights reserved.
This document (C) Copyright 1986, 1988, 1990 by James Howey. All
rights reserved.
DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY
THIS SOFTWARE AND MANUAL ARE DISTRIBUTED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT
WARRANTIES AS TO PERFORMANCE OR MERCHANTABILITY. THIS PROGRAM
AND MANUAL ARE DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
WARRANTIES WHATSOEVER. BECAUSE OF THE DIVERSITY OF CONDITIONS
AND HARDWARE UNDER WHICH THIS PROGRAM MAY BE USED, NO WARRANTY OF
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE IS OFFERED. THE USER IS ADVISED
TO TEST THE PROGRAM THOROUGHLY BEFORE RELYING ON IT. THE USER
MUST ASSUME THE ENTIRE RISK OF USING THE PROGRAM.
IN NO EVENT WILL BIG PICTURE OR JAMES HOWEY BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR
ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY LOST PROFITS, LOST SAVINGS OR OTHER
INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF YOUR USE OR
INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM, OR FOR ANY CLAIM BY ANY OTHER
PARTY.
Most of the hardware and software company and product names
mentioned in this document are the trademarks or trade names of
specific companies.
I should point out that "Critical Path Methods in Construction
Practice," by Antill and Woodhead, served as a very useful guide
to the theory of project management throughout the development of
PC-Project. The sample project is taken from information in
table 4.1, by permission of John Wiley and Sons.
The "C" source code was entered and edited with PC-Write.
The package was compiled with the Lattice C compiler.
The manual was written with the assistance of Framework.
Printed in the United States of America.
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Everyone is a project manager. . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 How does PC-Project work? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 What special features does PC-Project provide? . . . 3
1.4 PC-Project, a shareware product. . . . . . . . . . . 3
2 Installing PC-Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2.1 Some background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2 I have two floppy drives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.3 I have a hard disk. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3 Running PC-Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
3.1 Starting up. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.2 Context sensitive help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.3 Using the menus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.4 Tags and tag menus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4 The main menu. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
4.1 The main menu operates on stored projects. . . . . . 15
4.2 Create a NEW project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.2.1 One project at a time. . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.2.2 In what FILE will you save the project? . . . . 16
4.2.3 What will you NAME the project? . . . . . . . . 16
4.2.4 What UNITS of time will you track events in? . 17
4.3 LOAD a project from disk. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.4 MAINTAINing a project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.5 SAVE this project on disk. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.6 Make another COPY of this project. . . . . . . . . . 19
4.7 DELETE this project from disk and memory. . . . . . 19
4.8 QUIT running PC-Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
5 The TASK screen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
5.1 The TASK screen is used to track tasks. . . . . . . 21
5.1.1 A project is divided into smaller TASKs. . . . 21
5.1.2 There is always one CURRENT TASK. . . . . . . . 21
5.1.3 What information is kept for each task? . . . . 22
5.1.3.1 Each task has a TAG. . . . . . . . . . . . 22
5.1.3.2 Each task has a name. . . . . . . . . . . 22
5.1.3.3 The estimated and actual duration. . . . . 22
5.1.3.4 Each task has six important DATES. . . . . 23
5.1.3.5 Each task has a STATUS. . . . . . . . . . 24
5.1.3.6 Each task costs money. . . . . . . . . . . 25
5.1.4 A Gannt chart displays the schedule. . . . . . 25
5.1.5 Tasks have prerequisites. . . . . . . . . . . . 26
5.1.6 Tasks are assigned resources. . . . . . . . . . 27
5.1.7 What operations may we perform on tasks? . . . 28
5.2 Cursor Movement and the current task. . . . . . . . 28
5.3 ADD a new task to the schedule. . . . . . . . . . . 30
5.4 The current task FOLLOWS which other tasks? . . . . 31
5.4.1 Maintaining prerequisites for a task. . . . . . 31
5.4.2 ADD a prerequisite. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
5.4.3 DELETE a prerequisite. . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
5.4.4 LOCATE a prerequisite on the task screen. . . . 35
5.5 The current task USES which resources? . . . . . . 35
5.5.1 Assigning resources to the current task. . . . 35
5.5.2 ADD another resource to the current task. . . . 37
5.5.3 CHANGE the number of required ditch diggers. . 38
5.5.4 DELETE this resource from the current task. . . 39
5.6 CHANGE information for the current task. . . . . . 39
5.6.1 CHANGE task information as work progresses. . . 39
5.6.2 Change the NAME, TAG, or CHARGE for a task. . . 40
5.6.3 The actual start and finish dates. . . . . . . 40
5.6.4 Entering dates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
5.6.5 Change the actual START date for a task. . . . 42
5.6.6 Change the actual FINISH date for a task. . . . 43
5.6.7 Change the project begin date. . . . . . . . . 44
5.7 DELETE the current task. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
5.8 The current task PRECEDES which other tasks? . . . 45
5.8.1 Maintaining successors for a task. . . . . . . 45
5.8.2 ADD a successor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
5.8.3 DELETE a successor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
5.8.4 LOCATE a successor on the task screen. . . . . 49
5.9 Display a HISTogram showing resource loading. . . . 49
5.10 LOCATE a task and make it current. . . . . . . . . 50
5.11 MOVE the current task. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
5.12 SORT tasks in order by start date. . . . . . . . . 52
5.13 Print schedules and REPORTs. . . . . . . . . . . . 52
5.14 ZIP to the resource screen. . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
6 The RESOURCE screen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
6.1 The RESOURCE screen is used to track resources. . . 56
6.1.1 A RESOURCE gets a paycheck. . . . . . . . . . . 56
6.1.2 What information is kept for each resource? . . 56
6.1.3 The resource worksheet shows project costs. . . 57
6.1.4 There is always one current resource. . . . . . 58
6.1.5 Resources are assigned to tasks. . . . . . . . 59
6.1.6 What operations may we perform on resources? . 59
6.2 Cursor movement and the current resource. . . . . . 59
6.3 ADD a new resource. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
6.4 Which tasks are USEDBY the current resource? . . . 62
6.4.1 Assigning tasks to the current resource. . . . 62
6.4.2 ADD a task to the current resource. . . . . . . 64
6.4.3 CHANGE a resource assignment. . . . . . . . . . 65
6.4.4 DELETE the current resource from a task. . . . 65
6.5 CHANGE information for the current resource. . . . 66
6.6 DELETE the current resource. . . . . . . . . . . . 66
6.7 LOCATE a resource and make it current. . . . . . . 67
6.8 MOVE the current resource. . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
6.9 Print resource REPORTs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
6.10 Change decimal POINT display format. . . . . . . . 69
6.11 ZIP to the task screen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
7 The CALENDAR screen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
7.1 The CALENDAR screen sets your hours. . . . . . . . . 71
7.2 Set up days in the work WEEK. . . . . . . . . . . . 71
7.3 Set up our operation's DAILY hours. . . . . . . . . 72
7.4 What HOLIDAYs do we observe? . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
7.5 Change the schedule's NAME. . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
8 Appendixes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
8.1 Files on the PC-Project release disk. . . . . . . . 74
8.2 Customizing PC-Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
8.3 Stack overflow! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
1 Introduction
1.1 Everyone is a project manager.
Welcome to PC-Project.
PC-Project is a Project Management Software package. Project
management software is used to organize and control complex
projects. With a package like PC-Project, you are able to break
down a project into smaller tasks and estimate required time for
each. After you tell PC-Project the relationships between these
tasks, i.e. which come first and which later, a complete schedule
is automatically drawn up for you. In addition, PC-Project
allows you to assign employees or equipment to tasks, then uses
this information to give you complete cost breakdowns. After
work has started, you can use PC-Project to keep a tight rein on
these costs, as well as your scheduled completion. You are
always shown the critical path, that sequence of tasks in which
any delay will result in late delivery. Given any change in your
schedule, you are instantly informed of changes in costs or
deadlines. Because of its unique capabilities, project
management software is destined to join the spreadsheet,
database, and word processor as an essential microcomputer
software package.
The first project management packages ran on large computers and
were used to track enormous efforts. Organizations such as NASA
were instrumental in their development. If you had a bridge to
build or a moon shot to schedule, you used a project management
package. With the coming of microcomputers however, everything
changed. Now, just as you can use a microcomputer spreadsheet
package to perform once impossibly complex analyses, you can use
a microcomputer project management system, such as PC-Project, to
secure the same benefits once reserved for large engineering
organizations.
PC-Project is certainly not adequate to manage a moon shot. That
is beyond the power and capacity of any microcomputer. What
PC-Project is good for is the projects each of us are responsible
for managing. If you are building the Empire State Building, you
will probably use something else. If you are building a house,
however, PC-Project may be just perfect. Construction projects
are not the only application for PC-Project though.
Opportunities are wherever you look. You might have a marketing
campaign, a wedding, a product introduction, a move, a report, or
a reorganization. If you have a deadline, you need the help
PC-Project can provide.
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 1
1.2 How does PC-Project work?
PC-Project, like any analysis package, asks you to build a model
of that part of the world you are trying to control. If you keep
this model up-to-date, you can then use PC-Project to answer
questions about the project you are managing. We use the
following concepts to build our model.
Any large project can be broken down into a number of "tasks".
Unlike the project as a whole, the task is manageable. You know
if a task has started or finished. You know who is responsible
for a task. You have a pretty good idea how long a task should
take. When you start a new project, PC-Project will require that
you enter each of the tasks that, together, make up the project.
The better you are at breaking down the project, the better
PC-Project will be at tracking it.
When a task is entered, you will be asked for its "duration".
The duration is simply your best estimate of how much time will
be required to complete the task. This information, while
useful, is not enough, however, to create a schedule.
There are complex relationships between tasks. You can't frame
the house before you lay the foundation. Some tasks must follow
others. PC-Project allows you to enter these "prerequisite"
relationships. Given the tasks, their durations, and their
prerequisites, it is possible to tell the moment at which each
task, as well as the entire project, must start and finish work,
if the project is to be done as soon as possible.
The schedule is automatically calculated then displayed in the
form of a "Gannt chart". This display allows you, at a single
glance, to see when each task begins and ends, what the current
status of that task is, and, most importantly, whether or not a
task is on the "critical path," that sequence of tasks in which
any delay will be reflected in a late project finish.
In addition to managing time, one has to manage employees and
equipment. Anything that cannot be used up is a "resource" you
apply to your project. PC-Project allows you to enter a list of
resources, along with their pay scales. This alone, however,
does not give us any more power.
A resource may be assigned to a task. You say, "I need six
laborers (resource) to dig this hole (task). Once PC-Project has
been informed of these relationships, together with the tasks and
resources, it is able to tell you exact cost information by
resource, task, or project as a whole.
Lastly, all of the information can be continuously updated. Any
changes or potential changes in the world can be quickly
incorporated into your schedule, giving you immediate answers to
all those questions that start with "When?", or "How much?"
2 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
1.3 What special features does PC-Project provide?
PC-Project offers numerous features, some not found in products
costing many times as much. Some of these follow:
Easy to use, Lotus (tm) like menu driven operation.
Runs on an IBM compatible with one disk drive and 256K RAM.
Complete context sensitive help screens.
Complete display, with constantly updated critical path.
Use easy to remember names rather than numbers to identify
tasks and resources.
Number of tasks, resources limited only by installed memory.
Number of resources and prerequisites for each task limited
only by installed memory.
Tasks may be assigned fractional resources. Fractional
resources may be assigned to the project.
View tasks by resource as well as resources by task.
View prerequisites for each task, as well as successors,
those tasks dependent on a particular task's completion.
Cost remaining is always available, by resource or project.
View bar chart for resource loading.
Use numeric keypad for all data entry. No Num Lock hassles.
Quick operation with speedy updates.
Not copy protected.
It's shareware. You don't like it, you don't pay for it.
1.4 PC-Project, a shareware product.
PC-Project is marketed as shareware. What this means is that
you, the user, are encouraged to fully exercise the package,
using real projects, until you are convinced that it can save you
time and money. Then and only then are you requested to become a
registered user. With something as complicated as a project
management system, no one is capable of making an informed
decision based solely on the publisher's advertising budget.
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 3
PC-Project is not advertised. We depend on you to help
distribute the package. Please help out by making unmodified
copies of the disk package available to your friends and
co-workers. Please do not copy the printed manual.
With your assistance, we can continue to provide enhancements and
additional support features at a reasonable price.
4 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
2 Installing PC-Project
2.1 Some background
PC-Project comes on two disks. The system disk contains files
necessary to run PC-Project. The documentation disk contains a
complete manual for PC-Project.
Installation of PC-Project consists of creating a directory on a
hard disk, or formatting a floppy disk, then copying files needed
to execute PC-Project and telling PC-Project what type of screen
you have.
Before you start, there are a couple things you want to be
prepared for:
If you have a floppy disk system, you will need a newly
formatted disk (format b:/s).
You will be asked what type of screen you have. Be ready with an
answer:
If you have a black and white system with a monochrome or
Hercules card, answer "Y" to the monochrome question.
If you have a color system, answer "Y" to the color
question.
If you have a black and white screen (e.g. Compaq) or you
have a color card and want to work in black and white,
answer "Y" to the black and white question.
Answer "N" to those questions not answered "Y".
Begin the installation by turning on the computer if not on
already. When running PC-Project, it will be very helpful to set
the date when the machine starts up, so you may want to start
doing so.
Put the PC-Project system disk in drive A.
Get an A> prompt on the screen, if not there already, by typing:
a: (return)
To install on a floppy disk system, then type:
install b (return)
To install on hard disk drive C, type instead:
install c (return)
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 5
Any drive letter can be used. If you have one floppy drive
though, you still type "install b", and then remember the A drive
holds the release disk and the B drive holds your work disk. If
you want to put the software on a D or other drive, just type
"install d".
Follow the instructions as they appear on the screen. The next
two sections cover each of the two types of installation in more
detail, should you require further assistance.
If you would like to print the manual, first make sure your
printer has a sizable stack of continuous form paper. Put the
documentation disk in drive A, make sure the print head is on the
very first line of the page, and then type:
copy a:pcproj.doc prn (return)
This will copy the manual to your parallel printer. If you have
a serial printer or other device, substitute "com1" or another
device name for "prn".
To print a registration and order form, type:
copy a:form.doc prn (return)
with either the system or documentation disk in drive A. The
above considerations regarding the destination apply here as
well.
2.2 I have two floppy drives.
Following are installation instructions for a two floppy
machine. (Or a one floppy machine, if you keep track of which is
A and which is B) Our goal is to create a work disk containing
all files necessary to run PC-Project. When finished, we will be
able to take this disk, put it in drive A, turn on the machine,
and run PC-Project.
Get a new disk, or one you can erase, and label it "PC-Project
Work Disk".
Format your work disk according to the instructions in your DOS
documentation. It is recommended that you use the /s option so
that you can start your system with your PC-Project work disk.
Put the PC-Project release disk in the A drive and get an A>
prompt. Type "install B", followed with a carriage return.
If you are not asked, "Have you already formatted your disk?",
something is wrong. Review steps up to this point.
Answer the question with a "Y", followed with a carriage return.
6 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
You should be instructed to place your new disk in drive B. Do
so before pressing any key.
The install procedure will copy most of the files required to run
PC-Project onto the B disk at this point.
The install procedure will next inquire as to the type of screen
you have. You have to decide whether you have a monochrome,
color, or black and white screen. Answer "Y" to the question
that describes your system, "N" to any others. Depending on your
response, the appropriate screen driver file is copied to your
work disk.
STARTING PC-PROJECT
Put your work disk in drive A.
It is important that the system date be set when the computer is
started. You will be entering dates and will appreciate the
ability to type today's date with one keystroke.
At the A> prompt, type "pcproj", followed by a return.
2.3 I have a hard disk.
Following are instructions for the installation of PC-Project on
a hard disk. I assume you have a floppy drive A: and a hard disk
C:. We will create a directory to store PC-Project files and
copy the required files to that directory. Ok?
Put the PC-Project release disk in the A drive and get an A>
prompt by typing "a:", followed by a return.
Type "install C", followed with a carriage return. If you have a
"D" or other drive, insert its name in place of "C".
You are given an opportunity to cancel at this point. If you do
not, the install procedure will create a directory called "\pcp"
on your hard disk.
The install procedure will copy most of the files required to run
PC-Project onto the C disk at this point. (The screen will say
"Installing program files")
The install procedure will next inquire as to the type of screen
you have. You have to decide whether you have a monochrome,
color, or black and white screen. Answer "Y" to the question
that describes your system, "N" to any others. Depending on your
response, the appropriate screen driver file is copied to your
work disk.
STARTING PC-PROJECT
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 7
It is important that the system date be set when the computer is
started. You will be entering dates and will appreciate the
ability to type today's date with one keystroke. If you have a
built-in clock, you don't have to worry about this.
Change to the \pcp directory by typing:
c: (return)
cd \pcp (return)
Start the package by typing:
pcproj (return)
OPTIONAL -- MODIFY PATH COMMAND
The previous instructions enable you to run PC-Project from the
PCP directory. If you would like to be able to run the program
from anywhere on the hard disk, without changing directories, you
must add or modify the PATH command in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file to
include C:\PCP. You can use either EDLIN or better, an ASCII
based word processor such as PC-Write. See your DOS
documentation for details.
8 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
3 Running PC-Project
3.1 Starting up.
The purpose of this section is to cover the general organization
of PC-Project as well as to give you a brief tour of its
capabilities. It is suggested that you read this while running
the package so as to better reinforce its content.
Because PC-Project is specifically devoted to managing projects
in real time, it is important that the system date be set
accurately when the machine is first turned on. If you are
managing your projects by the hour, you must also set the time of
day. The reason for this is that, over the course of the
project, you will many times be required to enter the current
date. If the date hasn't been set, you will end up typing
today's date over and over. If the date was set, only a single
keystroke is necessary to enter the current date.
PC-Project is started by typing "PCPROJ" at the DOS prompt while
the two files, PCPROJ.EXE and PCPROJ.DEF, are in the current
directory or available on the path set up when you started your
system. See previous section for details. For floppy disk
users, if you don't see these two files when you type "DIR" at
the DOS prompt, PC-Project is not going to run ("Bad Command").
Find the work disk and put it in the current drive then try
again.
When PC-Project is started, you first see the title page. This
screen gives you information about how you can go about becoming
a registered user of the package.
To continue from the title page, press any key. The escape key
will return you to DOS. After pressing any key (but escape), you
are shown the PC-Project main screen. Do this now.
3.2 Context sensitive help
At the top of the MAIN screen, a legend indicates that you should
press F1 for help. Try it. You should see a screen describing
the operation of the main screen. To return to the main screen,
press the ESC key. You can press F1 for help at any time during
the operation of PC-Project. Depending on what you are trying to
do, the information you get will vary. For example, if you are
on the task screen, any help you get will be task specific. This
feature is called context sensitive help.
Sometimes, more information than can fit on one screen is
required. In this case, you will be asked to press "N" to see
the next screen and "P" to see a previous screen. The task
screen comes with four different help screens, each describing a
particular feature. The "N" and "P" keys, as well as the left
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 9
and right arrows, can be used to shuttle back and forth between
these screens. In any event, when you are finished with help and
wish to return to your work, press the ESC key to do so.
A great deal can be learned about PC-Project, without reference
to the manual, by the user who explores the package, looking at
help screens and menu legends. In many cases, users are able to
get the package up and running without ever printing the manual.
3.3 Using the menus.
Continuing our tour of PC-Project, we now introduce the MAIN and
MAINTAIN screens, as well as the PC-Project menu structure.
Bring up PC-Project and get to the MAIN screen, if you haven't
done so already.
In the upper left corner of the screen, you should see the word
"MAIN". PC-Project has several screens. Each of them has a
name. The name is always displayed in the upper left corner of
the screen.
In the upper right hand corner of the screen, you should see a
number. This is the memory remaining display. It tells you how
many characters of main memory you have available to hold your
project. As you add tasks and resources to your project, this
number will decrease. If it ever gets to zero, you will be
unable to add anything to your project until you get more
memory. You will be able to save and print your project though.
PC-Project is very efficient in its use of memory however, so
this shouldn't pose a problem.
The line displayed nearest the bottom of the screen is called the
key bar. The key bar is used to display prompts and additional
information about your current options.
Above the key bar is the menu bar. As of now, you have three
things you can do. You can LOAD a previously created project,
start a NEW project, or QUIT the program.
Note that LOAD is highlighted. You can move this highlight with
the left and right arrow keys. Try it. Watch the legend in the
key bar as the highlight is moved. It should change to describe
what will happen if each of the indicated options are selected.
Whenever a menu is displayed, you can find out what each of the
options does by moving the cursor and reading each of the
legends.
Move the highlight, or "menu cursor", back to LOAD. Press a
carriage return. Whenever on a menu bar, the carriage return
always selects the highlighted option. We say you have just
"selected LOAD from the MAIN menu."
10 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
To load a previously created schedule, you must supply its file
name. PC-Project accepts all your input on the prompt line.
When you see a question on this line, such as "File Name?", with
the underline cursor blinking next to it, this means you are
expected to enter a response to the question.
A number of points about prompts. Sometimes a default response
is displayed after the prompt. To accept this response, just
type a carriage return. Sometimes you accidently select
something and just want to back up to where you were previously.
The escape key usually works to do this. While you are typing a
response to a prompt, the backspace key works to make changes
before you press the carriage return. On true IBM compatibles,
the Num Lock is automatically set when a prompt is issued, so you
can use the numeric keypad to enter things like dates and
durations. Lastly, input at the prompt is always terminated with
a carriage return.
On the PC-Project release disk is a project stored in a file
named "SAMPLE". The installation instructions asked you to copy
this file to your work disk. Load this project into memory by
typing "SAMPLE" followed by a carriage return. (Hard disk
users: You may, if you want, type the full pathname, including
drive if desired, i.e. "C:\PCP\SAMPLE".)
You should now see the project name and the file name in the
upper half of the screen. In addition, the menu bar has picked
up a few options. Now that you have a schedule in memory,
there's a few more things you can do. By putting only those
options that are possible on the menu bar, PC-Project prevents
you from attempting unsound selections.
Select MAINTAIN from the MAIN menu. You should see the MAINTAIN
screen.
When working on projects, most of your time will be spent
maintaining, or modifying, your schedule. There are three
possible screens you can use. TASK lets you look at the tasks
composing your project. RESOURCE shows you information about
your employees and equipment. CALENDAR is used to set your work
week and holidays.
Any time a menu is displayed in PC-Project, you can select from
it by pressing the first letter of your desired option. So, you
needn't use the arrows followed by a carriage return if you don't
want. By pressing the first letter of the option, you reduce
your effort to a single keystroke.
Most menus in PC-Project have a QUIT option. QUIT does not mean
stop the program, but rather, quit what you are doing right now
and go back to the last menu. Quit the MAINTAIN menu by typing
"Q". (Big or little letters). You should be back to the MAIN
menu. Type an "M" to return to the MAINTAIN screen.
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 11
Wherever you see QUIT on a menu, an escape key will do the same
thing.
To quit PC-Project when you are finished repeatedly press the "Q"
or the escape until you have backed off the MAIN screen. Don't
quit now, though.
Select TASK from the MAINTAIN screen.
The task screen has its own menu, with numerous options. Note
that no selection is highlighted. This is because the arrow keys
are used to move around on the task screen. You can still use
the first letter of an option to select it, even when no entries
on the menu bar are highlighted. If you are more comfortable
using the arrow keys to select, or have been using Lotus (tm) a
little too long, you may type a slash to bring up the menu
cursor.
3.4 Tags and tag menus.
Now we come to a discussion of tags and tag menus. Again, it is
recommended that you bring up PC-Project and work along with this
manual.
If you haven't already done so, bring up PC-Project and select
the TASK screen from the MAINTAIN menu.
The task screen is used to display a Gannt chart of the project.
One line is used to display each task. On the left side of the
screen are the task "tags" or names. When you add a task, you
will be required to name it. Afterwards, you will use this tag
whenever you want to reference the task. To the right of the
tags are the Gannt lines. These lines show you the task
duration, the start and finish dates, the status of the task, and
whether or not there is any slack in its scheduling or if it is
on the critical path.
One of the tasks will be highlighted. This task is the current
task. Most operations you perform on this screen will affect the
current task. The current task can be changed by pressing the up
or down arrows. At the bottom of the screen can be found more
specific information for the current task. Move the current task
cursor up and down and watch the bottom of the screen change.
When you have to specify a task, you will be asked to supply the
task tag. To illustrate this, select LOCATE from the TASK menu.
Do this by typing an "L", "/L", or "/" then moving the menu
cursor to LOCATE and pressing return. You should be asked which
task you want to locate. The default is the current task. In
response to the prompt, type "CONCRETE" followed by a carriage
return. You should find that the task with tag "CONCRETE" has
been made current.
12 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
Let's try something else. Select LOCATE from the task menu. In
response to the prompt, type "TEST" followed by a carriage
return. The current task becomes "TESTPIPE". In PC-Project, you
need only type enough of the tag to ensure uniqueness.
Select LOCATE again. This time, respond with "GET". It turns
out that there are two tags that both begin with "GET". In this
case, you are asked which of the tags you meant. PC-Project says
"Do you mean GET PIPE ?", with a default of "Y". Type an "N"
followed by a carriage return. You will then be asked, "Do you
mean GET VALV ?". This time press a carriage return to indicate
your approval.
You should have noted that, in addition to putting the task
cursor on the located task, LOCATE also brings its Gannt line
onto the screen where you can see it. Later, when you are on a
task, but don't know whether it's before or after the screen
display, you can select LOCATE, and then just type a carriage
return. Because locate defaults to the current task, this will
bring the calendar into line with the task.
Both tasks and resources have tags. When you add one, you are
asked to provide a tag. Because PC-Project allows you to
reference tasks with a partial tag, you are required to take a
little extra care when naming them. PC-Project will not allow
you to add a task to this project called "GET". The reason for
this is that there are already tasks that start with the same
letters. Later, if you typed "GET" in response to the LOCATE
prompt, the package would not be able to determine whether you
meant the task "GET", or were typing the partial tag for the
other two tasks. If you try to do this, you will see a message
that says "REDUNDANT". Try this: Select ADD from the task
menu. When asked for the tag, type "GET". You should see the
message and be asked again for the tag. Press an escape to
return to the task menu.
Locate the DIGTRNCH task. Each task has prerequisites and
successors. To see which tasks can't be started until the trench
is dug, (the successors of DIGTRNCH), make sure DIGTRNCH is
current and select PRECEDES from the task menu. We say "DIGTRNCH
precedes which tasks?"
After selection of PRECEDES, the appearance of the screen bottom
changes. Instead of detailed information for DIGTRNCH and the
task menu, we see a new menu (the PRECEDES menu), information for
the task PREPVALV, and a "tag menu" containing the two task tags
PREPVALV and LAYPIPE. PREPVALV is highlighted. Note also that
on the task screen, both of these tasks may start immediately
after the conclusion of the DIGTRNCH task.
When a limited number of tags are involved, you will often see a
tag menu. Sometimes this menu will be empty. Sometimes there
will be more entries then can be seen on the screen at once.
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 13
Below the tag menu is additional information for the highlighted
tag. The tag menu highlight can be moved with the right and left
arrow keys to change this information. This operates in a
similar way as the current task.
The PRECEDES menu allows you to ADD another successor to the
current task, or to delete the relationship between the current
task and the task with the highlighted tag on the tag menu. You
can also locate the highlighted task or quit back to the task
menu. For more about this, see the appropriate sections in the
rest of the manual.
FOLLOWS works just like precedes, except on prerequisites. You
will also see a tag menu if you select USES. The USES option is
used to assign and review the current task's resource
assignments. Give USES a try.
This concludes the preliminary discussion of PC-Project. You are
encouraged to experiment some more and come back to the manual if
any questions come up.
14 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
4 The main menu.
4.1 The main menu operates on stored projects.
When first started, PC-Project displays the main menu.
Initially, only three options are available. You may load a
project from disk, create a new project, or quit. After loading
or creating a project, additional options become available. You
may then save the project, make a new copy of the project, delete
the project from disk, or maintain the project.
The next few sections describe the operation of each of these
options.
4.2 Create a NEW project.
4.2.1 One project at a time.
The NEW option of the main menu is chosen when you want to create
an entirely new project. You might have just started PC-Project
or you might be finished working on one project and want to start
another.
When you first start PC-Project, no project is loaded. Selecting
NEW simply initializes a new project. If you have already been
working on a project however, it must be removed from memory
before a new project is initialized. For this reason, if a
project is already loaded, several questions must be asked before
you get to the actual creation of a new project.
If a project is currently loaded, after selection of NEW,
PC-Project will ask you if you are sure you want a new project.
If you would like to continue working on your current project,
respond with an "N" and you will return to the main menu with no
changes having taken place.
If you respond to the are you sure question with a "Y", and you
have changed your current project since it was last saved,
created or loaded, you will then be asked if you would like to
save the changes you have made. If you respond with an "N", any
changes you have made will be lost. Respond with a "Y" to save
your project.
At this point, if you had a project loaded, it has been
unloaded. If you just started PC-Project, there was none loaded
in the first place. We can proceed to the actual creation of a
new project.
It should be pointed out that, even though the previous project
has been unloaded, PC-Project preserves calendar information and
holidays from it. This means that you don't have to reenter all
holiday dates every time you create a new project. You can head
straight to tasks and resources.
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 15
To create a new project, certain information is required. You
must name the new project. You must give PC-Project a file name
for your new project. You must tell PC-Project what units of
time you plan to track your progress in. After this information
is entered, the new project is initialized and the project begin
date is set to the date maintained by your system. Following are
additional instructions on the required entries.
4.2.2 In what FILE will you save the project?
After selection of the NEW option, and the determination of the
previously maintained project's fate, you are asked to enter a
file name for the new project.
If you press ESC in response to the "File name?" prompt, you will
be returned to the main menu, with no project in memory.
PC-Project accepts any legal DOS path name in response to this
prompt. If you give a simple file name, the new file will be
created in the current sub-directory or on the currently selected
default disk. Entry of an illegal file name results in an error
message and an opportunity to reenter the offending name.
If the file name you give corresponds to an already existing
file, you will be told this and asked if you want to "Wipe it
out?". Respond with an "N" to save the contents of the file.
You will be asked for another name. If you really don't want the
file, enter "Y". The file will be deleted, later to be replaced
with your new project.
After entry of the file name, PC-Project displays the "new menu"
along with the just entered file name and default values for the
project name and project units. If you don't like these
defaults, or you entered the wrong file name, select the
appropriate field from the menu and enter the new information.
When you are satisfied with the looks of the screen, select QUIT
from the new menu. You will be returned to the main menu.
There, you can select MAINTAIN to go ahead and start entering
your project.
4.2.3 What will you NAME the project?
The project name is used to identify the project. It appears at
the top of reports and on the main menu screen. The default name
is "New project."
It is changed by selecting NAME from the new menu. Respond to
the "Project name?" prompt with a thirty character or fewer
description of the project. If you later decide you don't like
the name you gave, it can be changed on the calendar screen.
16 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
4.2.4 What UNITS of time will you track events in?
PC-Project can track projects in hours, days, weeks, or months.
As bad luck would have it though, it is quite inflexible about
changing from one to the other. Once you have chosen one of
these time periods on this screen, you will be given no
opportunity to change your mind. The choice of the "schedule
unit" is very important. If you are hesitant, back off and think
about your project a little more or create a couple projects,
each with different units, and play around with them to get a
feel for the looks and handling of each option.
The schedule units default to days. To change the units, select
UNITS from the new menu, then select either HOUR, DAY, WEEK, or
MONTH from the menu that is then displayed. If you select the
wrong one, just change it back. You will be allowed to change
schedule units as long as you are on this screen and then, no
more.
4.3 LOAD a project from disk.
The LOAD option of the main menu is used to bring in a previously
created project from disk. Normally, you will create a new
project once, then repeatedly load it to monitor project
progress.
This package works on one project at a time. If a project is
currently loaded, after selection of LOAD, PC-Project will ask
you if you are sure you want a new project. If you would like to
continue working on your current project, respond with an "N" and
you will return to the main menu with no changes having taken
place.
If you respond to the are you sure question with a "Y", and you
have changed your current project since it was last saved,
created or loaded, you will then be asked if you would like to
save the changes you have made. If you respond with an "N", any
changes you have made will be lost. Respond with a "Y" to save
your project.
Having dispensed with the old project, PC-Project then asks for
the name of the file containing the desired project. If you
press ESC in response to the "File name?" prompt, you will be
returned to the main menu. If you had a project loaded before,
it is still there.
PC-Project accepts any legal DOS path name in response to this
prompt. If you give a simple file name, the system looks for the
file the current sub-directory or on the currently selected
default disk. Entry of an illegal file name results in an error
message and an opportunity to reenter the offending name.
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 17
If the file exists, but is not a project, you will be told this
and given another chance to reenter the file name.
Once you have supplied the name of a file containing a project,
your old project, if any, is unloaded, and the new one is brought
into memory. You can then maintain the newly loaded project.
4.4 MAINTAINing a project
After a project is loaded, you want to modify and adjust it.
After a project is created, you want to start adding tasks and
resources. Typically, the first thing you do after getting a
project into memory is to modify it, to MAINTAIN the project.
The MAINTAIN option of the main menu is the most important.
Through this option, you access the vast majority of PC-Project's
power and functionality. The rest of the options on the main
menu are essentially devoted to file operations. MAINTAIN is
where all the work gets done.
Maintain a project by selecting MAINTAIN from the main menu. You
will then be given a menu bar listing the three possible screens
available to you. You will be given the choice of maintaining
resource, task, or calendar information. Select the desired
screen from this list.
Each of the possible three screens is described in detail, later
in this document.
To return to the main menu, select QUIT from the maintain menu.
4.5 SAVE this project on disk.
Use the SAVE option of the main menu to periodically save your
work over the course of a long PC-Project session. The world is
a dangerous place, full of acts of God and operator error.
Protect yourself from cruel fate by, from time to time, pausing,
taking a moment of reflection, and selecting SAVE from the main
menu.
The save option rewrites the file that the current project was
loaded from. Do not save after you have just wiped out some
crucial part of your project.
If the disk fills up, or some other error takes place, you will
be given an error message. Nothing has been saved. Carefully,
wait till the little light is out, then replace the disk with a
newly formatted or at least relatively empty disk and select SAVE
again. (or COPY)
18 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
It is recommended that, if you plan on doing potentially
hazardous modifications to your project, (What happens if
everybody works 16 hours a day and is twice as efficient?), you
make a copy of the project, using COPY, then use that copy as
your test ground.
4.6 Make another COPY of this project.
Use COPY to make a second copy on disk of your currently loaded
project. Use this option to make additional backups or to create
a project you can then load and wreck with wild what-if
scenarios.
On selection of this option, you are asked what to name the file
storing the copy. Any legal path name is accepted. Press ESC to
back out to the main menu. If the file already exists, you will
be asked if you want to wipe it out. Respond with an "N" to
avoid this fate.
On successful entry of a file name, the current project is
written to the specified file. You can then use LOAD to bring
the new copy into memory if you want to work with it.
If the disk should fill or any other errors take place, an error
message will alert you. If you still want to make your copy,
select another disk for the file name, or replace the full disk
with a less densely occupied one and try again.
4.7 DELETE this project from disk and memory.
The DELETE option completely wipes out a project. There is no
turning back. There is no undo. If selected and approved, this
option deletes the disk file containing the project, then removes
it from memory. It might be used after copying a project, then
letting the what-if scenarios get out of hand. One could delete
the copy, go back and load the original, and then make another
copy. There really is no reason to use this option except disks
that are filling up.
After selection of the DELETE option, you are asked if you are
sure you want to delete. Respond with an "N" to save your
project from damage. If you are truly committed to wiping out
your efforts, answer "Y" and it's gone.
4.8 QUIT running PC-Project.
Select QUIT from the main menu to quit PC-Project and return to
MS-DOS.
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 19
After selecting quit, if a project is currently loaded, you will
be asked if you are sure you want to quit. Answer "N" to return
to the main menu. If you are sure, and changes have been made to
the project in memory, you will be asked if you want to save
changes. If you do, answer "Y". If you just finished messing up
a perfectly good project, answer "N" if you have recently saved
the previous good version.
If the disk should fill during the save operation you will be
returned to the main menu. Replace the disk with a less
populated one, SAVE your project, then select QUIT again.
After asking these questions, PC-Project either saves or doesn't
save, depending on your response, and then ceases operations.
20 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
5 The TASK screen.
5.1 The TASK screen is used to track tasks.
5.1.1 A project is divided into smaller TASKs.
The TASK screen is one of three major screens found in
PC-Project. It is used to control the individual tasks that make
up a large project. On this screen you are given the ability to
add, change or delete tasks. You can maintain the relationships
between tasks by modifying prerequisites and successors. As the
project progresses you monitor its progress on the task screen.
You may assign resources to tasks and modify these assignments.
The screen gives you a graphic display of exactly when each task
is to be started and finished. It also displays the critical
path, that sequence of tasks in which any slippage will result in
the project completion being delayed by a corresponding amount of
time. You will probably find yourself spending more time on this
screen than any other.
The menu bar at the bottom of the screen is called the task menu.
The task screen is entered by selecting TASK from the maintain
menu. You return to the maintain menu by selecting QUIT from the
task menu.
The task screen is divided into several sections. The top line
is used to display the current resource and the memory remaining.
The next two lines display the date line. This line gives you a
legend to verify task dates against. The next 14 lines are
devoted to displaying individual tasks. Each of these lines
contains the task TAG or name, as well as a Gannt chart line
showing the task start and finish, as well as status and slack,
if any. One of the task tags is always highlighted. This is the
current task. After the task lines comes the task edit area.
Here is displayed additional information for the current task.
The task edit area is also used to enter and edit prerequisites
and successors as well as resource assignments.
In the next few sections, we will go over the information kept
for each task, as well as the exact methods for adding and
modifying that information.
5.1.2 There is always one CURRENT TASK.
The task screen has room to display 14 tasks. One of these tasks
is always set as the current task. The current task's tag is
highlighted on the task line. This highlight is known as the
task cursor. Most operations on the task screen work on the
current task. For example, if you select CHANGE from the task
menu, you will be given the opportunity to modify the current
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 21
task. If you want to change another task, you must first
position the task cursor on the desired task, then select the
option. (The cursor is moved with the normal arrow keys.)
In addition, information for the current task appears in the task
edit area, those three lines at the bottom of the screen above
the menu bar. So, if you want detailed information on a task,
move the cursor to that task and inspect the task edit area.
5.1.3 What information is kept for each task?
5.1.3.1 Each task has a TAG.
The task tag is a short name you give a task. You use this name
to identify the task elsewhere in the program. There are
restrictions on the tag. It is limited to eight characters in
length. It may contain letters, digits, and spaces. It may not
start with a space.
One restriction deserves special mention. Elsewhere in the
system, you will often be asked to enter a task tag. However,
PC-Project does not require you to enter the whole tag. If the
partial tag you enter corresponds to more than one possible task,
you will be asked which of the possibilities you wanted. But,
there must be no redundancy on the entry of a task's complete
tag. Any complete tag must not form the beginning of another
task's tag. For this reason, you will not be allowed to add a
tag that starts with another tag's contents. For example, if you
have a tag "DIG HOLE" already, you will not be allowed to enter
the tag "DIG" or vice versa. If this were allowed, then, after
entering "DIG" PC-Project would still have no way of determining
which task you meant. The system will display "REDUNDANT" on the
bottom line when this happens.
5.1.3.2 Each task has a name.
The task name is simply a more detailed description of the task.
You are given 30 characters. The name appears in the task edit
area and on reports.
5.1.3.3 The estimated and actual duration.
Each task has an estimated duration. The duration is expressed
in the units of time being used in the current project. The
estimated duration, abbreviated "ED", is used to calculate the
initial schedule.
The duration of a task may be zero. This has special
significance. If a task has zero duration, it becomes a
milestone, a task marking the conclusion of a phase of your
project that consists of a number of separate tasks. Judicious
22 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
use of milestones can ease the organizational burden
considerably. Milestones allow us to divide and conquer complex
projects. Each new schedule comes with two milestones already
added. These mark the begin and end of the project. Initially
tagged "PBEGIN" and "PEND", their tags and names may be changed
to your liking.
The actual duration of a task is displayed for tasks that are
completed. It is derived by simply subtracting the start from
the finish date. After the project has started, it is useful to
compare the estimated and actual durations to check on the
accuracy of your estimates.
5.1.3.4 Each task has six important DATES.
You will be responsible for maintaining the two most important
dates for each task. They are the actual start ("AS"), and the
actual finish ("AF"). When a schedule is begun, these dates are
not set. They are "blank". After the schedule is set up, you
tell PC-Project a task has started by changing the actual start.
A task is completed by changing the actual finish. In this way,
PC-Project can track your project's progress.
It should be pointed out that the project begin date is set by
changing the actual start date for the first milestone, the task
originally tagged PBEGIN.
In addition to the actual start and finish, PC-Project also keeps
track of four other dates for each task. They are the early and
late start and finish. Unlike the actual start and finish, you
are not required to set these. They are calculated by the
system.
The early start marks the first possible time at which a task
could conceivably begin, i.e. the time at which all of its
prerequisites will have been completed.
The late start marks the last moment a task may be begun without
causing project completion to be delayed.
The early finish gives you the earliest date you can expect the
task to be finished. In other words, if you start the task as of
the early start, when can you expect completion?
The late finish tells you the last date you can finish the task
without affecting the project schedule.
After every change affecting the schedule, each of these four
dates is recalculated. As the actual start and finish are filled
in, the late start and early finish will be set accordingly. All
six of these dates are displayed in the task edit area for the
current task.
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 23
5.1.3.5 Each task has a STATUS.
Depending on our progress, each of the tasks we are tracking has
a particular STATUS. There are five possible statuses. The
status is determined by the value of the actual start and finish
of the task in question, as well as that of the tasks which come
before and after. To describe each of these statuses, we will
follow the example of one task as it progresses through each.
If you are making a salami sandwich, you might divide the project
into three tasks. You might name them "BOTTOM", (lay down first
piece of bread), "SALAMI", (self explanatory), and "TOP", (top
piece of bread). BOTTOM is a prerequisite of SALAMI, and TOP is
a successor of SALAMI. Let's watch the task, SALAMI, as our
project progresses.
When we first start building our sandwich, SALAMI has a status of
HOLD. HOLD means we couldn't start laying down the salami if we
wanted to because we are lacking that crucial first piece of
bread. In other words, a task has a status of HOLD until all its
prerequisites are complete. You can change the estimated
duration of a HOLD task, but you may not start it.
After you have placed the first slice, the situation changes. No
longer are you on hold. You are READY to place the salami. A
task becomes READY on completion of its prerequisites. You may
now change the start date to indicate you are initiating the
salami task. You can still change the estimated duration of the
task as well, in case you are having doubts about your original
estimate.
After you have started SALAMI, it is no longer ready; it is
WORKING. A WORKING task has started but not yet finished. These
tasks are the ones you will be paying the most attention to. If
a task is working, you can change the actual start, if you got it
wrong, the estimated duration, if it is changing, or the actual
finish, if you should happen to finally get the salami centered
on the first slice.
After the actual finish has been entered, a task is COMPLETE. You
can now turn your attentions to the second slice of bread. At
this point, all you can change is the actual finish, in case a
mistake was made.
After you start TOP, SALAMI becomes PASSED. No changes are
allowed to date information. (If changes were allowed, then it
would be possible to make it impossible to start TOP when we
did.) (In retrospect, that last comment doesn't seem to really
clarify things. Oh well.) In any event, a complete task gets
status PASSED after any of its successors have started.
24 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
Milestones, because they have zero duration, never have a working
status. Any change to the actual start is reflected in the
actual finish, and vice versa. So, a milestone goes directly
from ready to complete.
The status of the current task is displayed in the task edit area
at the bottom of the screen. In addition, the Gannt lines on the
task display are keyed to show the status of each visible task. A
legend appears to the right.
5.1.3.6 Each task costs money.
Tracking tasks, with their dates, durations, and prerequisites,
can allow you to answer the question, "When?". It, however, does
not supply the answer to the perhaps more important question,
"How much?". For this reason, PC-Project allows you to maintain
complete cost information for your project.
Costs fall into two catagories. There are fixed costs associated
with each task that do not vary, no matter how long the job
takes, and there are variable costs, that change depending on the
task duration.
To track fixed costs, PC-Project asks you to enter a charge for
each task. This would typically be for materials, or perhaps for
an amount negotiated with a sub-contractor.
To track variable charges, PC-Project maintains a list of
RESOURCES, employees or equipment, and allows you to assign these
resources to particular tasks. The combination of the duration
of the task, the number of workers assigned to it, and the wages
of those workers allows you to compute the variable cost for the
task as a whole.
Certain cost information is displayed in the task edit area. The
CHRG is the fixed cost for the task. The RATE is the cost
incurred for each schedule unit of time taken by this task. In
other words, if you are tracking a project by day, the rate is
the cost per day of the task in question. The estimated cost,
abbreviated "EC", is the rate multiplied by the estimated
duration. The actual cost, abbreviated "AC", is the rate
multiplied by the actual duration. The actual cost is displayed
only for complete tasks.
5.1.4 A Gannt chart displays the schedule.
Each of the 14 tasks that fit on the task screen is accompanied
by a Gannt line. In combination with the date line at the top of
the screen, this display tells you when the task may start, how
much slack is available for the task, is it or is it not a
milestone, whether the task is on the critical path, and the
status of the task. This display allows us to convey a lot of
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 25
information in a relatively compact space. To the right of the
task lines is a legend that gives us what we need to interpret
this information.
On the Gannt line, one character position is occupied for each of
the schedule units of the project. For example, if we are
tracking a project by weeks, each week gets one position on the
horizontal line. Each position's date can be derived by looking
at the date line at the top of the screen. Activity for the task
during on the date in question is shown by the character
occupying that space. In the following discussion, as with
anything in this manual, it is best to bring up PC-Project and
confirm the points we cover as they are brought up.
First of all, nothing may be happening on the date in question.
In this case, the Gannt line contains a dot or period.
Tasks may have slack. Slack is time that could be spent on the
task without changing the end date of the project as a whole. It
is shown on the Gannt line with a dash in the character position
for that date. Most of the time slack is shown after the task,
meaning the task could run late without delaying the project.
Occasionally, slack will be shown before the task, meaning the
task was not started at the first possible moment.
For the actual duration of a task, several symbols are used. A
major distinction between tasks is whether or not they are on the
critical path for your project. Because of this, two sets of
symbols are used to display task activity. The legend at the
right of the screen is divided into two areas, with the top
characters used for tasks not on the critical path (tasks with
SLACK) and the bottom set of characters used for tasks that are
on the critical path (CP).
Tasks may be milestones or they may be regular tasks. Two
columns of characters are set up to tell them apart. The
milestones are labeled MS. We need two different ways of
describing them, or we couldn't tell the difference between a
milestone, with zero duration, and a task that lasts one day.
Each of them gets one symbol.
A task may have any of the five possible statuses. Each of these
statuses is indicated by its own symbol. Note that milestones
never have a working status (with duration zero, it is
impossible). Note also that the critical path is maintained only
for tasks with status hold, ready, or working. The critical path
is a management tool to determine where the pressure need be
applied. After the task is finished, it loses its utility. Let
bygones be bygones.
When a project is first set up, all tasks, with the exception of
PBEGIN, have status HOLD. In this way, the job of interpreting
the symbols becomes a lot easier. You only have four of them to
26 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
worry about. As you start managing the project, additional
symbols appear at a pace that will allow you to comfortably
assimilate them.
5.1.5 Tasks have prerequisites.
Normally the task screen shows the date line, followed by 14
tasks worth of Gannt lines, followed by additional information
for the current task in the task edit area. The task edit area
is not used for this alone, however. It is also used to display
and maintain the relationships between tasks. These
relationships are familiarly known as prerequisites and
successors. (If DIG HOLE is a prerequisite of PLANTREE, then
PLANTREE is a successor of DIG HOLE.)
Two options on the task menu are used to maintain these
relationships. They are the PRECEDES and FOLLOWS options.
FOLLOWS is used to look at, add, or delete prerequisites of the
current task, those tasks that must be complete before the
current task can start. We say, "The current task FOLLOWS which
tasks?" Conversely, PRECEDES is used to maintain successors of
the current task, those tasks that may not be started until the
completion of the current task. The current task PRECEDES which
tasks?
If either of these options is selected, the tags of the
qualifying tasks are displayed in a tag menu and the user may
look at additional information for those tasks by moving the
cursor across said menu. If desired, the user can add or delete
these prerequisite or successor relationships. So, by use of
these two options, the actual schedule can be created. Without
prerequisites, the system could only assume that all tasks
started on the project begin date. With prerequisites, the Gannt
lines start spreading out from the left margin.
5.1.6 Tasks are assigned resources.
As mentioned previously, PC-Project maintains a list of resources
to be assigned to tasks. The cost of all resources used by a
particular task is combined with its duration to arrive at the
cost of the task. Using PC-Project, you can assign resources to
tasks from either the resource screen or the task screen. From
the task screen, you can see what resources are committed to the
current task by selecting USES from the task menu. You say, "The
current task USES what resources?" If this option is selected,
the tags of all resources assigned to the current task, as well
as additional information for these resources, are displayed in
the task edit area.
When USES is selected, if the current task is assigned resources,
the tags for each of those resources are displayed in a tag menu
in the task edit area. The cursor can be moved along this line
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 27
to display pertinent information for the indicated resource. If
you so desire, you are given the ability to assign new resources
to the task, delete resources from the task, or change the amount
of the resource required for completion of the task. For
example, you could add laborers, remove the engineer, or change
the number of cranes you must rent for a particular task.
5.1.7 What operations may we perform on tasks?
The next few sections describe in detail the capabilities of
PC-Project's task screen. Further reading will tell you how to
add, change, or delete tasks. You will find out how to use the
cursor keys to change the current task and to modify the display
to your liking. You can select USES to assign or modify
resources for the current task. You can use the PRECEDES and
FOLLOWS option to keep track of the prerequisite relationships
between tasks. You can sort the tasks in order by early start.
You can move tasks around in the list. If you lose a task or
forget what you called it, it can be instantly located. The
system generates three reports from this screen. At any time, a
bar chart showing current resource loads can be displayed.
Before going further, I might suggest you try the screen out for
yourself, then come back to the manual with curiosity refired and
perhaps a question or two to be answered. The going gets a
little dry from here out.
5.2 Cursor Movement and the current task.
Using the arrow keys on the numeric keypad, you can move about on
the task screen and change the current task. Think about the
task screen as a window on a large Gannt chart. Using the cursor
keys, you can move that window around so that any portion of the
chart can be inspected at will. The keys, and their effects, are
as follows:
The up arrow.
The up arrow is found on the "8" on the keypad. When pressed
while the task, precedes, follows, or uses menus are being
displayed, its action is as follows: If the current task is not
at the top of the screen, the highlight is moved up one task and
the current task is changed. If the current task highlight is
already at the top of the screen, if there are other tasks above
it, the screen scrolls down one line and the task just off the
top is displayed and made current. PC-Project returns to the
task menu from the precedes, follows, or uses menu.
The down arrow.
28 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
The down arrow is found on the "2" on the keypad. When pressed
while the task, precedes, follows, or uses menus are being
displayed, its action is as follows: If the current task is not
at the bottom of the screen, the highlight is moved down one task
and the current task is changed. If the current task highlight
is already at the bottom of the screen, if there are more tasks
below, the screen scrolls up one line and the task just off the
bottom is displayed and made current. PC-Project returns to the
task menu from the precedes, follows, or uses menu.
The page up key.
The page down key.
If one task at a time is not fast enough for you, use the page up
and page down keys to speed through the task list. These keys,
on the "9" and "3" keys respectively, go up or down the task list
one screen, or 13 tasks, at a time. They cease to have any
effect when you get to the top or bottom of the list. These keys
work from the task, precedes, follows, and uses menus. The task
menu is displayed after either of these keys are pressed.
The right arrow.
The right arrow is on the "6". The right arrow works only from
the task menu. The right and left arrows are used to move the
timeline at the top of the task screen. The timeline is divided
into several major divisions. If you are tracking by day, the
division occurs in two week increments. The right and left
arrows shift the timeline by one of these increments, if
possible. The right arrow is used to move the Gannt chart into
the future, in other words, to shift the screen left. It works
only if there is more unexposed information to the right of the
window.
The left arrow.
The left arrow, like the right arrow, is used to shift the
timeline, and thus the Gannt line display. The left arrow is on
the "4". It works only from the task menu, not from the
precedes, follows, or uses menus. It shifts the timeline one
major division back in time. It doesn't work if you are already
at the beginning.
Control-left arrow.
Control-right arrow.
The left and right arrows move the date line in fairly large
increments. If you need a little finer control, use these two
keys. They each move one schedule unit at a time (one column).
Select either of them by first depressing the control key, then
simultaneously pressing the left or right arrow. These keys work
from the task, precedes, follows, and uses menus.
The home key.
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 29
The end key.
If tiny steps are no fun, take the big jump. The home and end
keys, located on the "7" and "1" keys, send the timeline to the
beginning or end of the entire project respectively. They don't
change the current task, just the Gannt line display. These keys
work from the task, precedes, follows, and uses menus.
Control-home.
Control-end.
These keys take you to the top or bottom of the task list. These
keys work from the task, precedes, follows, and uses menus.
5.3 ADD a new task to the schedule.
It is apparent that, regardless of the use to which you put
PC-Project, at some point you will be wanting to add tasks. When
most people start a new project, the first step is to go directly
to this option and start brainstorming up a bunch of tasks. The
ADD option is used to initially get the task in the system. It
requests the minimum information required to set up the task.
Later, you can use FOLLOWS and PRECEDES to establish
relationships between various tasks, USES to assign resources to
tasks, and CHANGE to update task information as the project
progresses. So, read this to find out how to get a line for a
task up on the task screen.
A new task is always added below the current task on the task
screen. To add a new task, position the cursor to the task above
the spot you want the new one to appear in, then select ADD from
the task menu.
After selection of the add option, the cursor is removed and the
task edit area is cleared out. The new task will become current
after you are finished adding.
You will be prompted to enter a tag for the new task. At this
point, should you decide you don't really want a new task, you
can press escape to return to the task menu, no changes having
taken place.
The task tag may be up to eight characters long. Accepted
characters include letters, digits, and the space. The task tag
you enter must be unique. In addition, PC-Project will not allow
one task tag to exactly match the first characters of another
task's tag. If you try to add a tag that would create this
situation, you are greeted with an error message that reads
"REDUNDANT". While moderately inconvenient initially, great
savings in time result from this policy. Later, whenever asked
for the tag of an existing task, you will be required to enter
only the first letters of the tag. If you enter enough to insure
30 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
uniqueness, the system accepts that as if you had typed the whole
tag. If there is more than one task that matches what you
entered, you are asked which of the matching tasks you meant.
This is particularly useful if you forget the task's tag. This
utility is gained at the expense of a little extra care right
now, in the naming of tasks. The tag you use should tell you,
just by looking at it, what it is this task does. Avoid the
temptation to use short tags that don't mean anything. This
leads to trouble. If you were to name one task "A", the system
would no longer accept any tasks with tags beginning with "A"
because that would create a redundant tag situation. Similarly,
if, for some reason, you decide to number your tasks, use a
couple leading zeroes on task number 1 or you will not be allowed
to add tasks 10 through 19 as well as tasks 100 through 199.
(Should you inadvertently create a situation like this, it is
easy to remedy. The escape key gets you out of ADD. You can
then use the CHANGE option to change the offending task tag.)
After successful entry of the task tag, you are prompted for the
task name. Enter a description of the task in thirty characters
or less. This name will appear on reports. It is meant to be a
more complete version of the task tag.
After the name comes the important item, the estimated duration.
The duration is a number between 0 and 999. Depending on the
schedule units chosen when the project was created, this tells
the system your best estimate of how many hours, days, weeks, or
months this task will take. An entry of zero deserves special
mention. Tasks with zero length are known as milestones. They
mark the conclusion or the beginning of larger phases of your
project. They take no time and cost nothing. Used judiciously,
they can considerably simplify the conceptual and organizational
load placed on you as project manager. The tasks PBEGIN and PEND
are special cases of milestone tasks.
After entry of the estimated duration, you are asked for the
fixed charge associated with this task. The fixed cost might be
for materials, or perhaps a contract amount. The fixed cost
amount will later show up on cash flow reports. (Found under
REPORT on the task menu) For the purpose of these reports, the
system assumes the charge is levied on the first period of work
for the task. If this is not the case, there are a couple
strategies available. If the charge is broken into several
smaller payments, consider breaking the task up into
correspondingly smaller sub-tasks. If there is a payment at the
end of a task, consider adding a milestone (called SIGNOFF or
something akin to that) and putting the charge with it.
After entry of the fixed charge, the task screen is redisplayed
with a new line for your new task. The new task has become the
current task, and so the cursor is put on its tag. A Gannt line
is displayed for the new task. It starts at the project begin
date and extends for the duration you entered. At this point you
might want to do several things.
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 31
If you added the task by mistake, or reconsider its necessity,
select DELETE.
If you got some of the information wrong, select CHANGE.
If you want to add another task, select ADD again.
If you want to give this task a prerequisite so as to get it off
the left margin, select FOLLOWS.
5.4 The current task FOLLOWS which other tasks?
5.4.1 Maintaining prerequisites for a task.
In the real world, it is obvious that some tasks must precede
others. You can't plant the tree before you dig the hole. This
is a simple example, immediately apparent. In large projects,
however, the network of these dependencies becomes so complex
that no one person is able to comprehend all the relations. You
might think you have the best arrangement of tasks, but you can't
be sure. For this reason, PC-Project is designed to let you
represent an arbitrarily complex set of relationships between
tasks. You tell PC-Project which tasks follow other tasks by
using the PRECEDES and FOLLOWS options on the task menu. The
FOLLOWS option is used to assign and maintain prerequisites for
the current task.
To maintain prerequisites for the current task, select FOLLOWS
from the task menu. This option is not available while the
current task is PBEGIN. (The beginning of the project, by
definition, follows no tasks.)
After selection of FOLLOWS, the task edit area is used to show
information for the prerequisites of the current task. In the
top line of the task edit area is displayed a tag menu. This is
a line telling you the tags of all prerequisites of the current
task. The leftmost of these tags is highlighted. This highlight
is a cursor that can be moved with the left and right arrows.
There is room for six tags on the line. If the current task has
more than six prerequisites, the cursor can be moved to the right
or left off the end of the line to bring the additional tags into
view. A highlight is displayed at either end of the line to
inform you of the presence of such hidden prerequisites.
As you move the cursor from tag to tag, additional information
for the highlighted task is displayed in the two lines below the
tag menu. This information includes the tag and name of the
prerequisite. Also shown here are the estimated and actual
duration, the early, late, and actual start and finish dates, as
well as the task status.
32 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
Below the additional information is the menu bar for the follows
option. This menu is called the follows menu. The options given
you by this menu will vary, depending on the current task and the
prerequisite currently highlighted. You may be given the
opportunity to ADD a prerequisite to the current task or DELETE
the currently highlighted prerequisite from the current task. You
will always be given the option of locating the highlighted task
as well as quitting and going back to the task menu.
To get back to the task menu after maintaining prerequisites,
select QUIT from the follows menu or type a carriage return. So,
if your interest is only to inquire as to the prerequisites of
the current task, all you need do is select the follows option
from the task menu, view the tags displayed for the
prerequisites, perhaps use the left and right arrows to move the
highlighted tag and so see additional information for desired
tasks, and finally press a "Q" or a carriage return to return to
the task menu.
If you are going to add or delete prerequisites, a little extra
information is in order. When a task is first added to your
project, it is automatically given PBEGIN as a prerequisite and
PEND as a successor. If you add a prerequisite for the new task,
you no longer see PBEGIN as a prerequisite. So essentially, in
the absence of any prerequisites of your own choosing, PC-Project
assumes the new task can start immediately on commencement of the
project. In a similar way, if your task has no successors, the
system assumes it doesn't have to be finished until the project
itself is. The net effect on you is that, since PC-Project takes
care of prerequisites including either PBEGIN or PEND, it won't
let you mess with them. If the current task is PEND when you
select FOLLOWS, you will not be given the opportunity to add or
delete prerequisites. You may only view them. In addition, if
the highlighted prerequisite is PBEGIN, you will not be allowed
to delete it.
Lastly, once you start work on a task, you may no longer add
prerequisites to it. Just how was it that you were able to start
work if there was a remaining uncompleted prerequisite? In a
similar vein, once work on a task has commenced, you will not be
allowed to delete prerequisites. As work proceeds, you "lock in"
your scheduling decisions.
5.4.2 ADD a prerequisite.
You are allowed to add prerequisites to the current task if the
task is not working yet and is not the PEND task.
Add a prerequisite to the current task by first selecting FOLLOWS
from the task menu and then selecting ADD from the follows menu.
PC-Project then asks "Follows which task?" If you didn't want to
add a prerequisite, press escape to restore the follows menu.
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 33
If you do indeed want to add the prerequisite, respond to the
"which task?" question with the tag of the desired prerequisite
task. The entire tag is not necessary. If what you type matches
only one existing tag, it is as if you had typed the entire tag.
If there is more than one possibility matching your entry, you
are asked, for each of the candidates, if this was the tag you
meant.
After entry of the tag, a number of edits are performed before
the task is established as a prerequisite of the current task. If
any of these edits fail, an error message is displayed, and you
are again asked to enter a tag. If at any time you want to quit,
press the escape key. The error messages and their causes are as
follows:
TASK CAN'T COME BEFORE ITSELF -- You can't say that you
have to dig the hole before you dig the hole. This is
a minor case of circular ordering.
CIRCULAR -- A more subtle variation on the above. If
you get this message, it means you are trying to add a
prerequisite that would create a circular chain of
tasks, each of which must precede the others. If you
already told PC-Project that framing the house follows
laying the foundation and that laying the foundation
follows digging the basement, and then tried to say
that digging the basement follows framing the house,
you would get the CIRCULAR message. Makes your head
hurt to think about it. You have either made a silly
mistake, or there is a serious error in your
engineering.
ALREADY THE CASE -- You are trying to add a
prerequisite that already is a prerequisite of the
current task. It may not immediately precede the
current task, but it is certainly the prerequisite of
one of your prerequisites or something farther back
along the line. In the above example, if you were to
say that framing the house follows digging the
basement, you would get this message. It's already
taken care of. You will probably want to press the
escape key.
If your entry passed the above three tests, it is added to the
project. The project is rescheduled to take the new prerequisite
into account and the Gannt lines are redisplayed. The tag menu
is redisplayed to accommodate the new addition, its cursor is on
the tag you entered, task information is displayed for the new
prerequisite, and the follows menu appears again.
If you decide you don't like the looks of the new schedule, you
can delete the newly added prerequisite by selecting DELETE from
the follows menu.
34 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
If you want to add another prerequisite, select ADD or type "A".
If you want to inspect other prerequisites, use the left and
right arrows to move around the tag menu.
If you want to go back to the task menu, select QUIT, or type
"Q", carriage return, or escape.
5.4.3 DELETE a prerequisite.
An important distinction: when we say delete a prerequisite, we
do not mean deleting that task, but only removing the
relationship between the two tasks.
You are allowed to delete a prerequisite if the following are
true: The current task has not started; the current task is not
PEND; and the prerequisite task is not PBEGIN. If these
conditions are satisfied, delete away.
To delete a prerequisite from the current task, select the
FOLLOWS option from the task menu (or type "F"). You are then
shown the tag menu. This menu contains the tags of all
prerequisites of the current task. Move the cursor, using the
arrow keys, until it is positioned on the tag of the task that is
no longer assumed to precede your current task. When you are
parked on it, select DELETE from the follows menu (press "D".)
After deleting, the project is rescheduled and redisplayed. The
cursor on the tag menu is placed on the next possible
prerequisite.
If you, on reflection, decide that you really kind of liked it
the way it was before, just ADD it back in.
If you want the task menu back, select QUIT, or type "Q",
carriage return, or escape.
5.4.4 LOCATE a prerequisite on the task screen.
When looking at prerequisites for a task, one is often stricken
with the burning desire to immediately find out everything there
is to know about one of those prerequisites. Or, sometimes you
want to trace a path through the jungle of prerequisites you have
constructed. You want to answer questions like, "Well, if that
comes before this, what came before that? Given one of these
situations, you can always back out of the prerequisites for the
current task and then LOCATE the suddenly fascinating task from
the task menu (see also), but it would be nice to immediately
move the task cursor to any one of the prerequisites without any
superfluous keystrokes. For this reason, the LOCATE command has
been installed in the FOLLOWS menu.
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 35
The FOLLOWS tag menu displays a list of all prerequisites of the
current task. To make any of these tasks current, as well as to
restore the task menu, use the arrow keys to move the cursor to
the desired task. Then, LOCATE the highlighted task by selecting
LOCATE from the FOLLOWS menu or typing "L" while the FOLLOWS menu
is being displayed.
5.5 The current task USES which resources?
5.5.1 Assigning resources to the current task.
PC-Project could function very well as just a task scheduler. If
you are planning on doing all the work yourself, you could just
use the task screen to lay out the timing and be quite content.
If, however, employees or expensive equipment are involved, the
task is complicated considerably. All of a sudden, you have to
contend with costs and requirements. For this reason, PC-Project
allows you to enter a list of resources available to you, with
their wages or rentals, and then to assign these resources to
individual tasks. Given this, you can now determine the cost of
each task or the amount of money to be spent on a particular
resource. You can also find out how many of a particular
resource are required any time over the course of the project.
Resources are added and maintained from the resource screen. You
can use the USES option on the task menu however, to assign or
remove resources from a task as well as to change the quantity of
the resource you need for any task.
To see or modify the resources assigned to the current task,
select USES from the task menu or type "U" while the task menu is
being displayed.
After selection of USES, the task edit area is used to show
information for the resources assigned to the current task. In
the top line of the task edit area is displayed a tag menu. This
is a line telling you the tags of all resources assigned to the
current task. One of these resource tags is highlighted. If the
current resource is currently assigned to this task, the
highlight is placed on the current resource tag. If the current
resource is not assigned to the current task, the highlight is
simply placed on the leftmost of the tags. This highlight is a
cursor that can be moved with the left and right arrows. There is
room for six tags on the line. If the current task is associated
with more than six resources, the cursor can be moved to the
right or left off the end of the line to bring the additional
tags into view. A highlight is displayed at either end of the
line to inform you of the presence of such hidden assignments.
It should be pointed out that, if no resources have yet been
assigned to the task, as will be the case when you first begin,
no tags will be displayed on the tag menu line.
36 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
If you have already assigned resources to the current task, you
will find that, as you move the cursor from tag to tag,
additional information for the highlighted resource is displayed
in the two lines below the tag menu. This information includes
the tag and name of the resource. Also shown are the amount of
the resource required by this task (RQ), the resource capacity,
or maximum number of the resource available (CAP), the pay amount
and pay period (AMT and PRD), and the estimated use and cost of
this resource to be applied to total estimated project costs.
The use is expressed in man hours (days, weeks, etc.). If the
task is complete, actual use and cost figures are also displayed.
Below the additional information is the menu bar for the uses
option. This menu is called the uses menu. Several options are
displayed on this menu. In PC-Project, you will always be given
the opportunity to ADD more resources to a task (unlike real
life). In addition, if resources have been assigned to the
current task, for the highlighted resource, you can CHANGE the
amount required, or DELETE this resource from the current task
(zero required). You will always be given the option of quitting
and going back to the task menu.
PC-Project will let you assign resources to milestone tasks (zero
duration). Because cost information is based on time, this won't
affect cost totals. Assigning resources to milestones should
therefore be viewed as just reminder entries in your schedule.
Assign whoever has to sign off on task completion or whoever it
is that is qualified to say that the milestone has indeed been
reached.
To get back to the task menu after maintaining successors, select
QUIT from the uses menu or type "Q", carriage return, or escape
while the uses menu is being displayed. So, if your interest is
only to inquire as to the resources assigned to the current task,
all you need do is select the uses option from the task menu,
view the tags displayed for the resources, perhaps use the left
and right arrows to move the highlighted tag and so see
additional information for desired resources, and finally press
one of the above mentioned keys to return to the task menu.
5.5.2 ADD another resource to the current task.
Add a resource to the current task by first selecting USES from
the task menu and then selecting ADD from the uses menu. (Type
"UA".) PC-Project then clears the bottom of the screen and asks
"Resource used by this task?" If you didn't want to add a
resource to the current task, press escape to restore the uses
menu.
If you do indeed want to add the resource, respond to the
"Resource used by this task?" question with the tag of the
desired resource. The entire tag is not necessary. You may type
only the first letter or two. If what you type matches only one
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 37
existing tag, it is as if you had typed the entire tag. If there
is more than one possibility matching your entry, you are asked,
for each of the candidates, if this was the tag you meant.
After entry of the resource tag, PC-Project checks resources
already assigned to the current task. If it is found that the
newly entered resource tag is among these, the error message
"ALREADY HERE" is displayed, the highlight is placed on the
offending resource tag, and the uses menu is redisplayed. No
damage is done. If you want to change the required amount of the
resource, you can immediately select CHANGE from the uses menu.
This can be used as a feature. If you have numerous resources
assigned to the current task, so many they don't fit on the tag
menu, and you want to inspect one of them, bypassing the arrow
keys, just try and add it to the current task.
If the tag you entered belongs to a resource not currently
assigned to the current task, information for that resource is
displayed and the tag menu is updated to accommodate the new
resource. You are then asked to enter the required usage for
this resource. If the task takes three days for two laborers,
enter two, not six.
If one of your employees is expected to divide his or her time
across several tasks simultaneously, an entry of one for required
usage would indicate that this employee will give the task
undivided attention. This is not your intent. PC-Project allows
you to enter usage in tenths, and in this case, this is the
approach to be used. If the employee works half time on one
task, and half time on another, enter ".5" when asked for
required usage. This becomes very useful when you are trying to
level out work loads.
After entry of the required amount, all cost information is
updated and the uses menu appears again. In addition, the
current resource is set to the tag you just entered.
If you decide you don't like the looks of the new resource, you
can delete it from the current task by selecting DELETE from the
uses menu. (Type "D".)
If you want to add another resource to the current task, select
ADD or type "A".
If you want to inspect other resources, use the left and right
arrows to move around the tag menu.
If you want to go back to the task menu, select QUIT, or type
"Q", carriage return, or escape.
38 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
5.5.3 CHANGE the number of required ditch diggers.
The CHANGE option of the uses menu is used to change the required
number of a particular resource dedicated to the current task.
To change the required amount of a resource, select the USES
option from the task menu (type "U"). You are then shown the tag
menu. This menu contains the tags of all resources assigned to
the current task. Move the tag cursor, using the arrow keys,
until it is positioned on the tag of the resource that has the
incorrect required figure. When you are parked on it, select
CHANGE from the uses menu (or press "C".)
You will then be prompted to enter the revised amount required.
After you have done this, cost information is updated and
displayed, the uses menu is redisplayed, and the current resource
is changed to the one you just modified.
If you, on reflection, decide that you really kind of liked it
the way it was before, just CHANGE it back.
If you want to inspect other resources assigned to the current
task, use the left and right arrows to move around the tag menu.
If you want the task menu back, select QUIT, or type "Q",
carriage return, or escape.
5.5.4 DELETE this resource from the current task.
An important distinction: when we say delete a resource used by
a particular task, we do not mean deleting that resource, but
only unassigning it from the current task, i.e. changing the
required amount to zero.
To delete a resource from the current task, select the USES
option from the task menu (or type "U"). You are then shown the
tag menu. This menu contains the tags of all resources assigned
to the current task. Move the cursor, using the arrow keys,
until it is positioned on the tag of the resource that is no
longer assumed to be used by the current task. When you are
parked on it, select DELETE from the uses menu (or press "D".)
You will be asked if you are sure the current task does not use
the resource in question. Reply with a "Y" or an "N". If you
answer "N", the default, no changes take place and the uses menu
is redisplayed. If you answer "Y", the resource is unassigned,
cost information is updated, and the cursor on the tag menu is
placed on the next possible resource.
If you, on reflection, decide that you really kind of liked it
the way it was before, just ADD it back in.
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 39
If you want the task menu back, select QUIT, or type "Q",
carriage return, or escape.
5.6 CHANGE information for the current task.
5.6.1 CHANGE task information as work progresses.
The CHANGE option is used to modify task information as the
project progresses. When you first create a schedule, you supply
each task's name and estimated duration. You then, by adding
prerequisites, arrive at the desired schedule. In a perfect
world, you could just publish this schedule and go home to await
project completion. Our world is, however, not quite perfect.
In addition to formulating the initial schedule, you are required
to control progress toward its completion. This means that your
schedule must be continually updated to reflect the current
status of the project. The schedule is a model of your
operation. If changes take place in the world, they must be
incorporated in your schedule, or the schedule loses its ability
to monitor and control the situation.
Using the CHANGE option of the task menu, you can tell PC-Project
when the current task has started or finished by changing the
actual start or finish dates. In addition, you can change the
estimated duration of the task, as well as its name or tag. To
do this, select CHANGE from the task menu. (Type "C".)
After selection of the change option, the change menu is
displayed. To return to the task menu, select QUIT from the
change menu, or type "Q" or escape while the change menu is being
displayed.
5.6.2 Change the NAME, TAG, or CHARGE for a task.
You will always be given the opportunity to change the name, tag,
or fixed charge for the current task. To change the name of the
current task, from the change menu, select NAME or type "N", and
enter the task's new name. To change the tag, select TAG or type
"T", and enter the new tag for the task. To change the charge,
select CHARGE or type "C", and enter the new charge for the
task. See the discussion under adding tasks for a description of
task tag requirements, as well as cash flow reporting
considerations. After either of these changes, the task menu is
redisplayed.
5.6.3 The actual start and finish dates.
You can't finish a task until after you start it. Because there
is a natural order in the specification of the estimated
duration, the actual start, and the actual finish, you will never
be given the opportunity to change all of these items at once.
40 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
So, depending on the status of the current task, the appearance
of the change menu will vary. The following paragraphs describe
the options made available to you, based on the status of the
current task. If task statuses are unfamiliar, review the
discussion at the beginning of the task screen documentation.
If a task is on HOLD, its prerequisites are not yet
complete. It is not possible to start a task with this
status. Therefore, you may change only the estimated
duration of the task.
If a task is READY, its prerequisites are all
complete. In this case, you are allowed to change the
estimated duration or the actual start date. If the
start date is set, the task status changes to WORKING.
If a task is WORKING, you are allowed to change the
actual finish date. If the actual finish is set, the
task status changes to COMPLETE. Also, you may change
the actual start or estimated duration if they need
adjustment.
If a task is COMPLETE, meaning work is finished, but no
successors have started, you are still given the
opportunity to adjust the actual finish.
If a task is PASSED, the following tasks have started.
In this case, it is no longer possible to change the
actual finish.
If you are given the opportunity to change the estimated
duration, the same rules given under adding tasks apply. You are
asked the new duration and respond with your best estimate. The
schedule is recalculated and displayed and you return to the task
menu.
Milestones affect the appearance and action of the change menu.
Because a milestone has zero duration, the actual start and
finish dates are one and the same. A milestone is never
WORKING. So, when changing milestones, if you change the start,
it automatically changes the finish and vice versa. A milestone
goes straight from READY to COMPLETE. You may change the
duration of a milestone from zero to something else, in which
case it is no longer a milestone, but just an ordinary task. The
converse is also true. You may change an ordinary task to a
milestone by changing its duration to zero.
Before getting into changing of actual dates, a little more
discussion is in order. When a task is added to a schedule, it
does not have an actual start or finish date. The dates are
"blank" until the task actually starts or finishes. Until these
dates are set, the early and late dates are calculated from the
estimates and prerequisites you supply. The important thing to
remember is that, if you enter an actual start date, you are
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 41
telling PC-Project two things. You are saying that the task has
begun, and additionally, you are giving PC-Project that moment at
which it started. There are two associated mistakes and
remedies. If the task started, but not at the time you gave it,
you must change the actual start to the amended time. If in
fact, the task never started, you must change the actual start
back to "blank".
The upshot of this is that, whenever you are given the
opportunity to change a date, one of the options you will be
given is to "blank" it. This has the effect of moving a schedule
back in time. If you blank the finish date of a COMPLETE task,
it changes to WORKING. If you blank the start date of a WORKING
task, it changes to READY. These changes might also have the
effect of changing successors from READY to HOLD or changing
prerequisites from PASSED to COMPLETE.
5.6.4 Entering dates.
If you want to start or finish a task, you do it by changing the
actual start or finish date. The following paragraphs describe
the actions expected of you when entering dates.
Whenever asked for a date, the system will display a default
date. This is the date that would be entered if everything was
going according to plan. In addition, you will be given a number
of other possible dates, each of which can be selected by
pressing a function key. One of these possible dates will be the
blank date. You may press a carriage return to accept the
default date, press a function key to select an alternate, or
type adjustments to the default date on the entry line, then
press a carriage return to accept the new date.
The format used in entering dates varies, depending on the
schedule units you selected when you created the schedule. In
essence, you are required to enter the date from smallest to
largest increments of time. In addition, you are expected to use
twenty-four hour time if your schedule is in hours. If you are
maintaining your schedule in days, the default date, and any
dates you enter will be in a day, month, year format. March 10,
1986 would be entered as 10-03-86. If you are working with
hours, two P.M. on this day would be entered as 14:10-03-86.
This can be confusing initially and in fact, dates are always
displayed in the conventional manner. The reason dates are
entered this way is to save you time and keystrokes. Usually, if
you are a little off schedule, you are still in the same month,
although the day may be different than the default. By entering
the date "backwards", you need type only the changed day, rather
than the entire month, day, year combination. Over the course of
the project, one comes to appreciate that extra saved effort as
well as get used to seeing dates entered this way.
42 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
As mentioned previously, in addition to a default date, you will
be given other possible dates you may select with the press of a
function key. These dates and keys are displayed on the key
line, above the entry line. You will always be given the
opportunity to "blank" the date you are changing by pressing F7.
By pressing F8, you will be given the last possible date that can
be entered without delaying project completion. F10 gives you
the earliest date possible, based on information you have already
given PC-Project. F9 gives you the date as of now, if it is
legal. If you stay on top of your schedule, you could possibly
use nothing but the F9 key. Here we see the importance of
entering the system date when turning on your computer.
Three possible messages may be displayed while entering dates.
If you enter an impossible date, e.g. March 37, you will be told
of an "INVALID DATE" and required to reenter the date. If you
enter a date not in the scheduled work week, it will be accepted,
but changed to the next valid day or hour in the work week. In
this case, you will see the "DATE ADJUSTED" message. Lastly,
some dates can not be entered because they conflict with previous
information you gave the system. An example of this would be
finishing a task before you started it. In this case, the
message reads "DATE TOO EARLY".
5.6.5 Change the actual START date for a task.
If the current task has a status of READY or WORKING, you will be
given the opportunity to change the actual start date. By
setting the actual start date, you tell PC-Project two things.
One, the task has started, and two, it started at the time you
specified. To change the start date, select START from the
change menu. If your task is not a milestone, you will be
prompted to "Enter task start date:". The default date will be
either the task early start date if the actual start has not been
set yet, or the actual start if the task is already working. If
this is the date you want, press the carriage return. If not,
you may type over as much of the default date as necessary to
correct it, then press a carriage return. The new date will be
put in the actual start and the task status will be changed to
WORKING, if this is not already so. The schedule will be
recalculated and displayed and you will return to the task menu.
If you mistakenly started a task that in truth has not yet
started, select CHANGE START and press F7 to "blank" the date
again. If you mistakenly entered the wrong date, select CHANGE
START and reenter the date correctly.
When entering a start date, the function keys will allow you to
select various options without actually keying the dates. F7
lets you "blank" a date, in effect "unstarting" the task. F8
gives you the late date, in this case the late start date. F9
gives you today's date, if possible. F10 gives you the early
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 43
start date. On a task not yet working, this will be the same as
the default. To select any of these dates, press the associated
function key.
Milestones work a little bit differently. Since they have a
duration of zero, the start and finish dates are identical. The
entry of a start or finish date works the same way. You will be
prompted to "Enter milestone date:". The default will be the
early start date, if the start date has yet to be set, or, if the
date has been set, the default will be the current actual start.
Function keys will offer the same options as regular tasks.
After entry of a milestone actual start date, both the actual
start and finish dates are set and the status changes to
COMPLETE. (If a previously entered date is blanked, the status
changes to READY.) The schedule is recalculated and redisplayed.
5.6.6 Change the actual FINISH date for a task.
If the current task has a status of WORKING or COMPLETE, you will
be given the opportunity to change the actual finish date. By
setting the actual finish date, you tell PC-Project two things.
One, the task has finished, and two, it finished at the time you
gave. To change the finish date, select FINISH from the change
menu. If your task is not a milestone, you will be prompted to
"Enter task finish date:". The default date will be either the
task early finish date if the actual finish has not been set yet,
or the actual finish if the task is already complete. If this is
the date you want, press the carriage return. If not, you may
type over as much of the default date as necessary to correct it,
then press a carriage return. The new date will be put in the
actual finish and the task status will be changed to COMPLETE, if
this is not already so. The schedule will be recalculated and
displayed and you will return to the task menu.
If you mistakenly finished a task that in truth has not yet
finished, select CHANGE FINISH and press F7 to "blank" the date
again. If you mistakenly entered the wrong date, select CHANGE
FINISH and reenter the date correctly.
When entering a finish date, the function keys will allow you to
select various options without actually keying the dates. F7
lets you "blank" a date, in effect "unfinishing" the task. F8
gives you the late date, in this case the late finish date. F9
gives you today's date, if possible. F10 gives you the early
finish date. On a task not yet complete, this will be the same
as the default. To select any of these dates, press the
associated function key.
As mentioned in the previous section, the entry of an actual
finish date is equivalent to the entry of an actual start date,
where milestones are concerned.
44 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
5.6.7 Change the project begin date.
The beginning of a project is marked by the milestone PBEGIN. To
set the project begin date, all you need do is change the actual
start for this milestone. There are a couple minor differences
between PBEGIN and any other milestone, though. Other dates may
be blanked, but a schedule has to begin sometime. When a
schedule is created, the begin date is set to today. This can be
seen in the early start and finish dates displayed on the task
screen. The status of the milestone is set to ready. Change the
date in the usual manner and the rest of the schedule will be
updated and the status will change to complete. The only
function keys you will be allowed are F7 to blank the date, and
F9 to set it to today. (PC-Project has no way of knowing early
and late starts.) If you blank the begin date, it doesn't change
the date. Again, the task has to begin sometime. It does,
however change the status back to ready.
If you don't like PBEGIN as a tag, you are free to change it to
whatever suits your purpose. The previous discussion applies, in
any event.
5.7 DELETE the current task.
Sometimes, you accidently add a task that doesn't belong in your
project. Other times, after a project has started, it becomes
apparent that a task initially thought essential is no longer
required. This usually seems to happen towards the end of late
projects. To account for both of these possibilities, the DELETE
option appears on the task menu. By selecting DELETE, you can
remove a task, as well as any resource usage by that task.
You are allowed to delete any task that does not have a status of
passed. As soon as tasks depending on the current task have
started, you are no longer able to delete it and the delete
option does not appear on the task menu. If the current task is
not passed, you may delete it by selecting DELETE from the task
menu. (Press "D".)
After selecting DELETE, you will be asked if you are sure you
want to delete it. Take a moment to reflect on this decision.
If you are at all uncertain, answer NO by pressing "N". You will
then be returned to the task menu with no changes having taken
place.
If you answer "Y" to the "Are you sure?" question, PC-Project
will delete the task, delete any record of resource assignments
for the task, and collapse the task's prerequisites and
successors. The project is rescheduled and redisplayed and the
current task becomes the next task on the list, if there is one.
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 45
Deleting tasks is not recommended once you start work. You
should probably keep a reminder on hand that this task was, at
some time, considered essential and keep in mind that it may well
become essential again. A better procedure would be to change
the duration of the task to zero, making it a milestone, and
preserving the resource assignments and prerequisite structure.
When its time comes, just finish it.
If you delete a task mistakenly, the only recourse is to ADD the
task, use FOLLOWS to set up prerequisites again, use PRECEDES to
set up successors again, and USES to assign the resources back.
A laborious process, especially if the task had a large number of
tasks preceding or following.
5.8 The current task PRECEDES which other tasks?
5.8.1 Maintaining successors for a task.
Alert readers will notice that the following discussion is almost
a word for word repeat of the FOLLOWS section of the manual.
This is because the PRECEDES option is the exact opposite of the
FOLLOWS option. The redundancy is tolerated so this can serve as
a reference. If you are reading the whole manual, you might want
to skip this section and come back to it if you later have
questions about this option.
In the real world, it is obvious that some tasks must follow
others. You can't plant the tree before you dig the hole. This
is a simple example, immediately apparent. In large projects,
however, the network of these dependencies becomes so complex
that no one person is able to comprehend all the relations. You
might think you have the best arrangement of tasks, but you can't
be sure. For this reason, PC-Project is designed to let you
represent an arbitrarily complex set of relationships between
tasks. You tell PC-Project which tasks follow other tasks by
using the PRECEDES and FOLLOWS options on the task menu. The
PRECEDES option is used to assign and maintain successors for the
current task.
A successor is defined as a task that may not begin work until
the current task is complete, in other words, the opposite of a
prerequisite.
To maintain successors for the current task, select PRECEDES from
the task menu. (Type "P" while the task menu is being
displayed.) This option is not available while the current task
is PEND. (The end of the project, by definition, precedes no
tasks.)
After selection of PRECEDES, the task edit area is used to show
information for the successors of the current task. A tag menu
shows the tags of all successors of the current task. The
leftmost of these tags is highlighted. This highlight is a
46 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
cursor that can be moved with the left and right arrows. There is
room for six tags on the line. If the current task has more than
six successors, the cursor can be moved to the right or left off
the end of the line to bring the additional tags into view. A
highlight is displayed at either end of the line to inform you of
the presence of such hidden successors.
As you move the cursor from tag to tag, additional information
for the highlighted task is displayed in the two lines below the
tag menu. This information includes the tag and name of the
successor. Also shown here are the estimated and actual
duration, the early, late, and actual start and finish dates, as
well as the task status.
Below the additional information is the menu bar for the precedes
option. This menu is called the precedes menu. The options
given you by this menu will vary, depending on the current task
and the successor currently highlighted. You may be given the
opportunity to ADD a successor to the current task or DELETE the
currently highlighted successor from the current task. You will
always be given the option of locating the highlighted task as
well as quitting and going back to the task menu.
To get back to the task menu after maintaining successors, select
QUIT from the precedes menu or type "Q", carriage return, or
escape while the precedes menu is being displayed. So, if your
interest is only to inquire as to the successors of the current
task, all you need do is select the precedes option from the task
menu, view the tags displayed for the successors, perhaps use the
left and right arrows to move the highlighted tag and so see
additional information for desired tasks, and finally press one
of the above mentioned keys to return to the task menu.
If you are going to add or delete successors, a little extra
information is in order. When a task is first added to your
project, it is automatically given PBEGIN as a prerequisite and
PEND as a successor. If you add a successor for the new task,
you no longer see PEND as a successor. So essentially, in the
absence of any successors of your own choosing, PC-Project
assumes the new task can be started immediately on the first day
of the project. In a similar way, if your task has no
successors, the system assumes it doesn't have to be finished
until the project itself is. The net effect on you is that,
since PC-Project takes care of successors including either PBEGIN
or PEND, it won't let you mess with them. If the current task is
PBEGIN when you select PRECEDES, you will not be given the
opportunity to add or delete successors. In addition, if the
highlighted successor is PEND, you will not be allowed to delete
it.
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 47
Lastly, once work on a task has commenced, PC-Project freezes its
prerequisites. This means that, if the highlighted successor has
started, you won't see DELETE on the precedes menu. It also
means that, if you try to say that a working task follows the
current task, you will not be allowed to do so.
5.8.2 ADD a successor.
You are allowed to add successors to the current task if the task
is not the PEND task. You may not, however, add, as a successor,
a task that is already working, complete, or passed.
Add a successor to the current task by first selecting PRECEDES
from the task menu and then selecting ADD from the precedes menu.
(Type "PA".) PC-Project then clears the bottom of the screen and
asks "Precedes which task?" If you didn't want to add a
successor, press escape to restore the task menu.
If you do indeed want to add the successor, respond to the "which
task?" question with the tag of the desired successor task. The
entire tag is not necessary. You may type only the first letter
or two. If what you type matches only one existing tag, it is as
if you had typed the entire tag. If there is more than one
possibility matching your entry, you are asked, for each of the
candidates, if this was the tag you meant.
After entry of the tag, a number of edits are performed before
the task is established as a successor of the current task. If
any of these edits fail, an error message is displayed, and you
are again asked to enter a tag. If at any time you want to quit,
press the escape key. The error messages and their causes are as
follows:
ALREADY WORKING -- The tag you entered corresponds to a
task that has already started working. PC-Project
assumes that, if you were able to start the task, no
more prerequisites can possibly be added to it.
TASK CAN'T COME BEFORE ITSELF -- You can't say that you
have to dig the hole before you dig the hole. This is
a minor case of circular ordering. If allowed in your
schedule, it would be impossible to finish the project.
CIRCULAR -- A more subtle variation on the above. If
you get this message, it means you are trying to add a
successor that would create a circular chain of tasks,
each of which must precede the others. If you already
told PC-Project that framing the house follows laying
the foundation and that laying the foundation follows
digging the basement, and then tried to say that
framing the house precedes digging the basement, you
would get the CIRCULAR message.
48 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
ALREADY THE CASE -- You are trying to add a successor
that already is a successor of the current task. It
may not immediately follow the current task, but it is
certainly the successor of one of your successors or
something farther forward along the line. In the above
example, if you were to say that digging the basement
precedes framing the house, you would get this
message. It's already taken care of. You will
probably want to press the escape key.
If your entry passed the above four tests, it is added to the
project. The project is rescheduled to take the new successor
into account and the Gannt lines are redisplayed. The tag menu
is redisplayed to accommodate the new addition, its cursor is on
the tag you entered, task information is displayed for the new
successor, and the precedes menu appears again.
If you decide you don't like the looks of the new schedule, you
can delete the newly added successor by selecting DELETE from the
precedes menu or by typing "D" immediately.
If you want to add another successor, select ADD or type "A".
If you want to inspect other successors, use the left and right
arrows to move around the tag menu.
If you want to go back to the task menu, select QUIT, or type
"Q", carriage return, or escape.
5.8.3 DELETE a successor.
An important distinction: when we say delete a successor, we do
not mean deleting that task, but only removing the relationship
between two tasks.
You are allowed to delete a successor if the following are true:
The successor task has not started; the current task is not
PBEGIN; and the successor task is not PEND. If these conditions
are satisfied, delete away.
To delete a successor from the current task, select the PRECEDES
option from the task menu (or type "P"). You are then shown the
tag menu. This menu contains the tags of all successors of the
current task. Move the cursor, using the arrow keys, until it is
positioned on the tag of the task that is no longer assumed to
follow your current task. When you are parked on it, select
DELETE from the precedes menu (or press "D".)
After deleting, the project is rescheduled and redisplayed. The
cursor on the tag menu is placed on the next possible successor.
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 49
If you, on reflection, decide that you really kind of liked it
the way it was before, just ADD it back in.
If you want the task menu back, select QUIT, or type "Q",
carriage return, or escape.
5.8.4 LOCATE a successor on the task screen.
For the same reason LOCATE was installed in the PRECEDES menu
(see also), it can also be found in the PRECEDES menu. Too
frequently, we find ourselves tracing chains of cause and effect
through our complex projects. While looking at the tasks
dependent on the current task's completion, we often want to go
immediately to one of these tasks without any intervening
keystrokes.
The PRECEDES tag menu displays a list of all successors of the
current task. To make any of these tasks current, use the arrow
keys to move the tag cursor to the desired task tag. Then,
LOCATE the highlighted task by selecting LOCATE from the PRECEDES
menu or by typing "L" while the PRECEDES menu is being
displayed.
5.9 Display a HISTogram showing resource loading.
After a schedule is first entered, you have available the
quickest way to finish. It may be the quickest, but if it
requires four engineers on the twentieth, and you have one, it is
not realistic. At this point, it is time to do some resource
leveling, spreading out workloads to eliminate inefficient spikes
and idle periods in your staff. To do this, you need some tools
that will enable you to, for any resource, find out the workload
for any day, as well as to tell what tasks are using that
resource. By selecting HIST, PC-Project displays a histogram
showing resource loads for each day currently displayed on the
screen. It also flags all tasks using the current resource.
Given this, you can use the USES option to even out or change
loads. If this is not adequate, you can use FOLLOWS and PRECEDES
to force tasks into an order that eliminates over-usage and idle
periods.
The current resource is displayed at the top of the task screen
after you enter your first resource. It is changed by moving to
a new current resource on the resource screen or by making a
change affecting that resource in the USES option. To see a
histogram for the current resource, select HIST from the task
menu, or press "H" while the task menu is being displayed.
If the current resource is not in use by any tasks, you will be
alerted to that fact and no changes will take place. If the
resource is in use, a legend will be displayed on the right side
of the task screen and a bar chart will be displayed in the Gannt
50 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
lines area. In addition, an asterisk will be placed next to the
tags of all tasks that use that resource. With this information,
you can determine your approach.
After the bar chart is displayed, you will see a message that
directs you to press return to continue. If you press return,
the chart will be erased, and you may continue on the task menu.
(In fact, you may press any key, and PC-Project will do whatever
you entered after clearing the chart.)
5.10 LOCATE a task and make it current.
PC-Project allows you to maintain a virtually unlimited number of
tasks for each project. While this is a decided advantage, it
can lead to some difficulty. In particular, the occasion will
arise when you want to inspect a task not currently on the
screen, and you have no idea where to find it or don't want to
waste time typing an enormous number of cursor keys. In this
situation, the LOCATE command is called for.
LOCATE a particular task by selecting LOCATE from the task menu
or by typing "L" while the task menu is being displayed.
You will be asked, "Locate which task?". Type the tag of the
desired task followed by a carriage return. The screen will be
redisplayed with the entered task tag made current. You can now
view information for your previously lost task.
If you spell the tag wrong or no task exists with the tag you
entered, PC-Project will display the message "NO MATCHING TAGS"
and repeat the question.
If you mistakenly selected the LOCATE command, or decide that it
wasn't really something you wanted to do anyway, simply enter an
escape or carriage return. No changes will take place.
You don't actually have to type the entire task tag when faced
with this question. If you type enough of the tag to
unambiguously identify a particular task, PC-Project will accept
your entry and move the cursor to the desired task. For example:
You are looking for the task with tag "DIG HOLE" and nothing else
in the project gets dug. When asked which task to locate, you
need only type "DIG" followed by a carriage return and PC-Project
will locate your task.
If more than one task tag matches what you type in, then
PC-Project will, for each possibility, display the tag and ask
you whether or not this is the one you wanted. For example: As
in the above example, you are looking for the task with tag "DIG
HOLE". When asked which task to locate, you type "DIG",
completely forgetting about the pit that must also be dug.
PC-Project will then ask you "Do you mean DIG PIT?". You don't.
Respond with an "N" for no. You will then be asked, "Do you mean
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 51
DIG HOLE?". You do. Press a carriage return and PC-Project will
locate the proper task. This feature becomes very helpful when
you don't remember what it was you named your task, but have a
pretty good idea of its first letter. Just type it in and let
PC-Project find it for you.
5.11 MOVE the current task.
If you are unsatisfied with the placement of a task on the task
screen, you can move it to any other place in the task list. Do
this by selecting MOVE from the task menu or by pressing "M"
while the task menu is being displayed.
You will be asked to enter the tag of the task after which you
want to put the current task. The default response is set to the
current task. You have three choices for your response.
If you just press a carriage return, nothing happens. You are
returned to the task menu.
If you press escape, the current task is moved to the top of the
list.
If you enter a task tag, you need only enter enough of the tag to
ensure uniqueness. If there is ambiguity, you will be asked
which of the possible tags you meant. After entry of a
satisfactory tag, the task will be moved, and the screen
redisplayed with the current task in its new position.
5.12 SORT tasks in order by start date.
After you have worked on a project a while, the tasks tend to
start looking disorderly. If you want your Gannt lines to have a
nice even slope down and to the right, you can achieve this by
sorting the task list in order by early start date. Sort your
tasks by selecting SORT from the task menu, or by pressing "S"
while the task menu is being displayed.
After selection of this option, you will be asked if you are sure
you want to sort. There is no way to undo this operation, so if
the order your tasks are presently in conveys a lot of meaning,
you probably want to answer this question with an "N". If you
remain confident, answer "Y". On receipt of a yes answer,
PC-Project sorts the tasks and redisplays the screen with the
tasks in their new order.
5.13 Print schedules and REPORTs.
PC-Project will print several reports from the task screen.
Print these reports by selecting REPORT from the task menu or by
typing "R" while the task menu is being displayed.
52 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
On selection of the report option, a menu is displayed with each
possible type of report. If you don't want to print, press
escape or select QUIT to return to the task menu. If you do want
to print a report, select the format you wish to see. The
possible formats are described below:
GANNT - Print a Gannt chart for your project. This report
looks similar to the task screen. A calendar appears across
the top of the report. For each task in your project, a
line is printed showing the task tag, task status, and Gannt
line for the task. To allow for different printers, the
symbols on the printed chart are not so varied. Instead of
different symbols for different statuses, the status is
shown to the left. As on the Gannt screen, periods are used
to denote inactivity. Hyphens are used to show float or
slack. The working period for a normal task is marked with
equals signs if normal or a single quote if a milestone.
Critical path tasks are marked with asterisks or exclamation
points.
TASK - Prints task report. If you select this option, you
will be greeted with another menu asking you to further
narrow your selection. The options are:
TERSE - Prints the terse task list. This report shows,
for each task in your project, the tag, name, duration,
cost per schedule unit, total cost, status, early,
late, and actual start and finish dates, and a notation
indicating whether the task is on the critical path.
This report is useful as a companion to the Gannt chart
described above.
COMP - Prints the comprehensive task list. This report
contains the same information as the terse list as well
as complete information on resource assignments,
prerequisites, and successors. For each resource
assigned to a task, a line is printed showing its tag,
amount required, rate of pay, and the cost associated
with this particular resource assignment. For each
prerequisite task, a line is printed showing the task's
tag, status, duration, and early and late finish
dates. For each successor task, a line is printed
showing the task's tag, status, duration, and early and
late start dates.
CASH - Print cash flow report. If you select this option,
you will be greeted with another menu asking you to further
narrow your selection. The options are:
TERSE - Prints the terse cash flow list. This report
shows, for each schedule unit in your project, i.e.
each day, week, etc., the fixed and variable costs
incurred as of that moment. Fixed costs are charged at
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 53
the beginning of work on a task, variable costs are
calculated as they are worked. In addition to this
basic information, daily, weekly, or monthly totals may
be provided.
COMP - Prints the comprehensive cash flow list. This
report contains the same information as the terse list
as well as complete information on resource assignments
that contribute to the variable costs.
Whenever PC-Project prints a report, you will be asked a series
of questions. Most of these questions can be responded to with a
carriage return. The questions, and their possible responses,
are summarized below.
Send output to disk? -- You may choose to send the report to a
disk file of your choosing. If you press a return here, the
answer defaults to NO, or send the output to the printer. Your
answer to this question rides on several factors. Sending output
to disk is faster but requires that you later use DOS or some
other program to print the report. Sending output to the printer
is slower, but gives you immediate results. If you are using a
sideways printing program, you will want to send your output to
disk. Depending on your selection, different questions must be
asked.
If you enter a "Y", you are asked for a file name to write
to. If you press escape, you will be returned to the menu
for your current screen. If the specified file exists,
PC-Project will tell you and ask if you want to wipe it
out. An answer of "N" here will return you to the menu for
the current screen. If you select a new file, or agree to
wipe out an old one, you go on to the next question. If the
file name you supplied is illegal, you are greeted with a
message that says PC-Project was UNABLE TO OPEN the
specified file and you are allowed to reenter the
troublesome name.
If you enter an "N", you are indicating your desire to send
the report directly to the printer. In this case, you are
asked if you wish to pause between pages. Enter a "Y" if
you have to feed pages separately, otherwise press a
carriage return to accept the default "N" answer. You are
then given a menu bar listing acceptable destinations for
your printout. Normally, you will press the carriage
return, indicating your desire to send the printout to PRN,
your system's first parallel printer. Select one of the
others if you want to print to the other printer, or to a
serial port.
54 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
Regardless of whether you selected printer or disk for the
destination of your output, PC-Project will use your default disk
as a work area to assemble the report in. It is your
responsibility to ensure there is some space available on the
disk or the report will not be printed.
After determining the destination of the report, PC-Project asks
you to describe the report's appearance. You will be asked to
enter the left margin, printer width, page length, and top and
bottom margins. Just press carriage returns to accept the
defaults, unless you have special requirements. If you change
these numbers, be advised that PC-Project assumes a half inch
right margin, and a one inch bottom margin.
The defaults all are for standard 8 1/2 by 11 paper on a regular
dot matrix printer. If you have an HP Laser Jet or equivalent
printer, use a page length of 61 to keep pages lined up.
The last item required before printing starts is the setup
string. If you are unsure of this, just press ESC and the system
will continue quite nicely (most of the time). If, however, your
printer requires certain characters be sent it before commencing
printing, this is the place to enter them. You may type any
printable character here. In addition, for those characters that
do not appear on the keyboard, you may type a slash followed by
the three digit decimal ASCII code. Printer manuals will have to
be consulted.
Most dot matrix printers will print a report in compressed mode
if you use "/015" as a setup string. Be sure to adjust the page
width accordingly.
When printing a Gannt chart, it is likely that the width of the
report will exceed that of your printer carriage, even in
compressed mode. Given this, PC-Project will split the report
into more than one page, which, when taped together, will give
you the whole report. To avoid this fate, it is recommended that
you use one of the quite capable sideways printing programs
currently on the market. To do this, you would send the output
to disk, and then select unlimited page width when generating the
report.
After entry of these parameters, PC-Project assembles the report
after displaying a message informing you of this. After the
report has been created, a message is displayed, saying that you
may press ESC to abort, or "P" to pause, and the report is sent
to its destination, be it printer or disk. If you specified
separate pages, the system pauses between pages.
After the report is finished, you are returned to the screen you
selected the report from.
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 55
5.14 ZIP to the resource screen.
By selecting ZIP from the task menu, you are immediately sent to
the resource screen. This is kind of a silly feature, in that
you are saving exactly one keystroke, but it is used often enough
to warrant its inclusion. There is a corresponding ZIP on the
resource screen that returns you quickly to the task screen.
56 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
6 The RESOURCE screen.
6.1 The RESOURCE screen is used to track resources.
6.1.1 A RESOURCE gets a paycheck.
A resource, for our purposes, is any person or piece of equipment
that gets paid by the hour. (or any other period of time.) An
employee is considered a resource, as is rented equipment.
Another way of looking at it is that a resource is something that
doesn't get used up. For the most part, the money you spend on
resources is the variable component of a project's cost. The
cost of materials is relatively fixed, but the cost of labor and
rented equipment can be minimized through judicious scheduling.
PC-Project can be used to determine the cost of these variable
expenses and also to determine the effect of any schedule changes
on these costs.
The RESOURCE screen is used to maintain a list of resources. Use
this screen to add, modify, or delete available resources. The
screen gives you detailed cost information for each resource as
well as the entire project. This screen also allows you to
inspect and modify resource usage by tasks. Costs are displayed
as total cost and cost to complete (generally, the more
interesting number.)
The resource screen is brought up by selecting RESOURCE from the
maintain menu or by typing "R" while the maintain menu is being
displayed. Return to the maintain menu by selecting QUIT from
the resource menu, or by typing ESC or "Q" while the resource
menu is being displayed.
The resource screen is made up of several parts. Displayed on
the top line is the current task and the amount of memory
remaining. Below is the resource worksheet, with room for 13
resource lines as well as project totals. Under the worksheet,
is the resource edit area, used to display information for the
current resource. Below the resource edit area is a menu bar.
This is called the resource menu.
6.1.2 What information is kept for each resource?
When you add a resource, you will be asked for certain
information for that resource. The information you supply will
be displayed in the resource edit area. Some will also be
displayed in the resource worksheet. PC-Project will take your
information and combine it with task data and resource
assignments to come up with detailed cost figures. Basic
resource information, the fields you have to supply, include the
following:
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 57
Every resource has a tag. Like a task tag, the resource tag
is a non-redundant eight character mnemonic used to identify
individual resources. See the discussion of task tags if
you need know more about tag requirements.
Every resource has a name. You are required to supply a
longer name for each resource. This name appears in the
resource edit area and on reports.
Every resource has a capacity. If you have two backhoes,
capacity would be two. If you could rent 1 more if
necessary, capacity would be three. If you set up a single
employee as a resource, capacity would be one. If he or she
can only work half-time, capacity would be .5. The capacity
refers to the maximum number of this resource that can be
applied to your project at any one time. As you schedule
the project, it is possible that resource assignments could
exceed capacity. If this happens, you will be informed so
you can modify resource assignments to eliminate the
problem.
Every resource gets paid. In particular, every resource
gets paid a specific amount. You are required to enter an
amount and pay period for each resource you add to a
project.
Each of the above fields is displayed in the resource edit area.
If any tasks using this resource have been completed, three
additional fields are calculated and displayed as well. Based on
the above information, as well as that entered elsewhere in the
system, these values include:
The time so far tells you how much effort has already been
expended on this resource. The figure is expressed in
man-days if you are scheduling in days, man-hours if in
hours, etc.
The cost so far is the time so far multiplied by the pay
amount. It is the amount of money spent so far employing
this resource.
Like the project as a whole, a percentage is displayed to
give you an idea of how well your estimates are doing for
each resource. It is calculated by dividing the estimated
cost into the actual cost for work done by this resource.
6.1.3 The resource worksheet shows project costs.
The resource worksheet occupies the middle of the resource
screen. It consists of two lines of header information followed
by 13 resource lines. Each resource line displays detailed
information for a single resource. Under the resource line are
displayed project-wide cost totals.
58 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
Information on one resource line includes the resource tag,
capacity, pay amount, and pay period. In addition, five more
fields are calculated and displayed for each resource. These
include:
The peak use is the greatest simultaneous employment for the
resource. If the peak use exceeds the capacity, the
schedule must be modified to eliminate the over use.
The days left (or hours, weeks, etc.) expresses the
estimated remaining usage for the resource in man-days.
The cost left is the estimated remaining cost to be incurred
by the resource.
The total days (or hours, weeks, etc.) gives you the total
man-days of the resource for project completion. It is
arrived at by adding the actual time spent to the estimated
days left.
The total cost is the total estimated cost for this
resource. It is calculated by multiplying the total days by
the resource pay.
Project-wide totals are displayed under the resource lines. The
first, labeled "spent so far," tells how much money has actually
been expensed up to this point. It will start out zero, and only
after work begins, start to grow. The second figure on this line
is the ratio between actual expenditure and estimated
expenditure, expressed as a percentage. If this number is over
100, your estimates are tending to be over-optimistic. Also
displayed on this line are grand totals for cost left and total
cost. Each of these figures is automatically updated to reflect
any change in the schedule.
6.1.4 There is always one current resource.
The leftmost field on a resource line contains the resource tag,
an eight character mnemonic name for the resource. One of these
tags is always highlighted. This resource is called the current
resource. The current resource may be changed by using the
cursor keys to move up and down the list. Beneath the resource
worksheet is the resource edit area. This section displays more
comprehensive information on the current resource. Below the
resource edit area is the resource menu. The operations listed
on the resource menu are usually performed on the current
resource.
So, if you want to see detailed information on a resource, or
perhaps modify it, your first task is to make it the current
resource by moving the cursor down the list, then inspecting the
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 59
information in the resource edit area or selecting a menu option
from the resource menu.
6.1.5 Resources are assigned to tasks.
Using PC-Project, you assign resources to tasks. The task's
durations are combined with the costs of the various resources
assigned to them to arrive at the total cost information for each
of the resources. Resource assignments may be made and later
modified from either the task screen or the resource screen.
From the resource screen, you inspect or modify assignments for
the current resource by selecting USEDBY from the resource menu.
Say, "The current resource is USEDBY which tasks?" If this
option is selected, the tag of each task that uses the current
resource is displayed in a tag menu in the resource edit area.
One of these tags is highlighted. Additional information for the
highlighted task is also displayed in the resource edit area.
Using the right and left arrows, you can move the highlight to
any of the tasks on this line, and so inspect the information for
the task. After selecting USEDBY, you are also given the ability
to add, change, or delete resource assignments.
You have a choice of maintaining resource assignments from either
the task or resource screen. Which you use depends on your
orientation at the time. Are you interested in seeing all
resources assigned to a particular task, or all tasks using a
particular resource?
6.1.6 What operations may we perform on resources?
The next few sections describe in more detail the capabilities of
PC-Project's resource screen. You will find out how to add,
change, or delete resources. You will be told how to use the
cursor keys to change the current resource and move through the
resource list. You will find further discussion of the USEDBY
selection, allowing you to maintain resource assignments. You
will find out how to generate resource reports. You can change
the order the resources appear in as well as the format costs are
displayed in.
Before going further, you are encouraged to bring up the resource
screen and try out the various options for yourself, and then
come back to this manual with any questions that come up.
6.2 Cursor movement and the current resource.
Using the arrow keys on the numeric keypad, you can move about on
the resource screen and change the current resource. Think about
the resource screen as a window on a large list of resources.
60 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
Using the cursor keys, you can move that window around so that
any portion of the list can be inspected at will. The keys, and
their effects, are as follows:
The up arrow.
The up arrow is found on the "8" on the keypad. When pressed
while the resource or usedby menus are being displayed, its
action is as follows: If the current resource is not at the top
of the screen, the highlight is moved up one resource and the
current resource is changed. If the current resource highlight
is already at the top of the screen, and if there are other
resources above it, the screen scrolls down one line and the
resource just off the top is displayed and made current.
The down arrow.
The down arrow is found on the "2" on the keypad. When pressed
while the resource or usedby menus are being displayed, its
action is as follows: If the current resource is not at the
bottom of the screen, the highlight is moved down one resource
and the current resource is changed. If the current resource
highlight is already at the bottom of the screen, and if there
are more resources below, the screen scrolls up one line and the
resource just off the bottom is displayed and made current.
The page up key.
The page down key.
If one resource at a time is not fast enough for you, use the
page up and page down keys to speed through the resource list.
These keys, on the "9" and "3" keys respectively, go up or down
the resource list one screen, or 13 resources, at a time. They
cease to have any effect when you get to the top or bottom of the
list. These keys work from the resource and usedby menus.
Control-home.
Control-end.
These keys take you to the beginning or end of the resource list.
These keys work from the resource and usedby menus.
6.3 ADD a new resource.
Before any costing can take place, resources must be assigned to
tasks. Before resources can be assigned to tasks, they must be
added to the resource worksheet. Use the ADD option of the
resource menu to install new resources into your project.
A new resource is always added below the current resource on the
resource screen. To add a new resource, position the cursor to
the resource above the spot you want the new one to appear in,
then select ADD from the resource menu.
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 61
After selection of the add option, the cursor is turned off and
the resource edit area is cleared out. The new resource will
become current after you are finished adding.
You will be prompted to enter a resource tag for the new
resource. At this point, should you decide you don't really want
a new resource, you can press escape to return to the resource
menu, no changes having taken place.
The resource tag may be up to eight characters long. Accepted
characters include letters, digits, and the space. The resource
tag you enter must be unique. In addition, PC-Project will not
allow one resource tag to exactly match the first characters of
another resource's tag. If you try to add a tag that would
create this situation, you are greeted with an error message that
reads "REDUNDANT". While moderately inconvenient initially,
great savings in time result from this policy. Later, whenever
asked for the tag of an existing resource, you will be required
to enter only the first letters of the tag. If you enter enough
to insure uniqueness, the system accepts that as if you had typed
the whole tag. If there is more than one resource that matches
what you entered, you are asked which of the matching resources
you meant. This is particularly useful if you forget the
resource's tag. This utility is gained at the expense of a
little extra care right now, in the naming of resources. The tag
you use should tell you, just by looking at it, what it is this
resource does. Avoid the temptation to use short tags that don't
mean anything. This leads to trouble. If you were to name one
resource "A", the system would no longer accept any resources
with tags beginning with "A" because that would create a
redundant tag situation. Similarly, if, for some reason, you
decide to number your resources, use a couple leading zeroes on
resource number 1 or you will not be allowed to add resources 10
through 19 as well as resources 100 through 199. (Should you
inadvertently create a situation like this, it is easy to
remedy. The escape key gets you out of ADD. You can then use
the CHANGE option to change the offending resource tag.)
After successful entry of the resource tag, you are prompted for
the resource name. Enter a description of the resource in thirty
characters or less. This name will appear on reports. It is
meant to be a more complete version of the resource tag.
After entry of the resource name, PC-Project prompts you for a
the resource capacity. How many of this resource are available
to be committed to your project? If you have two draftsmen, the
capacity would be two. If you have unlimited laborers, enter a
capacity of zero. If you have an employee that can only dedicate
part of his or her time to the project, the capacity may be
entered in tenths. (i.e. a capacity of ".5" indicates the
resource is available on a half time basis.) You can, after
starting your project, verify peak loads on the worksheet against
capacity, to ensure there are no overloads.
62 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
Lastly, to arrive at project costs, the entry of the resource's
pay rate is required. When prompted for a pay amount, enter the
amount. You may use cents if required. Then, select one of the
time units from the menu bar to choose the pay period.
After selection of the pay period, the resource screen is
redisplayed with a new line for your new resource. The new
resource has become the current resource, and so the cursor is
put on its tag. At this point you might want to do several
things.
If you added the resource by mistake, or reconsider its
necessity, select DELETE.
If you got some of the information wrong, select CHANGE.
If you want to add another resource, select ADD again.
6.4 Which tasks are USEDBY the current resource?
6.4.1 Assigning tasks to the current resource.
Using PC-Project, you may assign or inspect resources assigned to
the current task from the task screen. In addition, you are also
allowed to work in the opposite direction. From the resource
screen, you may inspect or modify tasks assigned to the current
resource. If you are thinking in terms of tasks, use the first
option. If you are thinking in terms of resources, use the
USEDBY option of the resource menu.
Tasks are added and maintained from the task screen. You can use
the USEDBY option on the resource menu however, to assign or
remove tasks from a resource as well as to change the quantity of
the resource you need for any task.
To see or modify the tasks assigned to the current resource,
select USEDBY from the resource menu or type "U" while the
resource menu is being displayed.
After selection of USEDBY, the resource edit area is used to show
information for the tasks assigned to the current resource. In
the top line of the resource edit area is displayed a tag menu.
This is a line telling you the tags of all tasks assigned to the
current resource. One of these task tags is highlighted. If the
current task is currently assigned to this resource, the
highlight is placed on the current task tag. If the current task
is not assigned to the current resource, the highlight is simply
placed on the leftmost of the tags. This highlight is a cursor
that can be moved with the left and right arrows. There is room
for six tags on the line. If the current resource is associated
with more than six tasks, the cursor can be moved to the right or
left off the end of the line to bring the additional tags into
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 63
view. A highlight is displayed at either end of the line to
inform you of the presence of such hidden assignments. It should
be pointed out that, if no tasks have yet been assigned to the
resource, as will be the case when you first begin, no tags will
be displayed on the tag menu line.
If you have already assigned tasks to the current resource, you
will find that, as you move the cursor from tag to tag,
additional information for the highlighted task is displayed in
the two lines below the tag menu. This information includes the
tag and name of the task. Also shown are the amount of the
resource required by this task (RQ), the estimated duration (ED),
the estimated cost (EC), and the task's early start and late
finish dates (ES and LF). The task's status is displayed as well
as additional information for the task, depending on that
status. If the task has a status of hold or ready, the
calculated late start and early finish dates are displayed (LS
and EF). If the task is working, the actual start is displayed
in place of the late start (AS). If the task is complete, the
actual finish is displayed in place of the early finish (AF).
Also displayed for complete tasks are the actual duration and
cost figures (AD and AC).
Below the additional information is the menu bar for the usedby
option. This menu is called the usedby menu. Several options
are displayed on this menu. In PC-Project, you will always be
given the opportunity to ADD the current resource to additional
tasks. In addition, if tasks have been assigned to the current
resource, for the highlighted task, you can CHANGE the amount
required, or DELETE this task from the current resource. You
will always be given the option of quitting and going back to the
resource menu.
PC-Project will let you assign resources to milestone tasks (zero
duration). Because cost information is based on time, this won't
affect cost totals. Assigning resources to milestones should
therefore be viewed as just reminder entries in your schedule.
Assign whoever has to sign off on task completion or whoever it
is that is qualified to say that the task has indeed been
completed.
To get back to the resource menu after maintaining resource
assignments, select QUIT from the usedby menu or type "Q",
carriage return, or escape while the usedby menu is being
displayed. So, if your interest is only to inquire as to the
tasks assigned to the current resource, all you need do is select
the usedby option from the resource menu, view the tags displayed
for the tasks, perhaps use the left and right arrows to move the
highlighted tag and so see additional information for desired
tasks, and finally press one of the above mentioned keys to
return to the resource menu.
64 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
6.4.2 ADD a task to the current resource.
Add a task to the current resource by first selecting USEDBY from
the resource menu and then selecting ADD from the usedby menu.
From the resource menu, you may add a task to the current
resource by typing "U" and then "A". PC-Project then clears the
bottom of the screen and asks "Task using this resource?" If you
didn't want to add a task to the current resource, press escape
to restore the usedby menu.
If you do indeed want to add the task, respond to the "Task using
this resource?" question with the tag of the desired task. The
entire tag is not necessary. You may type only the first letter
or two. If what you type matches only one existing tag, it is as
if you had typed the entire tag. If there is more than one
possibility matching your entry, you are asked, for each of the
candidates, if this was the tag you meant.
After entry of the task tag, PC-Project checks tasks already
assigned to the current resource. If it is found that the newly
entered task tag is among these, the error message "ALREADY HERE"
is displayed, the highlight is placed on the offending task tag,
and the usedby menu is redisplayed. No damage is done. If you
want to change the required amount of the resource, you can
immediately select CHANGE from the usedby menu. This can be used
as a feature. If you have numerous tasks assigned to the current
resource, so many they don't fit on the tag menu, and you want to
inspect one of them, bypassing the arrow keys, just try and add
it to the current resource.
If the tag you entered belongs to a task not currently assigned
to the current resource, information for that task is displayed
and the tag menu is updated to accommodate the new task. You are
then asked to enter the required usage for this task. If the
resource takes three days for two laborers, enter two, not six.
If one of your employees is expected to divide his or her time
across several tasks simultaneously, an entry of one for required
usage would indicate that this employee will give the task
undivided attention. This is not your intent. PC-Project allows
you to enter usage in tenths, and in this case, this is the
approach to be used. If the employee works half time on one
task, and half time on another, enter ".5" when asked for
required usage. This becomes very useful when you are trying to
level out work loads.
After entry of the required amount the usedby menu appears
again. In addition, the current task is set to the tag you just
entered.
If you decide you don't like the looks of the new task, you can
delete it from the current resource by selecting DELETE from the
usedby menu or by typing "D" immediately.
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 65
If you want to add another task to the current resource, select
ADD or type "A".
If you want to inspect other tasks, use the left and right arrows
to move around the tag menu.
If you want to go back to the resource menu, select QUIT, or type
"Q", carriage return, or escape.
6.4.3 CHANGE a resource assignment.
The CHANGE option of the usedby menu is used to change the
required amount of the current resource dedicated to a task.
Select the USEDBY option from the resource menu (or type "U").
You are then shown the tag menu. This menu contains the tags of
all tasks assigned to the current resource. Move the cursor,
using the arrow keys, until it is positioned on the tag of the
task that has the incorrect required figure. When you are parked
on it, select CHANGE from the usedby menu (or press "C".)
You will then be prompted to enter the revised amount required.
After you have done this, cost information is updated, the usedby
menu is redisplayed, and the current task is changed to the one
you just modified.
If you, on reflection, decide that you really kind of liked it
the way it was before, just CHANGE it back.
If you want to inspect other tasks assigned to the current
resource, use the left and right arrows to move around the tag
menu.
If you want the resource menu back, select QUIT, or type "Q",
carriage return, or escape.
6.4.4 DELETE the current resource from a task.
An important distinction: when we say delete a task from the
current resource, we do not mean deleting that task, but only
unassigning it from the current resource.
To delete a task from the current resource, select the USEDBY
option from the resource menu (or type "U"). You are then shown
the tag menu. This menu contains the tags of all tasks assigned
to the current resource. Move the cursor, using the arrow keys,
until it is positioned on the tag of the task that is no longer
assumed to use the current resource. When you are parked on it,
select DELETE from the usedby menu (or press "D".)
66 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
You will be asked if you are sure the current resource is not
used by the task in question. Reply with a "Y" or an "N". If
you answer "N", the default, no changes take place and the usedby
menu is redisplayed. If you answer "Y", the task is unassigned,
cost information is updated, and the cursor on the tag menu is
placed on the next possible task.
If you, on reflection, decide that you really kind of liked it
the way it was before, just ADD it back in.
If you want the resource menu back, select QUIT, or type "Q",
carriage return, or escape.
6.5 CHANGE information for the current resource.
The CHANGE option of the resource menu is used to modify the
initially entered information for the current resource.
Change resource information by selecting CHANGE from the resource
menu or by typing "C" while the resource menu is being
displayed.
After selection of the change option, you will be given a menu
bar with the possible fields subject to change along it. If in
fact you did not want to change information held with the current
resource, select QUIT from this menu, or type "Q" or ESC while it
is displayed.
Change the resource tag, name, capacity, pay amount, or pay
period by selecting the appropriate item on the menu bar, then
responding to the prompt. Entries from the change menu work just
like they did when you were adding the resource.
After changing a field, costs are recalculated if necessary, the
resource line is redisplayed, and you return to the resource
menu.
If you changed a field in error, select CHANGE and change it
back.
If you want to change another item, select CHANGE again.
6.6 DELETE the current resource.
The DELETE option is used to remove resources from the resource
worksheet and, by extension, the project itself. This option
could be used after mistakenly adding the resource, or later in
the project, when you see that the resource in fact will not be
required. If you delete a resource assigned to tasks, any record
of those assignments will be removed in addition to the resource
itself. For this reason, care should be exercised in the use of
this option.
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 67
Remove the current resource from your project by selecting DELETE
from the resource menu, or by typing "D" while the resource menu
is being displayed.
You will be asked if you are sure you want to delete the resource
in question. Respond with a "Y" or "N". If this option was
mistakenly selected, or you are not positive that this is what
you want, enter "N" and you will be returned to the resource menu
with no changes having taken place.
If you respond with "Y", meaning you are sure you want to delete
the resource, the resource and any assignments using that
resource are deleted, costs are revised (downward), the resource
worksheet is redisplayed without the resource, and you are
returned to the resource menu.
If a resource is deleted in error, the only way to recover is to
put it back in. If the resource was assigned to many tasks, you
must laboriously reenter all the assignments using the USEDBY or
USES options. For this reason, it is perhaps a better idea to
just change the pay amount of a resource to zero than to delete
it outright, if the resource is assigned to more than a few
tasks. This has the effect of removing the resource from cost
considerations without losing the record of its existence. It
was added for a reason, and though not required now, it may well
become required again in the future.
6.7 LOCATE a resource and make it current.
PC-Project allows you to maintain a virtually unlimited number of
resources for each project. While this is a decided advantage,
it can lead to some difficulty. In particular, the occasion will
arise when you want to inspect a resource not currently on the
screen, and you have no idea where to find it. In this situation,
the LOCATE command is called for.
LOCATE a particular resource by selecting LOCATE from the
resource menu or by typing "L" while the resource menu is being
displayed. You will be asked, "Locate which resource?". Type
the tag of the desired resource followed by a carriage return.
The screen will be redisplayed with the entered resource tag made
current. You can now view information for your previously lost
resource.
If you spell the tag wrong or no resource exists with the tag you
entered, PC-Project will display the message "NO MATCHING TAGS"
and repeat the question.
If you mistakenly selected the LOCATE command, or decide that it
wasn't really something you wanted to do anyway, simply enter an
escape or carriage return. No changes will take place.
68 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
You don't actually have to type the entire resource tag when
faced with this question. If you type enough of the tag to
unambiguously identify a particular resource, PC-Project will
accept your entry and move the cursor to the desired resource.
For example: You are looking for the resource with tag "OBOE"
and nobody else in your orchestra plays an instrument that starts
with the letter "O". When asked which resource to locate, you
need only type the letter "O" followed by a carriage return and
PC-Project will locate your oboist.
If more than one resource tag matches what you type in, then
PC-Project will, for each possibility, display the tag and ask
you whether or not this is the one you wanted. For example: You
are looking for the resource with tag "VIOLIN". When asked which
resource to locate, you type "VIO", forgetting for a moment the
violas. PC-Project will then ask you "Do you mean VIOLA?". You
don't. Respond with an "N" for no. You will then be asked, "Do
you mean VIOLIN?". You do. Press a carriage return and
PC-Project will locate your violinists. This feature becomes
very helpful when you don't remember what it was you named your
resource, but have a pretty good idea of its first letter or
two. Just type it in and let PC-Project find it for you.
6.8 MOVE the current resource.
If you are unsatisfied with the placement of a resource in the
resource worksheet, you can move it to any other place in the
resource list. Do this by selecting MOVE from the resource menu
or by pressing "M" while the resource menu is being displayed.
You will be asked to enter the tag of the resource after which
you want to put the current resource. The default response is
set to the current resource. You have three choices for your
response.
If you just press a carriage return, nothing happens. You are
returned to the resource menu.
If you press escape, the current resource is moved to the top of
the list.
If you enter a resource tag, you need only enter enough of the
tag to ensure uniqueness. If there is ambiguity, you will be
asked which of the possible tags you meant. After entry of a
satisfactory tag, the resource will be moved, and the screen
redisplayed with the current resource in its new position.
6.9 Print resource REPORTs.
PC-Project prints a number of reports from the resource screen.
Print these reports by selecting REPORT from the resource menu or
by typing "R" while the resource menu is being displayed.
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 69
On selection of the report option, a menu is displayed with each
possible type of report. If you don't want to print, press ESC
or select QUIT to return to the resource menu. If you do want to
print a report, select the format you wish to see. The possible
formats are as follows:
TERSE -- Prints the terse resource list. This report shows,
for each resource, the tag, name, capacity, pay, peak load,
total load and cost, and remaining load and cost.
COMP -- Prints the comprehensive resource list. This report
includes all information on the terse list. In addition,
for each task assigned to the resource, you see the tag,
status, required, and either estimated or actual duration
and cost, depending on the task status.
After selecting a report format, you will be asked a series of
questions regarding format and destination of the desired
report. Answer these questions, and the report is assembled and
printed. See the discussion under the task REPORT option for a
full description of these questions and the effects of their
various responses.
After the report is finished, you are returned to the resource
screen.
6.10 Change decimal POINT display format.
PC-Project displays dollar figures in a uniform format. You have
the choice of seeing money in cents, dollars, or thousands of
dollars. Because there is a limited area to display a number in,
if you are working in cents, a possibility exists that the size
of the costs you are manipulating will overflow the area
available to display them. This would mean that you would want
to change the display format to dollars, giving you three extra
places. It should be pointed out that, even if numbers overflow,
no information is lost internally, you just don't get to see all
of it.
Change the numeric display format by selecting POINT from the
resource menu, or by typing "P" while the resource menu is being
displayed.
On selection of the POINT option, you will be given a menu bar
with three options: CENTS, DOLLARS, and KDOLLARS. Select the
one you desire. After selection, you are returned to the
resource menu.
If you changed the format to something you didn't like, select
POINT again and change it back.
70 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
6.11 ZIP to the task screen.
By selecting ZIP from the resource menu, you are immediately sent
to the task screen. This is kind of a silly feature, in that you
are saving exactly one keystroke, but it is used often enough to
warrant its inclusion. There is a corresponding ZIP on the task
screen that returns you quickly to the resource screen.
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 71
7 The CALENDAR screen.
7.1 The CALENDAR screen sets your hours.
The CALENDAR screen is the third of the screens available from
the maintain menu. It is used to tell PC-Project when your
people are available for work. It is on this screen that you
describe your work week, your daily hours, and any holidays you
observe. The information entered here will be used to schedule
your tasks as of the first available moment. Also on this screen
is the ability to change the name of your project.
The calendar screen and menu are displayed by selecting CALENDAR
from the maintain menu or by typing "C" while the maintain menu
is being displayed. Return to the maintain menu by selecting
QUIT from the calendar menu or by typing "Q" or ESC while the
calendar menu is being displayed.
All entries on the calendar screen are preserved when you start a
new project. This means you don't have to laboriously reenter
all of the holidays for each new project. To use this feature,
when you want to start a new project, first load one that already
has all calendar entries correct, then select a new schedule.
The next few sections describe the use of each option on the
calendar menu.
7.2 Set up days in the work WEEK.
If your project is scheduled in hours or days, it becomes
important to know what days of the week are available for work.
The WEEK option of the calendar menu is used to enter the days of
the week your business customarily operates. The work week is
displayed as a list of the weekdays, beneath which is a series of
X's. An "X" under a weekday means you are open for business on
that day.
Change the work week by selecting WEEK from the calendar menu. A
cursor is then displayed under Sunday. This cursor may be moved
to any day of the week by pressing either the left or right arrow
keys. If you don't want to change the work week, press a
carriage return or the escape key.
There are two possible changes you can make to the work week.
You can add a day not previously worked, or you can stop working
on a day previously indicated as a work day. To add a day to the
work week, move the cursor to the indicated day and type an "X".
To remove the day from the work week, type a space. When
finished, type a carriage return or escape to return to the
calendar menu.
When initially brought up, PC-Project is set to work Monday
through Friday. If this is ok, you don't have to do this.
72 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
PC-Project will not allow you to remove every day from the week.
If you did, no work would be possible.
A warning. This option should not be used after a project has
started. The work week applies to the entire project. If the
work week is changed in midstream, all dates entered for task
start and finish dates will be adjusted to take the new week into
account. If you do change the week you can, however, restore
your schedule easily enough by changing it back the way it was.
7.3 Set up our operation's DAILY hours.
If your project is scheduled in hours, or employees are paid by
the hour, which and how many hours are in a day becomes
important. The DAILY option of the calendar menu is used to
enter the hours of the day your business customarily operates.
The daily hours are displayed as a list of the hours, in 24 hour
time, beneath which is a series of X's. An "X" under an hour
means you are open for business at that time.
Change the daily hours by selecting DAILY from the calendar
menu. A cursor is then displayed under midnight. This cursor
may be moved to any hour of the day by pressing either the left
or right arrow keys. If you don't want to change the daily
hours, press a carriage return or the escape key.
There are two possible changes you can make to the work day. You
can add an hour not previously worked, or you can stop working on
an hour previously indicated as a work hour. To add an hour to
the work day, move the cursor to the indicated hour and type an
"X". To remove the hour from the work day, type a space. When
finished modifying, type a carriage return or an escape to return
to the calendar menu.
PC-Project comes with hours set for work from 8 to 12, then 1 to
5.
PC-Project will not allow you to remove every hour from the day.
If you did, no work would be possible.
A warning. This option should not be used after a project has
started. The work day applies to the entire project. If the
work day is changed in midstream, all dates entered for task
start and finish dates will be adjusted to take the new day into
account. If you do change the day you can, however, restore your
schedule easily enough by changing it back the way it was.
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 73
7.4 What HOLIDAYs do we observe?
If you are scheduling in hours or days, it is important that work
not be scheduled on holidays. For this reason, PC-Project allows
you to enter and maintain a list of holidays. No work will be
scheduled on any day that appears in this list.
Inspect or maintain holidays by selecting HOLIDAY from the
calendar menu or by typing "H" while the calendar menu is being
displayed. You should see a list of holidays, running across
your screen. One of these holidays is highlighted. This
highlight is a cursor that can be moved with the arrow keys from
right to left. The screen only has room to display seven
holidays, but the number the system will hold is limited only by
your computer's memory. If more holidays have been entered,
highlights will appear at either end of the list, informing you
that there are more entries off to either the right or left of
the currently displayed ones.
After selecting HOLIDAY, a new menu is displayed. If holidays
are already set, you will be given the ability to ADD or DELETE
holidays. If no holidays have been entered, you won't be able to
delete those non-existent holidays.
If you don't want to change any holidays, or you are finished
changing them, select QUIT from the holiday menu, or press "Q" or
ESC while the holiday menu is being displayed.
To add a holiday to the list, select ADD from the holiday menu or
type "A" while the holiday menu is being displayed. You will be
prompted for a "New holiday?". Enter the date in the format
requested by the system. If the date is not in the list, it will
be added. If the date has already been added, you will see a
message saying that the date is "ALREADY HERE". In any event,
the cursor will be placed on the date you entered and you will
again see the holiday menu.
To delete a holiday from the list, position the cursor on the no
longer holiday using the arrow keys or the add function, then
select DELETE from the holiday menu or type a "D" while the
holiday menu is being displayed. The highlighted holiday will be
removed from the list and the holiday menu will again be
displayed.
7.5 Change the schedule's NAME.
The schedule name was originally entered when the schedule was
originally created. It appears at the top of reports generated
by PC-Project. The calendar screen is used to change this name.
There is no particular reason this should appear on the calendar
screen other than that this seemed to be the only place it would
fit.
74 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
Change the name by selecting NAME from the calendar menu, then
entering the new name in response to the prompt. You are then
returned to the calendar menu.
8 Appendixes
8.1 Files on the PC-Project release disk.
If any of the following files are missing, you have an incomplete
version of PC-Project. If information is missing, you can order
a complete evaluation set by sending $10 to BIG PICTURE;
Greenwood PO Box 30851; Seattle, WA 98103.
The following files may be found on the PC-Project system disk.
INSTALL.BAT The PC-Project installation procedure.
Usage: install <drive> (return)
Where: <drive> is a single letter denoting the
desired destination of the PC-Project
software. (Generally 'B' for floppy
disk systems, 'C' for hard disks)
PC-Project system disk or a copy
thereof must be in default drive when
command is given.
PCPROJ.EXE The PC-Project program.
Usage: pcproj [=<integer>] (return)
Where: PCPROJ.EXE, PCPROJ.DEF, and PCPROJ.HLP
can be found on the default drive or
the PATH set up at initialization.
The optional argument can be used to override the
default 8K stack size in case of overflow. See
"Stack Overflow" section of manual.
FORM.DOC ASCII text of order form with information.
README.DOC Contains stuff that came out too late for the
manual, plus this information and install
instructions for those that didn't print the
manual.
YESNO.EXE A trivial program. Asks the user a yes/no
question, then quits with return code 0 if yes, 1
if no. Used in install.bat to ask questions of
user.
Usage: yesno [<word>] . . . (return)
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 75
Where: The series of words (up to 9) that
follow the command are assembled into
the question.
SAMPLE A sample project. Installed with the software on
work disk or hard drive. To view, start
PC-Project, select LOAD, then type "sample"
followed by a carriage return.
PCPROJ.HLP File contains the PC-Project help screens. If
this file is not accessible, PC-Project will run,
but without help.
PCPROJ.DEF File contains current screen settings and other
defaults. See "Customizing PC-Project".
Initially set by copying contents of MONO, BW, or
COLOR.DEF, depending on system to be used.
MONO.DEF Screen defaults for Hercules or IBM monochrome
card system. PCPROJ.DEF defaults to MONO.DEF.
BW.DEF Screen defaults for Compaq or any system running
in black and white on a color card.
COLOR.DEF Screen defaults for a color card equipped system.
The following files are contained on the PC-Project documentation
disk:
PCPROJ.DOC The ASCII text of the manual. May be printed by
copying to the printer, like this:
A>copy pcproj.doc prn
or, if you have the DOS print command available,
you may type:
A>print pcproj.doc
and so use your computer while the 80 plus pages
of the manual print out. You can also use most
word processors to view the manual on your screen
without printing it out.
FORM.DOC ASCII text of order form with information.
8.2 Customizing PC-Project
Following is the first portion of a PCPROJ.DEF file. This one is
76 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
for a monochrome monitor. This file is used to set defaults for
units, hours, workweek, screen appearance, and holidays. All of
these, with the exception of screen appearance, can be set
individually for each project. If you want to change them
globally for all projects, edit this file. It can be edited with
a ASCII character oriented word processor to suit your purposes.
DEFAULT
D D
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 1 1 1 1 0
70
0F
07
0F
0F
07
70
0F
09
0F
7
1
DEFAULT
The first line is used to set default schedule and money units.
In this file they are set to Days and Dollars. Change the first
"D" to a "H", "W", or "M", for Hours, Weeks, or Months. Change
the second "D" to a "C" or a "K" for Cents or KDollars.
The second line sets the default work day. There are 24
positions on this line. A zero indicates no work taking place
while a 1 indicates a work hour. It is currently set to work
from 8 to 12 and from 12 to 1.
The third line shows the work week. It is currently set to
Monday through Friday. To change the week, change zeros to ones
and vice versa.
The next 10 lines set the screen appearance. Each of these is a
screen attribute, in hexadecimal. Do not change these without
knowing what you are doing. They are, in order, attributes for
1) the menu bar, 2) the menu cursor, 3) the key bar, 4) the
prompt line, 5) the error line, 6) the main screen background, 7)
reverse video on the main screen (tag cursor, histogram), 8) data
calculated by PC-Project, 9) data to be entered by user, and 10)
the top line of the screen.
The next line is the video mode to be used. In this case, it is
7 to set up the mono mode.
The next line is set to 1 to indicate that the num lock should be
turned on automatically when prompting the user for information.
If this causes problems or irritation, change it to a zero to
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey 77
disable the feature.
After these defaults come the default holidays. These are here
so you don't have to reenter them for each project. The easiest
way to set them is to create a project that has all the holidays
exactly as you like them, then to save it and edit it to retrieve
the holidays. Then take those holidays and plug them into the
DEF file between the headings.
8.3 Stack overflow!
It is possible that, when working with an enormous project,
PC-Schedule might crash with the message "STACK OVERFLOW". When
started, the package allocates 8K bytes of RAM for a data
structure known as the stack. In the unlikely event that this
space is used up by a particular project, the program will
crash. If this should happen, when continuing to work on the
same project, you must expand the space allocated to the stack.
This must be done when the program is first started.
When PC-Project is started, it looks at the command line to
determine whether or not to use the default stack size. If it
finds an equal sign on this line, the number following it is used
as the stack size instead. So, to double the stack size, type
"PCPROJ =16000" at the prompt to start the program.
It should be pointed out that an increase in stack size is going
to result in a decrease in memory available to hold the project.
Conversely, a decrease in stack size results in more memory for
the project. Although not recommended, you could increase the
amount of memory used to hold a project on a machine with little
memory by slowly decrementing the stack size at start time. I
have run this program successfully with a 4K stack.
78 (C) Copyright 1986, 1988 James Howey
README.DOC
PC-PROJECT 1.2 Released 8/1/90
(C) Copyright 1986, 1988, 1990 James Howey All rights reserved
THE PC-PROJECT RELEASE PACKAGE
PC-Project comes on two disks. The system disk contains the files necessary to
run PC-Project. The documentation disk contains a complete manual for
PC-Project. The files on each of the disks should be as follows:
THE SYSTEM DISK
README DOC This file.
PCPROJ EXE PC-Project main program.
INSTALL BAT Batch procedure to install PC-Project.
PCPROJ HLP Text of the PC-Project help screens.
YESNO EXE A program used only during installation.
SAMPLE A sample project.
MONO DEF Defaults for monochrome systems.
BW DEF Defaults for black/white, COMPAQ systems.
COLOR DEF Defaults for CGA, EGA, VGA.
PCPROJ DEF Copy one of above three here before starting.
FORM DOC Order form.
THE DOCUMENTATION DISK
README DOC This file again.
FORM DOC Order form again.
PCPROJ DOC The manual.
A description of the use of each of these files is found in the last appendix
of the manual. If you are missing any of these you do not have a valid
PC-Project release package. If you are unsure of your copy of PC-Project, you
can order an evaluation package from BIG PICTURE. It costs $10.00 and can be
purchased by writing to PC-Project; BIG PICTURE; Greenwood P.O. Box 30851;
Seattle, WA 98103. Use the order form on this disk.
INSTALLING PC-PROJECT
To install PC-Project on a hard disk, put the system disk in drive A and type:
a: (return)
install c (return)
to create \pcp directory on your C disk and transfer software. (Other drive
letters will work as well.)
To install PC-Project on a floppy disk type:
a: (return)
install b (return)
to create a floppy work disk with essential PC-Project files. You will be
required to insert a newly formatted disk in the B drive, so have one ready
before starting.
RUNNING PC-PROJECT
After PC-Project is installed, it may be invoked on a floppy disk system by
putting the work disk in drive A and typing the following:
a: (return)
pcproj (return)
On a hard disk system, type the following:
c: (return)
cd \pcp (return)
pcproj (return)
On a monochrome system, PC-Project can be run from the system disk without
going through the installation process. Put the system disk in drive A and
type:
a: (return)
pcproj (return)
It is recommended that you go ahead and use the installation process however.
This is because you will require a backup disk in any event and this will serve
quite well as a backup. In addition, this being shareware, you are encouraged
to share exact copies of the release package. If you should modify information
on the system disk, then you would be unable to pass the software on.
ORDER INFORMATION
To print order information, put either disk in A and type:
copy a:form.doc prn (return)
Substitute any other device or filename for prn to change destination of form.
DOCUMENTATION
To print the manual, put the documentation disk in A, line the print head up on
the very first line of the page, and type:
copy a:pcproj.doc prn (return)
This is going to take a large pile of continuous forms (about 90 pages).
IF YOU RECEIVED PC-PROJECT IN AN ARCHIVED FORM
If you received PC-Project in an archived form, and have a hard disk, you can
create the proper release package by the following procedure:
Format two floppy disks, each with no operating system. Label the first:
PC-Project 1.1 (C) 1986, 1988 James Howey All rights reserved
SYSTEM DISK
Label the second:
PC-Project 1.1 (C) 1986, 1988 James Howey All rights reserved
DOCUMENTATION DISK
Create a temporary directory to hold PC-Project files:
C:\>md temp (return)
C:\>cd \temp (return)
Now, use your archive program to extract all PC-Project files into the new
temporary directory.
Put the DOCUMENTATION DISK in drive A, and type:
C:\TEMP>copy *.doc a: (return)
The documentation disk is done and should be set aside. Put the SYSTEM DISK in
drive A and type the following:
C:\TEMP>del pcproj.doc (return)
C:\TEMP>copy *.* a: (return)
The system disk is done. Set it aside and clean up your disk as follows:
C:\TEMP>del *.* (return)
C:\TEMP>cd \ (return)
C:\>rd \temp (return)
You should be all set.
If you received PC-Project in an archived form and you have a two floppy
system, format two disks without the operating system, label them as above, and
extract the proper files to each of them as shown in the lists at the top of
this file.
You now have an official two disk release package to share with your friends
and co-workers. Install the software as instructed above.
Thank you for supporting shareware, and good luck with PC-Project.
UPDATES since 1.11
Added fixed costs to each task, allowing for materials, contracted
amounts, etc.
Added two new cash flow reports.
Modified printer driver to eliminate initial form feed, allow for
variable top and bottom margins, and perform better on an HP Laser
Jet.
Directory of PC-SIG Library Disk #1341
Volume in drive A has no label
Directory of A:\
README DOC 5786 7-26-90 5:18p
PCPROJ DOC 248383 7-26-90 4:09p
FORM DOC 4546 7-26-90 3:19p
FILE1341 TXT 3109 8-30-90 2:20p
GO BAT 38 10-19-87 3:56p
GO TXT 960 1-01-80 7:05a
GO BAK 960 1-01-80 7:00a
7 file(s) 263782 bytes
55296 bytes free