Deltek has released its latest updates to Acumen which are all available in Acumen 8.7. Let’s take a look at what’s in this release and the new features that you can anticipate.
Deltek made improvements primarily to Acumen Risk and Acumen Fuse with a minor enhancement to 360. Acumen 8.7 supports P6 XML versions 19.12, 18.8 and 17.12 as well as XER version 19.12. Acumen 8.7 is available for immediate download. At the summary level, Deltek Acumen 8.7 release includes:
- Improved cost and schedule risk modeling
- Enhanced reporting in Fuse and Risk
- Enhanced metric capabilities
- Performance improvements
Let’s take a look at Acumen 8.7 in more detail.
Acumen Risk – Improved Accuracy in Reporting
The major Acumen advancement is in the accuracy of Acumen risk reporting. Acumen risk used to store only the summarized risk outputs. This resulted in inaccuracy as the data was rolled in the hierarchy. Now Acumen risk stores all iteration results in risk outputs. This means more reliable risk outputs and more risk data for reporting.
Acumen Risk – New Probability Distributions
Acumen now includes a BetaPert probability distribution like the below plot.
It essentially is a skewed bell curve that is more reflective of actual real-life schedules. This provides increased accuracy over the Triangular probability distribution. There is also a new Trigen probability distribution that is helpful for companies that have significant amounts of schedule historical data.
Acumen Risk – More Details on Risk Driver Charts
Another risk improvement is providing more details on Risk Driver Charts. A scroll feature is included to allow for more details on these charts. You can also copy the full chart or image.
Acumen Risk – New Color Palette
Acumen risk has a new color palette made up of over twenty color shades.
Acumen Risk – P-Values
The default was to show P50 & P75 probabilities on the histogram risk output. Now users can select their preferred primary value and secondary value. You also can choose to include (or not) a contingency on the primary value. Another plus is Acumen now allows you to specify the default P-values for reporting directly in Acumen options.
Acumen Fuse – Lead/Lag
Acumen Fuse now separates the lead/lag from the relationship type. This makes it easier to spot when team members are changing lags simply to make progress look better. It also lets schedulers view the lead/lag on a specific time period, e.g., six months ago or current.
Acumen Fuse – Diagnostic Reporting
You can now exclude passing metrics from the report. This helps schedule health checks focus in on the problem areas in the schedule.
Acumen Fuse – Access Snapshot Fields
Using the new SNAP() function schedulers may access fields from any Acumen fuse snapshot supporting extended trend analyses.
Acumen 360 – Schedule Accelerator
The Accelerate Schedule option now pre-selects the last Acceleration script you were editing.
Summary
For me, the most significant improvement in Acumen 8.7 is the increased reliability of risk outputs. This is because Acumen Risk now stores all iteration results for reporting and not just a summary of the results. This advantage alone makes upgrading to Acumen 8.7 worth the effort. The reliability of risk outputs is paramount.
The inclusion of the more realistic BetaPert probability distribution also promises to enhance Acumen’s risk analysis reliability by improving the accuracy of input data. Good output data requires the veracity of input data.