Autoschedule in Clarity and OWB - basic rules

Products

• Clarity PPM SaaS
• Clarity PPM On Premise

Issue/Introduction

When using Autoschedule in Clarity's Gantt and Open Workbench (OWB), in what order are tasks scheduled?

Environment

Release: All
Component: Clarity Project Management

Resolution

Below is the order of how Autoschedule schedule schedules the work:

#1: Autoschedule schedules work that has no flexibility

First, autoschedule will schedule work with no flexibility. This includes:

• Actual work
• Fixed assignments
• All work on locked tasks

and reduces the remaining availability accordingly.

#2: Autoschedule processes the remaining tasks in order of a calculated priority

Next, autoschedule processes remaining tasks in order of a calculated priority. For the calculated priority, see below. This is also subject to task dependencies.

As each task is processed, remaining availability is reduced accordingly.

Calculated priority is based on the following factors, considered in this order.

1. If the task has a Must Start On or Must Finish On date constraint
2. Task Priority (lower values rank higher)
3. Task Float (lower values rank higher)
4. If the task is started
5. WBS order (i.e., the physical location that it is seen in a view; tasks towards the top rank higher)

If a task "ties" with another task, the next factor is taken into account. Thus, for example, a task with no date constraint and a priority of 5 will be scheduled before another task that also has no date constraint and a priority of 5 if the first task's float is less than the second task's.

Autoschedule gives priority to constrained tasks over non-constrained tasks, and to inflexible constraints (such as "Must Start On") over flexible constraints (such as "Start No Later Than"). Constraints are overridden when it would violate a dependency or over allocate resources.

Additional Information

Reference also:

• When Autoscheduling, all ETC is getting scheduled for one day for some assignments
• OWB or Gantt - Autoscheduling with Uniform pushes tasks dates and ETC out
• Autoscheduling is Changing the Task Date even though there are no Dependencies or Assignments
• Resource's Allocation dates and Autoscheduling in the Gantt
• Automatically Create Project Schedules with Autoschedule for more information on Autoscheduling including how to lock tasks