When you schedule a project from the Projects > Activities page or the Projects > Tools page, you can choose to calculate multiple critical float paths.
Note: When you schedule a project from the Activities page, you can set scheduling options for all open projects at the same time. When you schedule a project from the Tools page, you can set scheduling options for any open project; however, you cannot set scheduling options for all open projects simultaneously.
To calculate multiple critical float paths for all open projects from the Projects > Activities page
- Open the project or group of projects you want to work with in the Projects section.
- Click
on the Projects toolbar to display the Activities page.
- On the Activities page, click
on the Activities toolbar.
- In the Schedule Project dialog box, click Scheduling Options, then click the Advanced tab.
When you set scheduling options from the Activities page, your selections apply to all open projects.
- Mark the Calculate multiple float paths option.
- Choose to calculate multiple paths using Total Float or Free Float.
- In the Display multiple float paths ending with activity field, click
to choose the activity you want the float paths to end on. You can choose any activity; however, typically this activity is a milestone or some other major activity in the project schedule.
- Specify the number of float paths you want to calculate. Type a low number (10 or less) to optimize performance.
- Click Close.
To calculate multiple critical float paths for a project from the Projects > Tools page
- Open the project or group of projects you want to work with in the Projects section.
- Click
on the Projects toolbar to display the Tools page.
- If multiple projects are open, select the project you want to work with from the Select Project list.
Note: If a single project is open, the Select Project list does not appear. When multiple projects are open, the Select Project box lists all open projects you have rights to access. Any action you perform, and all data that appears on the page, applies to the selected project only.
- Click Scheduling Options, then click the Advanced tab.
- Mark the Calculate multiple float paths option.
- Choose to calculate multiple paths using Total Float or Free Float.
- In the Display multiple float paths ending with activity field, click
to choose the activity you want the float paths to end on. You can choose any activity; however, typically this activity is a milestone or some other major activity in the project schedule.
- Specify the number of float paths you want to calculate. Type a low number (10 or less) to optimize performance.
- Click Close.
Notes:
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If you choose to calculate multiple paths using Total Float, based on the activity you want the paths to end on, P6 Web Access determines which predecessor activity has the most critical Relationship Total Float on the backward pass. This process repeats until an activity is reached that has no relationship. The forward pass begins from this activity and the successor activity that has the most critical Relationship Successor Total Float is determined. This process repeats until an activity is reached that has no relationship. These activities are assigned a Float Path value of 1 (the most critical float path) and the process begins again until the specified number of paths are calculated.
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If you choose to calculate multiple paths using Free Float, the most critical path will be identical to the critical path that is derived when you choose to define critical activities as Longest Path in the General tab of the Schedule Options dialog box. In a multi-calendar project, the longest path is calculated by identifying the activities that have an early finish equal to the latest calculated early finish for the project and tracing all driving relationships for those activities back to the project start date.