Project 2000. Entering Assignments, страница 5

Once the new values are calculated, Microsoft Project calculates the new assignment contours as noted above, using the new values.

Changing Working Times

Changing working times may also appear to affect assignment contours. However, when working times change, assignment contours remain essentially unchanged when considered over working times. That is to say, when working times are changed, the contour is simply moved around non-working times. For example, if you had a two-day task with a flat contour, inserting a non-working day (Day Two) between the two working days leaves the contour setting at “flat.”  It does not change to “contoured.”

You should note, however, that in a literal sense (and to many users), the contour has changed. This is because units have gone from being distributed over two days at 100%, to being distributed over three days in the following manner:

Day One

Day Two

Day Three

100%

0%

100%

In actuality, there is no units’ value for day two in Microsoft Project. However, it is important to understand how other users of Microsoft Project 2000 may view contours. As noted before, many users define assignment contours as the timephased distribution of work. If viewed from this viewpoint, the contour appears to have changed. It is important to be able to understand both views in order to explain Microsoft Project’s behavior to others.

Edited Contours

So far we’ve taken a broad look at predefined resource contours and what happens when we make changes at the assignment level. On many occasions, however, we may want to make changes to an assignment at the assignment timephased level. Doing so changes our contour from a predefined contour to an edited contour. In other words, an edited contour is, by definition, a contour that has been edited at the timephased level.

Predefined Contour

Units Scaled Average (Usa) Value

Flat

100%

Back Loaded

60%

Front Loaded

60%

Double Peak

50%

Early Peak

50%

Late Peak

50%

Bell

50%

Turtle

70%

Making Changes at the Assignment Timephased Level

When we make a change at the assignment timephased level, we are actually creating a new edited contour. Once a contour is an edited contour, it has different behavior when responding to changes made at the assignment level. To understand these changes, however, we must first understand how edited contours differ structurally from predefined contours. (That is, we need to understand how contour segments behave in edited contours.) 

As discussed earlier, predefined contours are divided into ten equal contour segments. Each contour segment has a predefined level of units that is applied to that segment based on the contour definition table. Edited contours, however, differ in that they are not divided into ten segments of equal duration. First, the number of contour segments in an edited assignment contour depends on the actual edits made. The duration of each contour segment depends on the timescale in which the edit was made.

For example, suppose you had a 12-day task and you edited the assignment contour as follows:

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

20%

15%

20%

15%

20%

25%

40%

25%

40%

25%

15%

20%

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