I want to change the colour of the time bars in the  graphical area of the planning board for activities. I have tried options from network profile. But still the colour remains same. Can I change the colour of actual ate bar from yellow to some other.

Also can some body tell me that during scheduling system calculates two sets of dates the earliest dates and the latest dates but what is the significance of latest dates.  Can I ignore latest dates.  Give me some specific example when the latest dates will be important.

By: Jose Marin

1 - Change the color in T/kod OPT7 and then in general data tab click on “Planning board assistant” button, select Gantt chart –> Table area and select the “Activity” tab.
If you have problems transporting this profile then you have to transport it manually in:

Run T/Code SPRO and then go to:
IMG -> SAP NetWeaver -> Application Server -> Frontend Services -> Bar chart -> Define graphic profiles 
(What you have to know here is your graphics profile you find it in OPT7)

Select your profiles (There are always 3) and then go to menu Table View –> Transport. Create your transport and then click in “Include in Request” button.

2 - For the earliest dates and the latest dates in an activity:

Earliest dates, you start counting from the start and forward
Latest dates, you start counting from the finish and backward

For example your project time is 1 year, then you will perform a task in 30 days, then you can schedule so the system tell you when is the latest day to start working. 

If the start date of the project is 15.01.2009 and finish date 15.01.2010, the system will start counting from 15.01.2009 + your 30 days for earliest dates, for the latest dates the system will start counting from 15.01.2010 and backwards, the system will not take in count all the weekends or holidays depending the calendar you use. Maybe this is not a good example but I hope you get the idea.

Earliest and Latest dates are used to determine the floats (Total float and free float). This is used to determine critical path of the network.

Floats provide information on the slack time available for individual activities. You can use the floats calculated during scheduling in capacity leveling for example, to shift activities between the earliest and latest dates or to extend the duration.

Latest dates are useful when for example, you planned your material at the activity latest date.
You can decide, which dates you require in >>>  Configure scheduling parameters.... latest staging date,  this further depend on Maintain Network Profiles >>> Align.Fin.date.

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