LESSON 3-2: Adding Activities

This lesson describes:
•    how to Add Activities 
•    mandatory and optional Activity components
•    Activity Types: Start Milestone, Finish Milestone, Activity Dependent, Resource Dependence, and Level of Effort.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

1. Adding Activities.
After creating a work breakdown structure, add activities to specify the work needed to complete the project. Activities are the fundamental work elements of a project and contain all of the necessary information about the work to be performed. 

2. Mandatory and optional Activity components.
Mandatory activity components include activity name and ID, activity type, duration, assigned calendar, and duration and percents complete types.
Optional activity components include constraints, relationships, resource and role assignments, and WBS. Activities represent the lowest level of the WBS. But a WBS isn't necessary to add activities. Use the activities page to add activities to the project schedule. Although not strictly necessary, a WBS can be helpful for grouping related activities when building the project schedule. Therefore, we'll use an activities view that displays WBS grouping bands.

3. Activity Types.
Primavera Cloud supports five activity types. Start milestone, finish milestone, activity dependent, resource dependence, and level of effort. Different activity types are used for different purposes within a project. 

4. Milestone.
First, we'll add a start to milestone. Milestone activities are used to mark the start or finish of the project or major project phases. Milestones have no duration. A start to milestone has only a start date, and a finish milestone has only a finish date. Roles and resources cannot be assigned to milestone activities.
Select the relevant WBS grouping band. And on the context menu, click add below. Type a name for the activity. Type an ID too. Or leave it blank, and the application will automatically assign an ID. On the type list in the general detail window, select start milestone. We'll keep the default values in the rest of the fields. Note that the remaining duration is zero days.

5. Activity Dependent activity.
Next, we'll add an Activity Dependent activity. Activity dependent is the most common activity type and is used when work must be accomplished in a specified time frame. Activity duration and resource assignments are determined by the activity calendar. This is in contrast to a Resource Dependent activity in which duration and resource assignments are determined by the availability or calendars of the individual resources working on the activity.

6. Resource Dependent activity.
Resource Dependent activities are typically used when multiple resources are assigned to the same activity can work independently. Select the security WBS. And on the contacts menu, click add below. Type a name and a duration. In the general detail window, confirm that the activity type is activity dependent. This is the default activity type for the project.

7. Level of Effort activity
Finally, we'll add a Level of Effort activity to the project. Level of effort activities do not contribute directly to the completion of a project, but rather supports other activities that do. Their duration is determined by their predecessor and successor activities.
In this case, we'll add an activity called project administration that will span the duration of the entire project. The activity will require a project manager to spend about one hour a day overseeing the project. Select the project WBS. And on the context menu, click add below. Type a name. In the type field, select level of effort. Click yes at the prompt.
The planned duration for the new activity is five days. This is the default planned duration for new activities. However, the planned duration will be recalculated based on its predecessor and successor relationships when the project is scheduled.