Dialog “Edit Activity”

Activities structure your project planning and set the tasks that need to be accomplished. They are subject to time restrictions and consist of individual as well as multiple steps. An activity can be refined during a project and edited according to the corresponding patterns.

Activities are created as follows:

• With the Create activity/activities command in the activity view, via the context menu of an artefact. Click on the background.
• When patterns are created via the context menu of a pattern, using the Create activity/ activities… command

The dialog

Name The activity name.

Stereotype Select the stereotype for the activity.

Current state Shows the current state of the activity.

Trigger event The drop-down menu shows all activities that may be triggered by the activity at this point. Make a selection to change the state of the activity.

Workload Define the workload of the activity in person-hours, person-days, person-weeks, person-months or person-years.

Progress (% completed) This value indicates an activity’s progress in percentages. The field is deactivated when the option Agile, progress of completed requirements is checked in the calculation tab under the option earned value analysis.

Duration The estimated time needed for the completion of the activity in days, hours or minutes.

Start Enter the date on which the activity should begin. Click on the drop-down menu and select the date.

End Enter the date on which the activity should end. Click on the drop-down menu and select the date.

Restriction Determines the type of restrictions that will apply for the starting and the end date. Select the desired restriction in the dropdown list. If the selected restriction requires a date, set the date in the corresponding field or select it in the calendar. Apart from the restrictions as late as possible and as soon as possible, all restrictions require a date.

Publish as referenceable activity Select this option if you want the activity to be available for other projects.

Tab “Staff”

Within the staff tab you can create a profile for a particular staff member or a project group or a resource pool and set their capabilities via the Plus sign. You can sort a table by clicking in the head of the table and setting the sorting criterion to either ascending or descending.

Tab “Calculation”

This tab sets out how an activity will be calculated via the drop-down menu of the tab. Some options can be combined, others cannot. So consider carefully the kind of planning that you would like to use in your project so that you don’t get any surprises regarding workload, duration or staff.

Scheduling kind

You use the dropdown menu to set one of the three planning types. The planning type considers the values Effort, Duration, and Dates and as soon as one of these values is changed, the other values are recalculated accordingly:

Earned Value Analysis

Here you set whether you want to create the earned value analysis classically or agilely.

Calculation Mode for Completion

The selected calculation type determines which percentage of project progress is taken into account when calculating the Earned Value. The field is only activated if you have selected the option Classical, progress completed from percentage under Earned Value Analysis.

Tab “Requirements”

Use this tab to document which requirements are realized by this activity. Name, ID, stereotype, state and workload are displayed in a list. Enter a percentage to define to what extent the activity realized the requirement under Relative workload.

You can sort a table by clicking in the head of the table and setting the sorting criteria to either ascending or descending.

Click on the Plus button to add more requirements. Click on the red Delete button to erase the highlighted requirements from the list.

Backlog Here you can enter a package, which you can use as a reference backlog for the planned requirements. If the checkbox is activated when planning the requirements, a reference of the requirements will be created in the backlog.

Tab “Input/Output”

On the tab Input/Output the activity’s product flow is visualized. Products that are necessary for carrying out the activity are shown on the left side. The products that need to be created are on the right side. Click on the Plus button to add elements, click on the Delete button to remove elements.

Tab “Predecessors/Successors”

On the tab predecessors/successors the control flows defined for the activity are displayed. The previous activities in the selected activity are listed on the left side. The succeeding activities are displayed on the right side. Click on the Plus button to add elements, click on the Delete button to remove elements.

Tab “Description”

The tab offers space for a description, an explanation of the tips about the activity. Use the tab to give people helpful hints on how to use the activities.

Tab “Costs”

Here you will find information on staff costs, budget and additional costs related to an activity.

In the upper area, you will find an overview of the planned and actual costs for of staff costs (internal/external). The display is calculated according to the number of staff assigned and the hourly rates.

The formula is as follows:

Actual costs = (hourly rate x total recorded staff time) x number of staff

Planned costs = (hourly rate x total available days) x number of staff

Budgets

You can create one or more budgets for each activity. Click on the name Budgets to open the input area.

Use the Plus button to create one or more budgets for the activity. If you have created several budgets, the total sum of the specified budgets is displayed above the input area. It is not possible to define overlapping budgets.

Additional costs

Click on the name Additional costs to open the input area. By clicking on the Plus button, another input area Details is displayed, where you can enter information about the additional costs.

The recorded plan and actual costs are displayed one after the other under recorded additional costs, where the first value corresponds to the actual costs and the second value to the plan costs.

Details

Name The default value is additional costs. For a better overview of your cost elements, you should change the name.

Cost category Select an appropriate cost element from the drop-down menu. The additional costs offered here are defined in the project properties.

Planned costs Enter the value for the planned costs here.

Actual costs Enter the value for the actual costs here.

Payment due Use the drop-down menu to specify when or how the costs will be paid. You can choose between Proportional, At End or At Start. What is selected here influences the calculation of the planned additional costs. For example, if Proportional is selected, the additional costs are distributed evenly over the duration of the activity.

Registration date Specify a date. When you create new additional costs, the posting date is set to the current date by default. What you select here affects the calculation of the additional costs used. The additional costs are calculated and displayed for the set posting date.

Under Recorded additional costs, the costs incurred (I) and the planned costs (P) are listed.

Use the Plus button to create additional costs. You can define one or more additional costs for each activity.

Details

Use the Delete button to remove them. Any additional costs created are added up in the same way as the budget and displayed in the input area.

Tab “Coloring”

Use this tab to color an activity for the Gantt chart.

Default color This option restores the default settings.

Customized Color Use the color palette to select a color to display the activity in. As soon as you have defined a color, the current values are displayed in the preview.

Apply to child activities This option applies the color to child activities as well.

Tab “Further Properties”

The content of this tab is dependent on the associated stereotype. User-defined properties of a stereotype are displayed here.