Histogram Report Properties dialog - Report tab

You use the Report tab of the Histogram Report Properties dialog to specify the properties of the selected histogram report. A histogram report can graph more than one resource or cost centre at a time, or it can graph task work. The settings you select here apply to everything that is being graphed.

To access the Histogram Report Properties dialog, either:

  • Right-click an open histogram and select Histogram Report Properties.
  • Click Edit or New on the Details tab of the Format Histogram dialog.
  • Right-click a histogram report in Library Explorer and select Properties.
  • Click Histogram report properties on the Histogram toolbar.
Field Description
Name Enter a description of the histogram report.
Resource

Specify the scope with which to graph the selected resource:

  • Select Resource (All Skills) to graph allocations of the selected resource in all of the resource's skills. For example, if you graph the allocations of a resource in the Plasterer folder and the resource is also a painter, all of the resource's allocations as a plasterer and all of their allocations as a painter will be included in the histogram report.
  • Select Resource and Sub-Resources if you are planning to graph allocations of a resource folder and of all of the resources within the folder, and you also want to graph any allocations of the resources in the folder that relate to the resources' other skills. For example, if you graph the allocations of the resources in the Plasterer folder and one of the resources in the folder is also a painter, all of the allocations of the plasterer resources and all of the multi-skilled resource's allocations as a painter will be included in the histogram report.
  • Select Skill to graph allocations of the selected resource in the selected skill only. For example, if you graph the allocations of a resource in the Plasterer folder and the resource is also a painter, all of the resource's allocations as a plasterer will be included in the histogram report, but all of their allocations as a painter will be excluded.
  • Select Skill and Sub-Skills if you are planning to graph allocations of a resource folder and all of the resources within the resource folder, and you want to exclude any allocations of the resources in the folder that relate to the resources' other skills. For example, if you graph the allocations of the resources in the Plasterer folder and one of the resources in the folder is also a painter, all of the allocations of the plasterer resources will be included in the histogram report, but all of the multi-skilled resource's allocations as a painter will be excluded.
Availability

If the histogram report includes a graph that details the availability of resources, specify the way in which the availability of the selected resource should be calculated:

  • Select Resource (All Skills) to specify that the resource's availability should be the sum of their availability in each of their different skills. For example, if you graph the availability of a resource in the Plasterer folder and the resource is also a painter, the resource's availability will be the sum of their availability as a plasterer and their availability as a painter. If you select this option when graphing the availability of a resource folder, the availability will be that of the folder itself, disregarding the availability of any of the resources within the folder.
  • Select Resource and Sub-Resources if you are planning to graph the availability of a resource folder to specify that the resource's availability should be the sum of the availability of the resource folder itself, the availability of the individual resources within the folder and any availability of the resources in the folder that relates to the resources' other skills. For example, if you graph the availability of the resources in the Plasterer folder and one of the resources in the folder is also a painter, the availability will be the sum of the availability of the folder itself, the availability of the resources within the folder and the availability of the multi-skilled resource as a painter.
  • Select Skill to specify that the resource's availability should be the availability of the resource in the selected skill only. For example, if you graph the availability of a resource in the Plasterer folder and the resource is also a painter, the resource's availability will be their availability as a plasterer only, disregarding the availability of the multi-skilled resource as a painter. If you select this option when graphing the availability of a resource folder, the availability will be that of the folder itself, disregarding the availability of any of the resources within the folder.
  • Select Skill and Sub-Skills if you are planning to graph the availability of a resource folder to specify that the resource's availability should be the sum of the availability of the resource folder itself and the availability of the individual resources within the folder, disregarding any availability of the resources in the folder that relates to the resources' other skills. For example, if you graph the availability of the resources in the Plasterer folder and one of the resources in the folder is also a painter, the availability will be the sum of the availability of the folder itself and the availability of the resources within the folder, disregarding the availability of the multi-skilled resource as a painter.
Date range To graph a particular date range, enter the start and finish dates at which graphing should start and finish. If you specify a date range, all tasks and allocations that fall outside the range are excluded. You can enter dates into both fields, or into just one of the fields.
Period

Select the time unit over which you want graph values to be averaged. For example, when graphing a resource's allocation you might want to see the allocation values averaged over hours, days or weeks. When set to None, the graph values are displayed during the resource's working periods.

 

The larger the time unit you select, the less detailed the histogram report will be: averaging values over a month will give less precise details than averaging over a day.

 

Specifying the way in which histogram reports are sliced

Type

Specify whether you want to display average values, maximum values, minimum values, difference values or mean values within each slicing unit.

 

Specifying the slicing type

Calendar The length of an working period can differ between calendars: for example, a working day could be 6.5 hours long in one calendar and 8 hours long in another. If you select a working time unit in the Period field, select the calendar that defines the length of the working time unit.
Clipboard unit

Select the time unit over which you want graph values to be averaged when you copy information from the histogram to the clipboard. This field has no effect if a time unit for slicing is selected in the Period field.

 

Copying information from a histogram to the Clipboard

Apply % likelihood

If you have applied percentage likelihoods to projects in order to indicate the probability of each project actually going ahead, select this check box to apply the recorded percentage likelihoods to the histogram report, or clear the check box to disregard the recorded percentage likelihoods.

 

If you apply percentage likelihoods to a histogram report, the effort, quantity, cost and income of the affected projects are adjusted accordingly in the histogram - so if a project is 50% likely to go ahead, its values in the histogram will be reduced by 50%; if you do not, the affected projects are graphed as if they were definitely going ahead. You can specify whether to indicate that percentage likelihoods have been applied to the values in a histogram using the Row tab of the Format Histogram dialog.

 

Reporting the percentage likelihood of projects

Filter individual allocations

If you have applied an allocation-based filter to the histogram - using the Filter field, on the Graphs tab of this dialog - select this check box to include only information in the histogram from allocations that meet the criteria of the filter, or clear the check box to also include information from allocations that do not meet the filter criteria, but that are assigned to tasks with allocations that do meet the filter criteria.

 

This check box works with the following types of filter:

  • Any filter where the objects being filtered are set to Permanent resource allocations, Consumable resource allocations or Cost allocations on the Tasks and Allocations page of the Filter Wizard.
  • Any RBS/CBS filter - ie a filter that was created when an RBS/CBS view was active.
  • Any filter where the objects being filtered are set to All task and allocation types on the Tasks and Allocations page of the Filter Wizard, provided that only the following pages of the Filter Wizard are used:
    • Calendar.
    • Costs.
    • Duration.
    • Progress.
    • Resources - Consumable.
    • Resources - Permanent.
    • Time Slice - Date Range.
    • User Fields.
    • User Tables.

Specifying which allocations are included when using an allocation-based filter in conjunction with a histogram

How do I...

  1. Enter the name of the histogram report in the Name field.
  2. Specify the scope with which to graph the selected resource in the Resource field.
  3. Specify the way in which to calculate the availability of the selected resource in the Availability field.
  4. Enter a range of dates in the Date range fields if you want to limit the histogram report to a range of dates.
  5. Select the time unit over which you want graph values to be averaged in the Period field.
  6. Specify whether you want to display average values, maximum values, minimum values, difference values or mean values within each slicing unit in the Type field.

    Note that the slicing types that appear in this field depend on whether the Show common histogram slice options only check box is selected on the General tab of the Options dialog. If this check box is selected, only the most commonly-used slicing types will be available; if the check box is cleared, all slicing types will be available.
  7. If you select a working time unit in the Period field, select the calendar that defines the length of the working time unit in the Calendar field, as working time unit lengths can differ between calendars.
  8. Select the time unit over which you want graph values to be averaged when you copy information from the histogram to the clipboard in the Clipboard unit field. This field has no effect if a time unit for slicing is selected in the Period field.
  9. Select the Apply % likelihood check box to apply any recorded percentage likelihoods to the histogram report and adjust values accordingly in the histogram.
  10. Specify which allocations are included when using an allocation-based filter in conjunction with a histogram, using the Filter individual allocations check box. If you select this check box, the histogram only includes information from allocations that meet the criteria of whichever allocation-based filter has been selected in the Filter field, on the Graphs tab of the Histogram Report Properties dialog. If you clear this check box, information from allocations that do not meet the filter criteria, but that are assigned to tasks with allocations that do meet the filter criteria, are also included in the histogram.

Related Topics:

Working with dialogs

Generating a histogram

Editing histogram reports

Editing histogram report options

Recording the percentage likelihood of projects