This sheet will help you organize your project’s scope of work, keep track of key milestones and identify any potential delays. With the Schedule tab, you can manage your rehab project in great detail with up to 150 individual tasks planned over up to 52 weeks.
The sheet is divided in 2 main areas:
Summary Schedule & KPIs
Summary Schedule
In the Summary schedule, you can enter your project’s start date which will be used as the starting point for the schedule. Based on the list of tasks entered in the section below, the spreadsheet will automatically estimate both the planned and the actual completion dates of your project and will let you know if you’re ahead or behind schedule.
Tips: You can run the schedule using either calendar days or work days only. To use workdays only, enter an “x” in the “Workdays Only?” cell.
When workdays are activated, the duration of all tasks will be adjusted to exclude weekend days. For instance, if you anticipate a task to start on a Friday and last 3 days, the model will assume it will end the following Tuesday (i.e. using Friday, Monday and Tuesday as active days). Conversely, if Workdays Only is not activated, the schedule will assume that the task will end on Sunday (i.e. using Friday, Saturday and Sunday as active days). Note that if you activate workdays but still plan a task to start on a Saturday or Sunday, the schedule will use that day (and only that day) as an active day. So a 3-day task expected to start on Saturday will end on Tuesday (i.e. using Saturday, Monday and Tuesday as active days but not Sunday).
KPIs
In the KPIs table, you can choose to highlight any particular date. That date can be today’s date or any other date that may represent a milestone for your project.
This table also summarizes the number of work categories (see section below) as well as the number of tasks and whether they are fully completed, in progress or not started.
Legend
The Schedule uses the following color code:
- Planned – Light Blue: A day during which a task has been scheduled with no actual work performed yet
- Actual (in line with Schedule) – Dark Blue: A day during which a task was scheduled and actual work was performed
- Actual (behind Schedule) – Orange: Any day during which work was performed after the initial anticipated end date (i.e. the task took longer than expected due delays)
- Actual (ahead of Schedule) – Green: Any day during which work was performed ahead of the initial anticipated start date (i.e. the task was started earlier than initially planned)
Task Description and Timing Parameters
This area is where you will enter all your project-related tasks. It is divided in 5 main columns:
- Description: To enter a short description of your task
- Initial Schedule: To enter a Task’s planned start date and its duration in days. The spreadsheet will automatically calculate its planned end date (which will vary whether you have selected Workdays Only in the Summary Schedule)
- Actual Schedule: To enter the date a task was ultimately started and its actual duration. Again, the model will automatically calculate its actual end date.
- Assigned to: To easily keep track of who’s responsible for each task
- Progress: To indicate a task’s status. If 0% is entered, the task will be considered as “Not Started”. For any progress rate between 1% and 99%, the task will be considered as “In Progress”. Finally, if 100% is entered, the task will be considered as “Fully Completed”
Based on your input in the Initial Schedule and Actual Schedule columns, the model will then generate the appropriate bar charts on the right side for up to 52 weeks and up to 150 tasks.
Tips: You can easily transform a task into a category which will help you identify groups of related tasks in the schedule. To do so, simply add a “x” or double click on the cell next to the task ID to be transformed (available on the left side of the tab):