Scheduling

You use this function to schedule the following factors, for example:

Basic dates for the project and individual phases, specified by the customer
Empirical values, for the duration of phases and tasks
Dependencies between tasks, which stipulate the time frame of execution (see Editing the Relationship Between Tasks).
Confirmed dates for tasks and checklist items (see Confirming Tasks and Confirming Checklist Items)

To meet these requirements, the system offers you a scheduling function. You can choose whether you want to use bottom-up scheduling or top-down scheduling.

Prerequisites

If you want to enable automatic scheduling of all project elements regardless of whether or not they have already been released, you have made a corresponding entry for area 0012 Scheduling and Project Structuring, setting 0001 Automatic Scheduling of All Project Elements in Customizing for SAP Portfolio and Project Management under Project Management Basic Settings Override Default Global Settings .
In Customizing for SAP Portfolio and Project Management under Project Management Structure Define Project Types , you have assigned a scheduling type to your project types.
If you want to be able to change the scheduling type in projects and project templates, you have made a corresponding entry for area 0012 Scheduling and Project Structuring, setting 0005 Changing Scheduling Type in Project in Customizing for SAP Portfolio and Project Management under Project Management Basic Settings Override Default Global Settings .
You need Admin authorization to schedule project elements or change attributes that are relevant for scheduling, such as the scheduling type.

Features

Manual or Automatic Scheduling

Depending on your user settings, scheduling can be started automatically when you make date-relevant changes during project maintenance (see Making User Settings). You have the following options:

Automatic scheduling of all project elements:
This option is only available if it has been enabled in Customizing (see Prerequisites). The system automatically schedules the changed project element as well as all its related project elements, such as lower-level elements or elements to which it is linked by means of a relationship. It schedules them regardless of whether or not they have already been released.
Automatic scheduling of unreleased project elements:
The system automatically schedules the changed project element. Related elements are only scheduled automatically if they have not yet been released. If the changed element itself has already been released, only this element and none of its related elements is rescheduled.
Only manual scheduling:
Only the changed element is scheduled automatically.

By using the Schedule button in the project, you can manually start scheduling for any project element within the project. In this case, the system schedules the project element with all its related elements.

Scheduling Type

Project Management distinguishes between two scheduling types:

Top-down scheduling, which starts with the project definition and schedules each project element based on the dates of its higher-level elements.
Bottom-up scheduling, which starts at the bottom-level of the project structure and schedules each project element based on the dates of its lower-level elements.

The project type assigned to a project specifies which scheduling type is to be used for that project. However, you can change the scheduling type in projects and project templates if this feature has been enabled in Customizing (see Prerequisites). In this case, the scheduling type is either copied from the project template if available or from the project type when a project is created. You can change the scheduling type in the Detail subview of the project structure on the Dates and Work tab page of the project definition. After the scheduling type has been changed, the system reschedules all project elements for which automatic scheduling is permitted according to your user settings.

Note Note

You cannot choose top-down scheduling if your project contains summary tasks. If top-down scheduling is active for a project and the project type activates the use of summary tasks in task hierarchies, you cannot create sub-tasks in this project.

End of the note.

General

You can enter fixed dates for the project elements. If you do not enter fixed dates for the project, the system sets the current date as the start date. The finish date remains empty. The system calculates the finish date from the remaining project data during scheduling.
In order to change attributes that influence dates and to carry out scheduling, you require administration authorization.
You can enter phase dates that overlap as well as task dates or checklist item dates that are outside the phase dates. The system informs you if the dates overlap each other by displaying messages in the log.
The system uses messages to inform you of any conflict situations during scheduling, for example, if task dates are outside the time frame of phases during top-down scheduling.
The time unit for the duration of project elements is Day.
You can enter a duration for phases and tasks. You can enter fixed dates for the planned start and the planned finish, and can assign a calendar for project definitions, phases, and tasks. For checklist items, you can only enter a fixed date for the planned finish.
You can also edit dates in the table view (see Table View) and the graphical view (see Graphical View).

Dependencies

The system calculates the start and finish dates of the project elements (for checklist items only finish dates) in earliest and latest position.
- Dates in the earliest position are determined by forward scheduling starting from the start date of the project definition.
- Dates in the latest position are determined by backward scheduling starting from the finish date.
Tasks belong to a checklist item and the corresponding checklist belongs to a phase or a project. The dates of those tasks are calculated based on the dates of this phase or project.
The dates of the checklist items are determined from the latest finish date of the assigned tasks, or if no tasks have been assigned, from the finish date of the higher-level task, phase or project.

Top-Down Scheduling

The dates of the phases are calculated on the basis of the dates of the project definition, taking into account their order, duration, and fixed dates. Tasks are not taken into account.
The dates of the tasks of a phase are calculated on the basis of the dates of the phase, taking into account their links, duration, fixed dates, and actual dates, if any exist. The dates of the subtasks are calculated in the same way, using the dates from the higher-level tasks.

Bottom-Up Scheduling

The dates of a project element are calculated from the dates of the lower-level project elements. This takes into account their links, duration, fixed dates, and actual dates, if any exist

Determining Dates

In phases, checklist items, and tasks you can specify the earliest or latest calculated dates as fixed dates and prevent a date shift if scheduling is carried out again. The Copy to Constraints pushbutton is available in the detail view of the relevant project elements on the Dates and Work tab page for this purpose. In scheduling, fixed dates have priority over outline dates specified by the higher-level project element, and have priority over links to other tasks.

If a confirmation exists, the system uses these actual dates as fixed dates for scheduling. In this case, the system copies the actual dates to the planned dates automatically. If this behavior is not what you want, then you have the following possibilities:

You can implement method MOVE_ELEMENT of BAdI: Make Settings for Scheduling.
You can implement method BUTTON4MOVE_ELEMENT of BAdI: Make Settings for Scheduling to unhide the Copy Actual to Planned checkbox on project header level in the frontend with which you can control the overwriting. The system then ignores the implementation of method MOVE_ELEMENT.

For more information, see Customizing of SAP Portfolio and Project Management under Start of the navigation path Project Management Next navigation step Structure BAdI: Make Settings for Scheduling End of the navigation path .