LP3: Planned Completion, Forecast Completion and Re-planning

Introduction:

The purpose of this guide is to show you how to use the planning functions from within e-flow software as well as how to replan if required during an activity.  

Navigation:

Navigate to the Activities page and you are presented with ‘My Activities’. This page lists any activities on which you have or are due to complete a task. They remain here until the activity has been completed.

Each Activity has a planned completion date and a forecast completion date.

The Planned Completion date is the date that the activity was expected to finish on based on when it started and the combined duration of the tasks as set by the Activity template. You may know this as the Baseline completion date.

The Forecast Completion date is the current forecast finish date that tasks into account the most recent task completion date and the remaining task's combined duration.

What is Re-planning?

When you are managing a project, you establish a "baseline" or “planned” schedule based on beginning assumptions. At the very beginning of a project however there is a lot of uncertainty, so it's only a ballpark estimate at that point. As things develop, you start to remove some of the uncertainty and you may want to consider replanning your activity.
"Re-baseline" or “Re-plan” as it’s known in e-flow means that the information has either matured or changed enough to warrant updating your assumptions and doing exactly what it says - issuing a newly revised baseline schedule of dates.
The Replan function allows you to update all tasks within the activity, replacing the current forecast completion date with the Planned Completion date for each task.

Access the Gantt view to show the slippage (behind schedule) or slack (ahead of schedule).

In the example below, the Activity is ahead of schedule and has 6 days slack (forecast to complete 6 days early).

Click the Re-plan button within the Activity Summary

Choose the options you require described below, enter your password and click Re-plan Activity.

Copy the current projected dates to my plan: Use this option to replace the planned completion dates with the forecast completion dates. This is also known as re-baselining.

Plan for this activity to finish on a new date: Use this option to push the finish date and therefore all pending tasks into the future or, if time allows at the beginning of the activity, pull the finish date forward meaning the activity will be complete earlier than initially planned and all pending tasks will be scheduled to start earlier.