Activity Usage Spreadsheet

What a planner means

Activity Usage Spreadsheet is a view. Oracle: it "displays activity data in a spreadsheet format." "View baseline, budgeted or planned, actual, remaining, and at completion values or review information such as earned value cost, actual labor and nonlabor units, and remaining total cost for the activities in your project." It is not the Resource Usage Spreadsheet, not typed future-period buckets (Future Period Buckets Are Typed Assignment Units, Not a Curve), not a 21-point resource curve (Resource Curves (Not MSP Work Contours)), not Store Period Performance (Store Period Performance Posts This Period, Then Zeros It), not FINDATES (Financial Periods Are Named Buckets, Not the Data Date), and not Activity Network (Activity Network).

Professional — Activities window active: View > Show on Top or Show on Bottom > Activity Usage Spreadsheet, or Layout Options bar > Show on Top or Show on Bottom, Activity Usage Spreadsheet, or the Top Layout / Bottom Layout toolbar. Top Layout toolbar: "Shows or hides the Activity Usage Spreadsheet in the top layout" (not displayed by default; corresponding menu: View > Show on Top > Activity Usage Spreadsheet). Enabled when the active window is Activities. Bottom Layout toolbar: "Shows or hides the Activity Usage Spreadsheet in the bottom layout" (Activities; View > Show on Bottom > Activity Usage Spreadsheet).

Oracle: "The Activity Usage Spreadsheet is split into two panes. The left pane displays the Activity Table, including all the columns, grouping, sorting, and filtering options defined for the Activity Table. The right pane displays timescaled spreadsheet data for each activity; you can specify the data fields you want to include."

Use it to "Quickly analyze activity data"; "Filter activities"; "Group and sort activity data."

Oracle: "You cannot change the data in the Activity Usage Spreadsheet." "Multiple resource rates are not reflected in the Activity Usage Spreadsheet."

That is the split from Resource Usage Spreadsheet. Oracle on Resource Usage Spreadsheet: "If you have the appropriate security privilege, you can manually enter values for budgeted or planned and remaining (early) units in the spreadsheet" and "Manually plan future resource distribution." Future-period buckets are typed there, not here. See Future Period Buckets Are Typed Assignment Units, Not a Curve.

Oracle: you can "compare the planned future period resource distribution to actual units and costs in the Resource Usage Profile, Resource Usage Spreadsheet, Activity Usage Profile, Activity Usage Spreadsheet, time-distributed reports, and the Tracking window."

Spreadsheet fields (right pane) — right-click in the spreadsheet, then choose Spreadsheet Fields. "You must select at least one field to display in the spreadsheet." Default restores the default fields. Oracle also: in the right pane of the bottom layout, Display Options bar > Spreadsheet Fields, Customize.

Left-pane columns — View > Columns. "You can customize the columns that display in the left pane of the Activity Usage Spreadsheet." "You must select at least one column to display in the spreadsheet." Default restores the default columns.

Oracle printed these right-pane examples: baseline, budgeted or planned, actual, remaining, at completion; earned value cost; actual labor and nonlabor units; remaining total cost. Past period actual fields sit in the Financial Period Value section for both Cumulative and Time Interval. Oracle did not print a full field catalog on the pages fetched. Do not invent one.

Past period actuals — Oracle: "You can display past period actual values in the Activity Usage Spreadsheet." "You can view past period actual data spread by financial period in the Resource Usage Spreadsheet and Activity Usage Spreadsheet." Financial Periods page: "Past period actual spreads per financial period can be viewed in the Activity Usage Spreadsheet and Resource Usage Spreadsheet." "You cannot edit past period actual data in spreadsheets. You can edit past period actuals in columns of the Activity Table, Resource Assignments window, and the Activity Details, Resources tab." If Financial Period Value is missing, set the range on User Preferences, Application tab.

Oracle: "When displaying Financial Period Value fields, past period actuals stored per financial period are distributed evenly, within each financial period, from the financial period start date to the financial period end date and earned value calculations are based on these stored period quantities. For all other columns, actuals are spread evenly from the actual start to the data date or actual finish date of the activity or assignment."

Timescale — Oracle: "You can change the timescale for a Gantt Chart, profile, or spreadsheet." Layout Options bar > Timescale. Two Lines or Three Lines; Timescale Start; Font & Color; primary dates or ordinal dates. For a financial-period timescale with past period actuals: Type Calendar or Fiscal; Date Interval Year/Financial Period, Quarter/Financial Period, Month/Financial Period, or Week/Financial Period; pick the Financial Period Calendar. "You can display a financial period timescale at any time, even if you do not store past period actuals." When top and bottom both show a timescaled layout, changing the timescale (or zooming) affects both windows. Zoom in/out applies to a "timescaled layout (Gantt Chart, spreadsheet, or profile)."

Financial-period timescale + all projects — Oracle: "When you display a financial period timescale and display data for all projects (rather than for open projects only), activity and resource data must be summarized by financial period to accurately display data for closed projects." Professional database: Admin, Admin Preferences, Options tab, 'By financial periods'. EPPM database (Professional connected to EPPM): Application Settings, General link in P6, same checkbox.

This is not Activity Usage Profile (Show on Bottom histogram: "Costs and units allocated to activities for each period in the timescale are represented as vertical bars"). The profile "displays resource allocations for all activities or for the activities you select in the Activity Table, Activity Usage Spreadsheet, Gantt Chart, or the Activity Network."

The Professional pages fetched do not print an EPPM web Activity Usage Spreadsheet. The "When connected to a P6 EPPM database" sentences are Professional connected to EPPM (where the By financial periods checkbox lives). Do not invent a web view.

XER

The view is a layout (Professional top or bottom layout). Oracle's project XER data map TOC lists no ACTIVITYUSAGE, ACTUSAGE, USAGE, SPREADSHEET, or LAYOUT table. Do not invent one. Spreadsheet field choices, timescale, and Show on Top / Bottom are not columns on the cited TASK or TASKRSRC maps. Oracle did not name an XER table or column for this view.

What you can display in the right pane is not a dedicated usage-spreadsheet table:

• Typed future-period buckets: no dedicated table. See Future Period Buckets Are Typed Assignment Units, Not a Curve.
• Named curves: RSRCCURV / TASKRSRC.curv_id. See Resource Curves (Not MSP Work Contours).
• Stored past-period actuals: TASKFIN / TRSRCFIN. See Store Period Performance Posts This Period, Then Zeros It.
• Named financial-period calendar: FINDATES. See Financial Periods Are Named Buckets, Not the Data Date.

A Viewer parse of one XER cannot reconstruct whether the planner had Show on Top or Show on Bottom set to Activity Usage Spreadsheet, which spreadsheet fields were selected, or the last timescale.

Microsoft Project

Desktop Project has Task Usage. Microsoft: "Review, enter, and edit assignments by task." "In the sheet portion of the Task Usage view, each task is listed with the assigned resources indented beneath it. In the timesheet portion of the view, information such as work or costs for the task and the assignment is listed according to the timescale, for example, by day or by week." View > Task Usage. Usage views "list task or resource data in rows and columns on the leftmost side of the view, and show timephased data across rows and columns on the rightmost side of the view."

Microsoft also: you can enter timephased Act. Work in the right pane of Task Usage (Format > Details > Actual Work). Default timescale is days; you can change it to weekly or monthly.

Closer to a timescaled activity/assignment grid than to Activity Usage Profile (histogram). They are not the same object. Oracle's Activity Usage Spreadsheet is read-only ("You cannot change the data"). Microsoft's Task Usage is for review, enter, and edit.

Do not map Task Usage as the same command as Activity Usage Spreadsheet. Do not claim MPXJ can write a real MPP.

Don't

• Treat Activity Usage Spreadsheet as Resource Usage Spreadsheet, or as the place you type future-period buckets.
• Treat it as a 21-point RSRCCURV, as FINDATES, as TASKFIN / TRSRCFIN, or as Activity Network.
• Treat it as Activity Usage Profile (bars/curves, Show on Bottom).
• Invent an ACTIVITYUSAGE / ACTUSAGE / USAGE / SPREADSHEET / LAYOUT XER table.
• Invent a full spreadsheet-field catalog Oracle did not print.
• Claim you can edit cells in this view (Oracle: you cannot change the data).
• Copy Resource Usage Spreadsheet edit / gray-cell / Open Projects Only / Range Paste / Excel paste rules onto this view.
• Invent an EPPM web Activity Usage Spreadsheet from the Professional-connected-to-EPPM admin sentence.
• Map this object to MSP Task Usage and call them the same.
• Claim MPXJ writes a real MPP.
• Claim a Viewer reconstructed the planner's last Activity Usage Spreadsheet fields or timescale from an XER.