Create Activities

VIDEO | Detail Planning

There are two ways to conceptualize activity creation within InEight Schedule and depending on your intended outcome, there are benefits to each process:

  • Knowledge subnet

  • Create form scratch

Knowledge subnets

Schedule leverages the Knowledge Base to rapidly build a schedule based on historical projects or existing templates. This feature enables you to pull in similar activities from Knowledge Base projects and adjust them based on the parameters of the project being created.

Step by Step — Building a schedule

  1. Select a planning package.

  2. From the Iris > Smart Planning, under the first Schedule Suggestion, click Import Knowledge Subnet.

    • The merge window opens, letting you customize your selection of planning packages and activities. For this example include all packages and activities in the subnet switched on

  3. After the subnet selection is made, the option to bring in Knowledge Base subnet as Native Import or Size to Fit is available.

    • Native Import: it will bring in the selected subnet with the original durations from the Knowledge Base

    • Size to Fit: it will proportionally adjusts the subnet to fit within the duration of the Superior planning package in the current schedule

  4. Select either Native Import or Size to Fit.
  5. When complete, click Preview.

    • Schedule merges in the Knowledge Subnet into the project and presents it as a preview.
  6. If the preview looks good for merge, select Yes to commit the import in Schedule.

Activities from Scratch

The second way to create activities is from scratch. This allows activities not yet in the Knowledge Library to be created on the project. Additionally, it provides schedulers total manual control when creating an activity.

Step by Step — Build Activities from Scratch

  1. Click the Actions icon for the planning package which the subordinate activity falls under.

  2. Select Create Activity.
    • A new activity will appear as a subordinate

  3. Rename your activity by either selecting the description field in the Gantt View or by going to the Iris and adjusting the description there.

WBS summary activity type

In Schedule > Plan, you can create a WBS summary activity. Primavera XER imports support the WBS summary activity type and does not convert these summaries to Planning packages.

When you increase or decrease the duration of a portion of your WBS in your schedule, the WBS summary activity dynamically reacts to the modified duration changes.

You can load resources into WBS summary activities to help linearly spread units over a specific time frame. Different calendars can be assigned to the WBS summary activity for tracking.

Change Activity Type

You can select an Activity Type in the plan schedule and change it from one type to another via a drop-down menu, which lets change an activity type without having to leave the page.

Step by Step — Change Activity Type

  1. From the Schedule Plan view select an (terminal level) Activity.
  2. Click on Show/Hide Iris.

  1. Click on Activity type drop-down, and select an activity type.

Bulk Activities from Scratch

If multiple activities are to be created from scratch, the detail out function can be used as well.

Step by Step — Create Activities in Bulk

  1. Click the Actions icon for the planning package that the subordinate activities fall under.
  2. From the Actions menu, click Detail Out.
  3. Create your activities as needed.
  4. Set the Work or Scope option to Activity.
  5. Set the Sequence option to In Succession.
  6. Set the Duration to Automatic.
  7. Set your Quantity.
  8. Click Build.

  9. Change the activity names and their respective duration.

Assign Knowledge Tags

Knowledge Tags connect the data between the Knowledge Base, schedules, and activities. Assigning Knowledge Tags to planning packages and activities aid in associating schedules of similar scope, cost, duration, location, discipline etc. for InEight Schedule to generate suggestions and benchmarks.

The process of associating Knowledge Tags to activities is fundamentally the same for planning packages.

Step by Step — Assigning Knowledge Tags in the Iris

  1. Select an activity. Open the Iris and go to the Knowledge Tags Section.
    • Knowledge Tags will appear in the Iris based on what is set up in the Knowledge Base & the Configuration Knowledge Tags Register.

  2. Click on the arrow to expand the Knowledge Tags available within each group.

    3. Some tags have “Inherited” values. These are rolled down from a superior level (i.e. assigned at the project level, assigned at the planning package level)

  3. Select a tag from the drop-down menu to assign it to the activity.

Assigning Logic

Logic is what links planning packages, activities, and milestones together throughout the schedule, for example when:

  • an activity finishes, another starts
  • two activities kick off at the same time
  • multiple activities must be completed before another begins

Within Schedule, there are two ways to setup schedule logic: via the Gantt Chart or the Iris.

Using the Gantt Chart to Assign Logic

The Gantt Chart has built-in functionality allowing activity logic to be tied together directly in the visual. This is great for quickly adding or adjusting logic in the schedule.

When hovering over any activity bar in the Gantt chart, two dots will appear at the beginning and end of the activity:

Clicking and dragging either dot from what activity to another will create a logic tie.

  • Dot at the beginning of an activity: the start logic of the activity
  • Dot at the end of an activity: the end logic of the activity

Connecting dots between activities, define the type of logic being applied.

Function (Connect the Dots) Logic (How to Connect)
Start-to-Start (SS)

Connect the start of one activity to the start of another activity
Finish-to-Start (FS) Connect the end of one activity to the start of another activity
Finish-to-Finish (FF) Connect the end of one activity to the end of another activity
Start-to-Finish (SF) Connect the start of one activity to the end of another activity

The first activity dot selected is treated as the predecessor to the second activity dot. Thus, the second activity will be a successor to the first activity.