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How To Use Asta Powerproject’s Drag and Drop Feature To Create Accurate Schedules

Asta Powerproject’s Useful Drag and Drop Functionality

Asta Powerproject enables project team members to develop accurate schedules for simple projects as well as some of the world’s complex projects. Asta Powerproject was utilized to manage highly complex projects such as The London Shard, Europe’s tallest building; Jumeirah Park, Dubai; The Reichstag, Berlin; Petronas Towers, Malaysia; Durban International Airport. Some project management tools use confusing defaults and awkward processes, which increases the likelihood of human error and ultimately complicate the setup and maintenance of an accurate project plan.

Asta Powerproject has evolved into an effective project scheduling tool based on valuable feedback from planning professionals. Asta Powerproject includes a robust Gantt Chart with drag-and-drop functionality for assigning attributes such as activity codes, calendars, resources, and costs. This Asta Powerproject tutorial illustrates the drag-and-drop functionality for assigning activity codes, calendars, and resources.

Step 1: Setup the schedule with activities/tasks. The image below depicts a very simple project plan.

Step 2: Assign Subcontractors to Activities using drag-and-drop. Expand the “Code Libraries” on the Project Tree and view the various codes. We will expand the Subcontractor code to view all possible subcontractors as well as their color-coding. We will first assign the subcontractor “Williams Engineering” to all of the activities under D&E. Notice that “Williams Engineering” is color-coded as blue. Select the bars on the Gantt Chart to assign the subcontractor by using shift-click or control-click and then drag “Williams Engineering” and deposit on the select bars. We will assign subcontractors to the other bars as well. The image below depicts the Gantt Chart after assigning the Subcontractors to the tasks.

Step 3: Print a report and notice the legend at the bottom border for subcontractors.

Step 4: We will now use drag-and-drop to assign resources. Notice the Permanent Resources on the project tree. We will assign the resource “Jim Smith” as the resource for the Design and Engineering activities. Select the bars to which Jim Smith will be assigned (shift or control click) and drag-and-drop Jim Smith to those selected activities. Once completed, you will notice there is an aqua colored bar displayed beneath the task bar to denote that Jim Smith has been assigned as a resource to each of the Design and Engineering tasks.

Step 5: Print report including resource assignments.

Step 6: Assign Calendars using drag-and-drop.

Step 6a: The image below includes a column for Calendar. Notice that the existing calendar is a “5 Day Work Week, US Holidays 8hrs/day” for each activity.

Step 6b: We will change the calendar assigned to the bars under Design and Engineering to “4 Day Work Week, US Holidays 8hrs/day” by selecting the bars and dragging and dropping the desired calendar to the selected activities. Notice that the column now displays the new calendar for the Design and Engineering activities.

Asta Powerproject has numerous additional ease-of-use features to help you efficiently setup and maintain your project plan including “Multi Undo & Redo”, Suspend and Split Tasks, Multiple Links between Tasks, Resource Histograms, Critical Chain Project Management.

These topics will be covered in future blogs so stay-tuned! Click here to get a free trial of Asta and see how easy it is to use.