Scheduling Networks

James is a project planner at Hybrid Machinery. Linda works there as a controller. They are discussing the scheduling options in SAP S/4HANA EPPM Project System.

Planned dates for networks, activities, and activity elements are called basic dates. You can enter basic dates manually and/or schedule them. The activity duration and relationships allow you to schedule networks.

You can use scheduling in several applications, including the following:

• Project Builder
• Project Planning Board from within the Project Builder or as a standalone transaction in SAPGUI (CJ2B)
• Overall Network Scheduling

In this lesson, we focus on scheduling with the Project Planning Board. Using the Project Planning Board, you can select WBS elements and schedule corresponding activities assigned to them. The scheduled dates of the assigned activities are summarized to determine the scheduled dates of the WBS elements (represented as thin time bars in the Project Planning board). These dates can be copied as planned basic dates. The dates copied to the WBS can then be extrapolated within the project structure.

In the implementation guide, you can configure the appropriate scheduling parameters or use predefined scheduling scenarios. You can use the Project Planning Board to change these settings for a particular project.

Networks are always scheduled forwards and backwards. The scheduling type in the scheduling parameters specifies the direction in which you begin the scheduling. The system determines the earliest dates of the activities by means of forward scheduling, and the latest dates by means of backward scheduling. The difference between the earliest and the latest dates of an activity are referred to as floats. Floats can be positive, zero, or negative. If the float of an activity is zero or negative, the activity in question is critical.

Relationships determine the chronological sequence of the individual activities in a network (or standard network). You can enter additional data (such as a time interval or reference to a particular factory calendar) in the detail screen for each relationship.

Relationships determine the chronological sequence of the individual activities in a network (or standard network). You can enter additional data (such as a time interval or reference to a particular factory calendar) in the detail screen for each relationship.

You can maintain the following three sets of dates for network activities:

• Basic dates

• Actual dates

• Forecast dates

You can use scheduling for basic dates and forecast dates.

Besides the graphical planning board, SAP Project System (PS) offers a new SAP UI5 app for checking project schedules. With this app, you can view the hierarchy of the project objects and monitor their time lines. The chart area of the screen allows you to display different set of dates in a Gantt representation while displaying the project tree with detailed information in the table area.

The application offers the following key features:

• Display the project tree in the table view with a configurable set of attributes.
• Specify the default hierarchy level to be exploded on opening a project.
• Choose and display date information in the chart area, such as basic, actual and forecast dates.
• Display relationships within networks or plant maintenance orders.
• Open the side panel with detailed information about the selected object.
• Apply custom coloring for shapes in the Gantt chart area (using the UI Theme Designer).
• Navigate to relevant object pages and other applications.
• Save the preferred configuration and use it for the next run.

Alternatively to the network graphic overview in the Project Builder, you can use this app to display network activities and their relationships as an interactive graph. The app allows you to identify critical activities, their dependencies, confirmation status, and display detailed information for selected objects.

The application offers the following key features:

• Display network activities for a selected project, network, or WBS element and their relationships in a graph view.
• Group activities by network or WBS element.
• Detect loops.
• Navigate by successors and predecessors.
• Highlight activities by selected criteria.
• Search for activities.
• Display detailed information for selected objects.
• Navigate to related apps to view details of networks, network activities, WBS elements.
• Open an overview of objects assigned to the network activity: milestones, sub-networks, activity elements, material components.
• Add and edit attributes of the network activity, including assigned objects, which are shown in the graph node in the configuration of the system.
• Switch between different view types.