'Soft constraints' quality metric

Use this metric to check the proportion of tasks that do not have Start On or After or Finish On or Before constraint flags. These "soft" constraints are preferable to "hard" constraints in a schedule as they allow more flexibility. However, a high proportion of tasks with soft constraints can indicate that a schedule has been planned with too little flexibility.

You can change the impact that this metric has on the weighted total result of a quality check by entering a factor by which the quality metric should be multiplied in the Weighting field. For the weighting to have any effect, a quality check must have more than one quality metric.

Pass and fail criteria

Pass or fail?	Criteria
Pass	A project passes this metric if the percentage of tasks that do not have a soft constraint is greater than or equal to the pass boundary percentage. For example, if the pass boundary was set to 90.00%, a project would pass this metric if 90.00% or more of tasks did not have Start On or After or Finish On or Before constraint flags.
Fail	A project fails this metric if the percentage of tasks that do not have a soft constraint is less than the fail boundary percentage. For example, if the fail boundary was set to 80.00%, a project would fail this metric if less than 80.00% of tasks did not have Start On or After or Finish On or Before constraint flags.
Neither pass nor fail	If the percentage of tasks that do not have a soft constraint falls between the pass and fail boundary percentages, the result is neither a pass nor a fail, but somewhere in between.

Pass or fail?

Criteria

Pass

A project passes this metric if the percentage of tasks that do not have a soft constraint is greater than or equal to the pass boundary percentage.

For example, if the pass boundary was set to 90.00%, a project would pass this metric if 90.00% or more of tasks did not have Start On or After or Finish On or Before constraint flags.

Fail

A project fails this metric if the percentage of tasks that do not have a soft constraint is less than the fail boundary percentage.

For example, if the fail boundary was set to 80.00%, a project would fail this metric if less than 80.00% of tasks did not have Start On or After or Finish On or Before constraint flags.

Neither pass nor fail

If the percentage of tasks that do not have a soft constraint falls between the pass and fail boundary percentages, the result is neither a pass nor a fail, but somewhere in between.

Suggested settings

Pass boundary: 90.00%. A project will pass this metric if 90.00% or more of tasks do not have Start On or After or Finish On or Before constraint flags.
Fail boundary: 80.00%. A project will fail this metric if less than 80.00% of tasks do not have Start On or After or Finish On or Before constraint flags.

The following table shows whether some example projects would pass or fail this metric using these settings:

Percentage of tasks with no Start On or After or Finish On or Before constraint flags	Pass or fail?
0.00%	Fail
50.00%	Fail
79.99%	Fail
80.00%	Neither pass nor fail
89.99%	Neither pass nor fail
90.00%	Pass
100.00%	Pass

Does the metric force a project to be rescheduled?

No.

Suggested actions if a project fails this metric

If a project fails this metric, select the metric in the Quality Check Results dialog and click Show Failing Tasks to view the tasks that have failed the metric.

You could take the following actions to remedy the failing tasks:

Remove Start On or After or Finish On or Before constraints from tasks if they are not absolutely necessary.
Use links between tasks to determine the dates on which tasks must start and finish, rather than restrictive constraint flags.