Current Shareware 1994 January/SHAR194.ISO/deskutil/rpm33.zip/LESSON.DOC

Text File | 1993-06-15 | 23KB | 606 lines

========
Tutorial
========

The RPM tutorial is designed to give you a quick overview of the system's
operation.  Lesson 1 shows you how to develop your projects database.
Lesson 2 shows you how RPM's facilities can be used to analyze your
project, resolve scheduling and resource conflicts and print reports.
Lesson 1 starts with a partial projects database involving just a
few resources and projects.  You will complete this database in Lesson
1 and then build on the results in Lesson 2.

Warning: While you should feel free to experiment using the
"Tutorial" projects database, do not develop any of your "live"
projects in this database.  If and when you re-install later versions
of RPM, this database will be overwritten and your work will be
lost.



Lesson 1 -- Developing the Projects Database
============================================

A projects database is the collection of files that describe your
project environment.  It consists of the projects and resources
files, and the calendar file.  This lesson will teach you how to
develop these files.



Setting up the Calendar
-----------------------

The first step is to select and develop your calendar.  Simply
stated, the calendar is a list of holidays or non-working days.  RPM
comes supplied with two calendar files which you may modify or use
as is.  They are USA.CAL and CANADA.CAL and each contains the usual
holidays for each country extending for some time into the future.

In general, you will only need to set up your calendar once.

1   Select System from the main menu.

2   Cursor to the Calendar File Name field and press F1.

3   For the purposes of this lesson, select the USA calendar (the
    default).  When you develop your own projects, make sure that the
    appropriate calendar is selected.

4   Feel free to explore this screen and experiment with various
    options.  The meaning of all these options may not be immediately
    clear.  Remember, help is available by pressing F10.  Return to the
    main menu (press Escape) when you are ready.

That is all there is to calendar setup unless your company has
non-standard working days.  To check the holidays in the calendar you
have selected and, if necessary, to change them, perform the
following steps:

1   Select Calendar from the main menu.

2   Verify that the holidays defined are correct.  The standard calendar
    sets Saturdays and Sundays as non-working.  If you wish to change any
    day or date to non-working or vise versa, simply cursor to it and
    press F1.

3   Use the page up and down keys to move through the years.

4   When finished, press Escape to return to the main menu.

This calendar will be saved when you exit the system and will be
automatically re-loaded when you re-invoke RPM.  The RPM "readme"
file contains a list of holidays for the USA and Canada that are set
in the RPM supplied calendar files USA.CAL and CANADA.CAL.



Setting up Resources
--------------------

The underlying data defining a company consists of the calendar and
the company's resources.  You will now see how to define new
resources and how to create "summarizing" resources.

First, load the sample project and resource file called Tutorial.

1   Select System from the main menu.

2   Cursor to the Projects File Name field.  If this field already
    specifies the projects file called TUTORIAL (the default), you may
    skip the next step.  Otherwise, press F1.

3   Select TUTORIAL.

    A message will appear saying that the new project file has been
    loaded.

4    Press Escape twice to return to the main menu.

The sample projects database TUTORIAL already has a number of
resources defined.  First, you will define a summary resource and
then a new employee.

5   Select Resources.

6   Press F1.  This will bring up a list of already defined resource and
    some additional options.  Select New.

7   Type the new resource name PM (for Project Management) and press
    Enter.

8   Enter the following data for the project management resource:

         Name:      Project Management

         Avail:     0

         Rate:      0

You have now defined a new resource called "project management."
Zero hours have been set as the availability because next you will
define an employee whose availability will contribute to that of
project management.

We are defining availabilities in hours per day and therefore the
rate is expressed in dollars per hour.  Rates and availabilities may
use any units -- but once a unit is selected, it must be uniformly
applied.

9   Now press the Home key.  This will bring you back to the Resource
    Name field.

10  Once again, press F1, select New and define a resource with the
    following data: Name: BSmi; Description: Bill Smith; Rate: 0; and
    Avail: 7.5.

Resources can be associated one with another.  If two resources are
associated with each other, one is said to summarize the other, and
the other to contribute to the first.  Resources that summarize other
resources are also called "meta-resources" (i.e.: resources of
resources).  We wish to make Bill Smith a Project Manager and a
Professional Engineer Level 2.  The first association will allow us
to track the utilization of Project Managers.  The second association
will establish the rate that Bill Smith will have.  In this case,
Bill Smith will contribute to both these resources.

11  To make Bill Smith contribute to Project Management and to
    Professional Engineer Level 2, cursor the the Edit Summarizing
    Resources field and press F1.  The list is initially empty.

12  Press the Ins key to get a list of possible resources that Bill
    Smith could contribute to.  Cursor to each of Project Managers and
    Professional Engineer Level 2 and press the space bar.  Then press
    Escape.

Now Bill Smith contributes to these two resources.  Additional
employees could be defined in a similar way.  The association with
Project Managers will allow us to track Project Manager availability
and utilization.  Bill Smith's availability and utilization will be
added to that of Project Managers.  This is also true of Professional
Engineer Level 2, but this association was made primarily to assign
a rate to Bill Smith.  Since Bill Smith has a zero rate, he will
inherit the rate of Professional Engineer Level 2 which is $95/unit.

13  Use the Escape key to return to the main menu.

Like calendars, the definitions of resource need only be done once
(or when your staffing levels or resource availabilities change).
Also like calendars, the definitions of resources will be saved
automatically when you exit the system.  Unlike calendars, resources
are associated with, and saved with, a projects database.



Defining Projects
-----------------

With the underlying calendar and resources in place, you can now
begin the real work of defining and managing projects.

1   Select Spreadsheet from the main menu.

2   Press F1, and then choose Select (i.e.: press F1 twice).

3   Select the project called Lesson.

This is the basic project planning spreadsheet.  As you can see, a
project consists of some basic data located at the top of the screen
(such as the code, the name, the project manager's name etc.) and a
spreadsheet that occupies the remainder of the screen.  The
spreadsheet has the project's phases as rows and the project's
resources as columns.  The spreadsheet cells contain the resource
units (in this case, hours) that each phase uses.

Around the outside of the spreadsheet are phase and resource totals
and percentages of the grand total (which appears at the lower left
of the screen).  These values are kept up-to-date at all times by the
system.

Defining a project consists of supplying the basic data that appears
at the top of the screen and then adding phases and resources to the
spreadsheet.

This project is complete except for a number of changes and
additions you are going to make.  You will:

 * add one additional phase called Phase 6;

 * add the resource "project management";

 * assign project management hours to the new phase and resource;

 * and extend the duration of the total project by 10 days.

Before doing these tasks, lets take a quick look at the Gantt
screen.

4   Press F2.

You are now looking at the Gantt screen, with the Lesson project at
the top of the screen.  The Gantt screen is the best place to
manipulate date information associayed with a project.  The
Spreadsheet screen is the best (and only) place to enter and
manipulate the hours associated with a project.

5   Press F2 again to return to the Spreadsheet.

You may flip between the Gantt and Spreadsheet anytime by pressing
F2.

Finally, before going on to add the new resources and phases to the
Lesson project, lets take a quick look at the other projects in the
database.  There are two others.

6   Press Ctrl-Page Down to "page through the projects database.  This
    will take you to Project 1.  Press Ctrl-Page Down two more times to
    return to the Lesson project.  (Alternatively, press Ctrl-Page up
    once.)



Adding Phases to a Project
--------------------------

1   Use the End key to move the cursor to the last cell on the screen.
    This is the cell immediately below the last phase defined on the
    screen.

2   Enter the code Phase 6 and press enter.

3   Enter the following phase information:

      Name:                      Post Construction

      Level of Effort Phase:     N

      Start Date:                14 April 90

      Duration:                  90 days

Notice that Saturday, 14 April 1990 was advanced to a working day.
Also, when you entered the duration, the finish date changed
automatically.  You could have entered the finish date if you
preferred, in which case the duration would have changed to 90 days.

4   Press Escape.

You have now added a new phase to this project.  Notice that the
project finish date at the top right of the screen has been updated
to reflect the end date of the new phase and that a new row of cells
has been added to the spreadsheet.



Adding New Resources to a Project
---------------------------------

1   Use the arrow keys to move the cursor to the cell just to the right
    of the last resource (in this case, "KPhe") and press F1.

    A small menu will appear allowing you to select Resources.

2   Select Resources and then select Project Management.

You have now added a new resource to this project.  Notice that a new
column of cells has been added to the sheet.


Adding Hours to a Project
-------------------------

3   Use the arrow keys to position the cursor at the top of the new
    column.  You can add new hours to each cell by typing the value
    desired and pressing enter.

4   Add the following values vertically in this new column for the first
    five phases:

120; 200; 350; 75; 700, 50.

5   Now do the same for the new Phase 6 row and add horizontally the
following values:

50; 75; 60; 40; 220; 50.


Changing the Length of a Project
--------------------------------

1   Use the arrow keys to move the cursor to the project start date
    which is located at the top right of the screen and press F1.

This screen allows you to manipulate the project's dates and its
duration.

2   Cursor to the duration, change the value from 283 to 293 and press
    Escape.

Notice that the project finish date has changed.  As well the start
and end dates of each phase have been adjusted to reflect the longer
project.



Saving Your Data and Returning to DOS
-------------------------------------

1   Press Escape twice and you will be returned to the main menu and be
    asked if you would like to quit.  Answer Y for Yes and you will be
    returned to DOS.  The changes you have made will be saved
    automatically.

The project file Tutorial will be loaded automatically the next time
you invoke RPM.

If you wish to repeat this lesson, answer N for No and then select
the System option off the main menu.  Use F1 on the Project File
field and change the name of the project file to some other value.
Now when you exit the system, RPM will save the changes you have
made under this new file name.

Alternatively, you could select File from the main menu option and
select Drop Reservation from the menu that will appear.  Dropping the
reservation will make the Lesson database "read-only." This feature
is very similar to that used by Lotus 1-2-3 (versions 2.2 and
greater) to control access to worksheets in a network environment.
If you do not have the reservation on a projects database, it will
not be saved at the end of a session.



Other Things to Try
-------------------

Make sure that you are in the Spreadsheet screen and are looking at
the Lesson project.

    Cursor to the field called "Notes" and press F1.  You will see a
    sample notes file that you can edit.  Press F7 to save any changes
    (or F1 to cancel and changes) and return to the Spreadsheet screen.
    Notes can be entered for both projects and phases.

    Cursor to the field next to Notes called "Active" and press F1.  This
    toggles the project to Pending.  Pending projects are ignored in
    utilization calculations.  Press F1 to toggle the project back to
    Active.  Setting a project to Pending is approximately the same as
    setting the "% Likelihood" value to zero.

    Cursor to the field called "Hours", press F1, and select Dollars.
    The display will now be in dollars rather than hours.  Press F1 again
    and select Hours to set the display back to hours.

    Cursor to the field called "Progress Date" and enter a date.  Enter
    the same date as the project start date.  Now cursor to the field
    called "Allocated View" and press F1.  You will be presented with a
    list of different possible views of the project.  Feel free to
    explore the various views.

    Finally, cursor to any cell in the Spreadsheet and press F1 twice
    (you must have entered a Progress Date).  You will now see the pop-up
    progress window.  You can enter progress data for each cell using
    this window.



Summary
-------

In this lesson, you have learned how to:

       select and modify the calendar to reflect the holidays appropriate
       for your company;

       define new resources and associate them one with with another;

       add phases, resources, and hours to a project;

       modify the dates associated with phases and projects;

       move between projects and to and from the Gantt screen;

       and save your data.

If you did the "Other Things to Try", you also know how to enter
notes, change units and views, and enter progress data.

===============
End of Lesson 1
===============



=============================================
Lesson 2 -- Analyzing Resources and Reporting
=============================================


Before beginning this tutorial, invoke RPM as described in Installation.

In the last lesson, you learned how to develop the projects database
These data, combined with the analysis tools provided by RPM, allow
you to anticipate potential resource and scheduling problems in your
company and implement solutions for them.

Load the Company Model
----------------------

As before, you must ensure the appropriate projects database is loaded.
If you are continuing from Lesson 1, the correct model will be loaded
automatically.  Otherwise, load the project file called Tutorial
as follows:

1   Select System from the main menu.

2   Cursor to the Project File Name field and press F1.

3   Select Tutorial.

      A message will appear saying that the new project
      file has been loaded.

4   Press Escape twice to return to the main menu.

A resource problem can arise for a number of different reasons but
stated simply, a problem exists if -- at any time -- resource
requirements exceed resource availabilities.  In this circumstance,
the current schedule is not a possible one.  To solve the problem,
resources can be acquired, jobs rescheduled, work scope reduced etc..

To see if a problem exists, select Gantt/Utilization from the
main menu.  The following screen will appear:

This screen simultaneously displays two utilization curves for the
aggregate resource All: the total resource utilization curve
for all projects and the contribution of the project indicated by
the current cursor location -- in this case, project Lesson.
In general, the aggregate resource utilization curve is not particularly
useful.  More important is the utilization curves for specific resources.



Examining Resource Utilization Curves
-------------------------------------

5   Use the function keys F3/F4 (shrink/grow) and F5/F6 (page
    left/right) to manipulate the display until you can see the
    beginning of the Gantt line for the project Lesson.  (You will need
    to press F3 about twice.)

6   Press the End key to move the cursor to the resource field at the
    bottom of the screen.

7   Press F1; select Resources; and then select Arch for architects.  The
    screen will now appear as follows:

As you can see, there is a problem with architects.  According to the
display, architects are over-utilized in the month of July.

8   To determine which project(s) contribute to this problem, cursor up
    the screen.

As the cursor moves to each new project, the highlighted project
changes.  When you get to project Lesson, you will see that this
project contributes greatly to the over-utilization of architects in
the month of July.

9   Press F1 and select Explode to cause RPM to display the phases for
    the project.  Your screen will now appear similar to Fig.  2-12.

10  You can see that Phase 2 looks like it is part of the problem.
    (Actually, it is the overlap of phases 1 and 2 which creates the
    problem.) There are a number of ways that this problem could be
    addressed:

    *   You could increase the duration of the first phase and thus decrease
        its daily utilization of architects.  This can be accomplished either
        by cursoring to the phase and editing it by pressing F2 or, more
        simply, by pressing the + key.  Pressing the plus key increases the
        duration of Phase 2, and thus decreases the daily utilization of
        architects.

    *   You could move Phase 2 into the future.  This could be accomplished
        by either editing the phase as described above or by pressing the >>
        key while the cursor is on the second phase.

    *   You could use RPM's Resource Leveling feature to level the resource
        utilizations within a project.

We will use the first solution.

11  Cursor to Phase 1, press the + key a number of times.  Each time you
    press this key, the duration of the phase will be increased and you
    will observe a corresponding decrease in the daily utilization of
    architects during the period.  The amount the duration is increased
    will depend on the current scale.  You can see the duration displayed
    on the status line at the bottom of the screen.

Obviously, this approach may not always be appropriate.  It may
result in an unacceptable schedule and some other solution may be
required.  For our purposes, we will assume that the problem is
solved.



Printing Reports
----------------

Now that you have analyzed your project data and have arrived at an
acceptable schedule, it is time to print reports.

1   Press Escape to return to the main menu.

2   Select Reports and then Run Reports.

We wish to execute a Gantt report and a resource utilization report
for architects.

3   Press F1 and select Tabular Reports and then select the report
    definition GANTT.

4   Cursor to the field called Gantt/RU Start and enter 17Jul89.  This
    sets the dates that will appear in the Gantt portion of the report
    to appropriate values.

5   Review the Printer Type and Setup values.  The default RPM printer
    type and settings are appropriate for most printers for compressed
    printing.

6   Cursor to the field called EXECUTE and press F1.  The Gantt report
    will be sent to your printer.

7   Cursor to the report type field (press Home), press F1 and select
    Resource Utilization Report.  You will be prompted to set special
    options for this report.  For now, do not change these values.  Simply
    press escape.

8   Cursor to the projects field, press F1, and select the project
    Lesson.  This will indicate to RPM that the Resource Utilization
    report should highlight the contribution to resource utilization
    curves of the project Lesson.

9   Cursor to the resources field, press F1, select Resources and then
    Arch.  This will select architects as the resource against which you
    will run your resource utilization report.

10  Cursor to the field called EXECUTE REPORT and press F1.  The resource
    utilization report will be sent to your printer.

11  Press Escape twice and answer Yes (Y) to return to DOS.  Your changes
    will be saved automatically.



Other Things to Try
-------------------

Return to the Gantt screen.

    Place the cursor on any project, press F1, and select Set Display
    Options.  If you have an EGA or VGA board in your PC, select the
    appropriate Display type.  Then increase the Number of Resources to 2
    (3 or 4 if your display is EGA or VGA).  Press Escape.  Your display
    will now show more than one resource utilization curve.  By selecting
    different resources to display, you can analyze utilizations across
    projects and across resources.

    Once again, press F1, and select Set Display Options.  Set Highlight
    Phases to yes.  Press Escape.  Now press F1 again and select Explode
    All Projects.  Now, as you cursor through the projects and phases,
    each project and each phase will be highlighted.  This allows you to
    see the impact of each project and phase on the total utilization.

Summary

In this lesson, you have been introduced to the techniques required
to analyze and correct resource utilization problems.  Also, you have
seen how reports can be obtained.  RPM also allows you to develop
your own reports.  See Defining Reports in the Reference Section for
details on this process.



===============
End of Tutorial
===============