Over
the last several weeks I've been testing the latest version
of FastTrack Schedule 8, by AEC software. The company is well
known in the project scheduling software arena for its flagship
application, FastTrack Schedule. The award-winning application
originally started on the Macintosh platform many years ago,
but has been a cross-platform (Mac-Win) application since
the mid 90's.
In addition to the Mac and Windows platforms,
there is also a Palm OS -based FastTrack Schedule mobile application
which can synchronize with your desktop scheduling data.
The Architecture Perspective
There is little doubt in my mind that many architecture
firms, perhaps the overwhelming majority of firms, do not
utilize project scheduling software at all. To them "project
scheduling" software hasn't become a bread-and-butter application,
that is, it hasn't been seen as being a necessary tool for
the industry at large, like CAD or word-processing. Instead,
project scheduling software in architecture is a "bullet"
type of application, or what Brian Dunning, technical editor
of FileMaker Advisor magazine, refers to as: a piece of software
which gives a firm an unfair advantage over its rival peers.
In Brian's words, a bullet type of application
automates some aspect of business processes or "provides some
decision support data that wasn't previously available." It
is this last aspect which makes the users of FastTrack Schedule
have some competitive advantage over their competition. And
that's clearly where there is value in the app.
The Visualization of Time and Money
What makes FastTrack Schedule 8 so powerful
for architects and other project-based professionals is that
it allows for the easy visualization of time and money and
their interdependencies. If a project milestone slips a week
or two you can automatically see the financial impact of that
schedule change. If you need to add more bodies to get the
job done in time, then you can automatically see the financial
impact of that assignment change.
In FastTrack Schedule 8 there are two key elements
to how this software works. The first element is that of Time.
The second element is Cost. Within a typical project schedule
you can see both elements juxtaposed in a meaningful way so
that you can understand visually the relationship between
time and money. (see image 001)
Let's look at a mock up example of a small architectural
project. I built this project schedule from scratch, but the
program comes with dozens of industry templates. I have provided
lots of enlarged screen shots so feel free to click on many
of the smaller images to see them larger.
Looking at the Program in Detail - An Architectural
Project Schedule
Although this is not an Architosh
In-Depth series article, I wanted to cover enough of the
program in detail so that readers can truly understand how
this software works and why it is a valuable tool in the architect's
arsenal.
Let me address quickly some of the basic questions
anyone unfamiliar to project scheduling software and FastTrack
in particular might have. First off, the way the interface
works is not unfamiliar to the way Microsoft Excel works.
You have cells defined by horizontal rows and vertical columns.
Most of the vertical columns are apart of the calendar time
line (where you make the scheduling), with each column equaling
one day. The other vertical columns are on the far left and
act like fixed title columns in Excel, enabling you to scroll
the schedule to the left and under those cells.
You begin making your schedule by typing the
name of an activity in row number 1, under the Activity Name
column. (See image 002). Since
we are going to have phases in our job, we'll start by typing
"Preliminary Design Phase" in row 1. Notice that you can indent
or create sub-activities under primary activities. Thus we
have broken our primary activity "Preliminary Design Phase"
down into its sub-activities: Schematic Design, Design Development
1, Pricing Estimates and Design Development 2.
Once you have typed in the various activities
in your project schedule you begin drawing bars to define
their duration. You can select from a range of pre-drawn bar
styles or make custom styles. The process is a click and drag
mouse action, and as you drag you get valuable feedback in
a popup window which tells you the end date and duration in
days. The second way to create these bars is to simply click
in the i column (i for information) for that row.
FastTrack Schedule really takes off when you
examine what you can do with activities on the schedule. (See
image 003) A click on the information column will bring
up the Information palette for that activity. Selecting the
Bars tab allows you to set start and finish dates and times,
or duration. You can set and reset "scheduled", "revised",
and "actual" dates. Doing so will alter the appearance of
the bars on the schedule timeline automatically and produce
new calculation summaries.
Where FastTrack Schedule brings money and time
together is under the Assignments tab, under the Bars tab.
This is where you assign resources. For architects and other
similar design professionals working in the services industry,
their chief resource is people. Staff therefore are the resources
they assign to projects. When you assign a resource to an
activity this resource's Use Cost, Std. Rate and OT Rate are
automatically calculated based on the percent of assignment.
For example, in this mock project I assigned 50% of my available
time to this assignment. (See image
004) You do this for each activity in your project.
To view the impact of assignments per schedule
activity, you view your schedule under the Cost Layout. Resource
Cost and Total Cost are tabulated for each row of activity
where you have made a resource allocation. At the bottom of
the window Resource Cost and Total Cost per week are summed
up. (See image 005)
Resources
In FastTrack Schedule 8 there are three primary
views or interfaces where you work with schedule information.
The first view is Schedule, under the View menu. (See
image 006). In its basic view you can see and work
with all of your scheduled activities. In Image 006 we have
25 rows of main activities (like Construction Documents Phase)
and secondary activities (like Working Drawings) and tertiary
activities (like the list of working drawings). You can collapse
the schedule view just like you collapse the classic Mac OS's
Finder List view, by clicking on the little triangles to the
left of each activity with sub-activities (see
image 007).
The second primary view of the data is the Calendar.
(See image 008). This is a traditional
calendar view. You can hold down the mouse over bars to reveal
information about that activity. And you can create filters
in which you can see just activities for particular resources
(like staff individuals). (see image
009) These are essentially individual calendars.
The third view of the data is the Resources
view. This view is amazing. It can present a ton of useful
information about staffing (remember employees are resources),
including percentage usage, hourly usage, and assignments.
When you open the assignments view you can see individual
assignments in bar form complete with hourly unit breakdowns.
(See image 010). Like the Schedule
view you can hold the cursor over a bar and a yellow window
will popup showing pertinent information about that activity.
(See image 011). The items that show up in these QuickLook
windows, as they are called, can be customized in the preferences.
Some key items you should notice in the Resources
view is the percentage usage graph. A red line shows the 100
percent mark. If you are over that a red zone appears to help
flag staffing (resource) over allocation.
Next Page: Building
a New Resource
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