Advanced Scheduling (PRO)

Once the programme is built and approved, the job changes to tracking and justifying it: how far behind is this week, is the money going out as planned, what do the crews do next week, and if it is late, how do we recover. The PRO commands in DVD Cons → Schedule cover exactly that, all reading from the same schedule sheet you already use.

Written for planning engineers, site managers and contractor planning staff who report periodically to management and to the client. For building the schedule itself, see Gantt Chart.

PRO feature

Every command below belongs to the PRO plan. STANDARD accounts activated before 01/07/2026 keep access until their licence expires; other Standard accounts get an upgrade dialog. The Trial period includes everything.

Commands in this group

Command	What it does
AI Gantt Builder	AI generates a schedule outline from a BoQ table or from a project description
Schedule Recovery	Analyses slippage at a Status Date and builds a recovery proposal
Health Check	Scores the logic network against the DCMA metric set (~12 checks) on a Health sheet
EVM Report	PV/EV/AC/SPI/CPI/EAC scorecard plus an S-curve chart
Variance Dashboard	One-page dashboard combining schedule variance and cost
2-Week Lookahead	21-day grid (last week + 2 weeks ahead), preset for A3 landscape
3-Week Lookahead	28-day grid (last week + 3 weeks ahead), preset for A3 landscape
Schedule (custom range)	Extracts a real Gantt for any From/To date window onto its own sheet
Baseline	Stores baselines in hidden _BL_* sheets and compares them on a BL Compare sheet
Snapshot	Captures the project state into a very hidden _Snap_YYYYMMDD sheet
Snapshot Trend	Charts SPI/CPI and critical-path slip over time from the saved snapshots
Manpower	Weekly manpower peak histogram and over-allocated weeks
Cash-flow	Spreads BAC over time: cost per period plus a cumulative S-curve

Controlling a project end to end

1. Planning stage. With no activity list yet, open Schedule AI → AI Gantt Builder, pick the From BoQ (recommended) tab, set the column numbers for Code / Name / Unit / Qty, select the BoQ range and click Read BoQ range. Fill in Project type, Avg crew size, Hours / day and Generated sheet name, then Generate AI outline → Create schedule sheet.
2. Audit before submission. Run Auto Calc once, then click Health Check. The Health sheet lists each metric with its value, target and Pass/Warn/Fail result plus the flagged activity IDs — clear the open logic, negative lags and negative float before you submit.
3. Freeze the baseline. As soon as the programme is approved, click Baseline, type a Name (e.g. BL1 — contract award plan) and a Description, then Save baseline now.
4. Sanity-check feasibility. Click Manpower to see which weeks exceed the average mobilisation, and Cash-flow to see how much money each period needs. Both are read-only — moving activities with float is your call.
5. Every week. Update % complete and actual cost, run Auto Calc, then in turn: 2-Week Lookahead (or 3-Week) printed on A3 for the site notice board, Variance Dashboard for the progress meeting, and Snapshot to bank a data point.
6. Every month. Run EVM Report for the scorecard and S-curve, Snapshot Trend to see whether SPI/CPI is still falling or has levelled off, and reopen Baseline → select the baseline row → set a Compare Status Date → Compare with selected baseline.
7. When you are late. Open Schedule Recovery, set the Status Date, click Analyze current sheet, choose a Proposal mode (Keep deadline / Push deadline / AI re-plan) and click Create proposal. Use Draw overlay to present it, Copy report for the minutes, and Write to Excel to append the Proposed Start / Proposed Finish / Note columns.
8. Presenting one phase. For a print covering just one quarter, click Schedule (custom range), enter the From and To dates, and pick a Week or Month timescale.

Example

Timber processing plant, week 24 report. After updating % complete and actual cost, the engineer runs Variance Dashboard and gets a single page:

KPI	Value	Reading
Total activities	186	—
Activities behind	23	Concentrated in steel structure erection
Critical-path slip	12 days	Contract milestone at risk
SPI	0.92	Amber — roughly 8% of the work behind
CPI	0.88	Red — overspending
VAC	−1.4 bn VND	Forecast overrun at completion

The Top 10 risk table points straight at four steel erection activities slipping 9–12 days. The project director approves overtime for the steel crew in the meeting; the following week, Snapshot Trend shows the SPI line flattening instead of continuing to fall.

Tips and caveats

• The inputs decide everything. SPI and EV derive from % complete; CPI, EAC and VAC need the BAC column and actual cost (AC). Without BAC, EVM Report errors out and the Variance Dashboard leaves the cost half blank.
• Run Auto Calc before Health Check — with Total Float empty, the negative-float, high-float and critical-path checks score incorrectly. The BEI metric only computes if the workbook already holds a baseline.
• Most of these commands regenerate their result sheet on every run and Ctrl+Z will not bring the old one back; to keep several versions of, say, BL Compare, rename the sheet before the next run.
• Snapshots are not baselines: a baseline is a fixed plan to measure against, snapshots are a periodic series that shows the trend. Snapshot Trend needs at least two captures to draw a line.
• Baselines and snapshots live in hidden sheets inside the workbook — send the file and you send the history; equally, capturing many weeks on a large schedule makes the file grow. Deleting a baseline cannot be undone.
• Amber cells on the lookahead grid mean "behind or not updated" — update status before printing so the crews do not misread it. Both lookahead sheets are preset for A3 landscape.
• Durations from AI Gantt Builder are only a starting point — check them against norms and real crew output before committing to the client. That command and the AI re-plan mode both need the API key of the AI provider set in Preferences.

See also

• Gantt Chart — building the schedule, date constraints and P6/MSP XML exchange.
• Work Calendar — the calendar shared by CPM, EVM, the Variance Dashboard and the lookaheads.
• Update Status — the quick SPI / Δ Finish readout on the schedule sheet itself.
• Baseline — full detail of saving and comparing baselines.