LESSON 8-6: Using Scenarios to Suspend and Resume Activities

This tutorial describes:
•    Scenarios 
•    how to add a Scenario
•    how to use the Open menu to switch between Scenario and the current schedule
•    how to Suspend all the in-progress activities
•    how to analyze the effects of the shutdown.
•    How to replace current schedule with a Scenario

[MUSIC PLAYING]
1. Scenarios.
Use scenarios to model different scheduling strategies and what-if situations. A scenario acts as a copy of the schedule. You can enter updates and changes without affecting the current schedule. In this video, we will add a scenario to model the effects of an unexpected project shutdown that could last one month, three months, or more.

2. Add Scenario.
This is the current schedule for an in-progress construction project. Let's add a scenario to simulate a one month shutdown. Base the scenario on the current schedule. An alert tells us we are currently working on a scenario.

3. Open menu.
The Open menu also displays the name of the scenario we are working with. Use this menu to switch back to the current schedule when necessary. We need to suspend all the in-progress activities by one month. Let's create a view to help us do this.

4. Suspend all the in-progress activities.
First, add columns for the suspend and resume dates. Then apply a filter to display only in-progress activities. This is a default filter. Let's also remove grouping to view the activities in a flat list. This makes it easier to use fill-down to update multiple activities simultaneously.
Enter the shutdown date for the first activity. Use fill-down to enter this date for all the in-progress activities. Repeat to add a resume date one month later. When finished, return to the normal scheduling view. 

5. Analyze the effects of the shutdown.
Reschedule the project to analyze the effects of the shutdown. Before doing so, you may need to adjust open-ended activities and those with hard constraints assigned. Apply filters or use the Schedule Health Check to identify these activities. Move the data date up to the resume date. Reschedule the project and view the results. For example, check the new project scheduled finish date. Use the schedule comparison tool for full comparison of activity dates in this scenario versus the current schedule.

6. Replace current schedule with a Scenario.
Prepare to resume working on the project by analyzing the updated activity dates, critical path, and resource allocation. If the project is, in fact, suspended for a month, you can replace the current schedule with this scenario. You can also use this as the basis for additional scenarios. For example, create two additional scenarios to model two and three-month shutdowns.
[MUSIC PLAYING]