Using the Critical Path: Identifying Delays

It can be quickly and easily determined if a project may face delays. Thumbnails for tasks that are late turn red and are surrounded by a red box. Tasks downstream that are forecasted to complete late will be highlighted in red. (See below).

The Diagnostics panel on the right side of the screen shows that there is one late task in the Debugger tool, which is also creating a Critical Path Delay, 3 Milestones At Risk, and 19 Invalid Dates based on previously determined durations and dependencies. 


By clicking on the number next to the item within the Debugger, the applicable tasks will be visible in the Critical Path view, and excluded tasks will appear transparent:

 

Clicking on that number a second time will engage the Focus and filtered tasks will be visible in the Critical Path view, and excluded tasks will be removed from the view:

1. In this example, we see that the Configure Module Environment task is 2 days late. As a result, the Critical Path Engine has provided alternate dates that reflect this delay. A few things to note:

   	These red highlighted lines indicate which tasks and dependencies will be delayed because of the initial issue.
   	Above each task are current dates (red) displayed in tandem with the recalculated dates to completion (purple) if the issue is left unresolved.
   	Any time a project gets off track and dates are impacted, a Critical Path Engine Alert appears at the top of the screen.

2. Once all issues have been reviewed, alternatives can be investigated, or the current state can be accepted by clicking the Update Timeline button in the Critical Path Engine Alert panel.
   NOTE: These updates cannot be undone, so confirm that all changes have been reviewed before updating.
3. To view the project schedule prior to the Critical Path Engine forecasts, click the  button in the alert panel.  Using this view will allow you to modify the plan and update the timeline without accepting the Critical Path forecasts. This is helpful when modeling strategies or seeing what happened prior to current delays.
   NOTE: These updates cannot be undone, so confirm that all changes have been reviewed before updating the timeline.