In Deltek Acumen Fuse, schedulers can section a project into uniform intervals for presenting the Acumen Fuse phase analyzer results. You may also specify a unique phase boundary for reporting on a specific date. Here we explore this further.
The Acumen Fuse phase analyzer in Acumen analyzes a respective metric group for each phase of the project. The scheduler specifies the interval (or width) of the phases for the analysis. Acumen has several available intervals ranging from Days to Years. It also has an interval (Single) that spans the life of the project. The Single interval helps when schedulers want a phase analyzer analysis for the project duration or a unique phase boundary.
This article demonstrates how to specify a distinct reporting date or phase boundary for the Acumen metric group phase analyzer results.
The Acumen Fuse Phase Analyzer
The Acumen Fuse phase analyzer provides metric group analysis for the life of the project, sectioned into phases. As mentioned, you may section the project into phases from a selection of several intervals. So, if your reporting period is monthly set the interval to Months.
In a recent class, a student asked, is it possible to specify a specific recording date for the metric group phase analysis? Apparently, this student’s subcontractor provides progress updates the fourth Friday of every month. The answer is yes. It is possible to create a unique phase boundary for presenting of the phase analyzer results. Let us demonstrate.
In Figure 1 below, we have our demonstration workbook which, has an imported Primavera P6 XER file.
Figure 1
We want to run an Acumen Fuse analysis. Proceed and select ‘S2 // Diagnostics’ tab, Figure 1. Then we click the Fuse button, Figure 2, to run a Schedule Quality Fuse analysis.
Figure 2
The phase analyzer results for a monthly interval, are displayed in Figure 3.
Figure 3
Monthly is the default, but as mentioned, the scheduler has several periods to choose from. Look at Figure 4 and the Interval dropdown menu. As displayed here in Figure 4, all the available units are as follows: Days, Weeks, Months, Quarters, Years, and Single.
Figure 4
Again, the Single interval is for the life of the project. We want to define a distinct phase boundary for each analysis period, which for our demonstration is the fourth Friday of each month. In Figure 5 we set the stage for our unique phase boundary definitions by choosing the Single interval.
Figure 5
In Figure 6 we proceed with the phase boundary definition for the January reporting period and click Add Phase.
Figure 6
Our project begins in the year 2024. The most efficient way to get to 2024 in the Add Phase calendar is to click the month and year label, Figure 7.
Figure 7
Proceeding we use the right arrow to click through the years until we come to 2024. Then we choose the month of January, Figure 8.
Figure 8
Finally, it is a simple matter of choosing the fourth Friday in January 2024, Figure 9.
Figure 9
Figure 10 displays the recently defined January 26th phase boundary.
Figure 10
We continue and click Add Phase to define a February 23rd, 2024, phase boundary for the fourth Friday in February.
Figure 11
March in 2024 has five Fridays, but we define a Phase boundary for the fourth Friday in March on the 22nd, Figure 12.
Figure 12
We note our phase analyzer reporting periods for the life of our demonstration project and click the Fuse button, Figure 13, to perform the Schedule Quality Fuse analysis.
Figure 13
Finally, Figure 14 displays our Schedule Quality metric results on the fourth Friday of each month for the life of the project.
Figure 14
Our phase analyzer report has the following four phases during the life of the project: (1) January 1st thru 26th, (2) January 26th thru February 23rd, (3) February 23rd thru March 22nd, and (4) March 22nd to project end.
Summary
Reporting periods through the life of the project are not always uniform, so specifying an Acumen Fuse unit interval for all project phase analyzer recording dates may not be ideal. In these situations, choose the Single interval, which again, is for the life of the project. Then continue by using Add Phase to define unique phase boundaries for each status date. In this way the phase analyzer report matches the true spans of the subcontractor’s updates.