relationship

[Former Member]

Dear all

Can anyone tell me about relatuonship in project system, which relationship we have to use for the linking the activity

[Former Member]

ok

[Former Member]

In order to understand the relationship functionality you must first understand critical path method (CPM) scheduling. You create activities and then create your schedule by adding durations and relationships. The system then does a forward and backward pass to calculate dates and float.

As far as entering relationships within PS go to the network header then click on activity overview --> choose an activity you would want to add a relationship to and then click the relationship overview icon (chain links) enter the activity you are creating the relationship to and the relationship type

That is all there is to it. You must have an understanding of CPM scheduling for this to make sense.

I have a short document on CPM scheduling if you are interested.

[Former Member]

Hi Srinivasan,

As pointed out by Sudhakar, the relationships will help in Network scheduling. “<u>Network</u>” as such means that the activities are bound in a relationship and have durations. There are basically four types of relationships i.e FS ( Finish to Start ), FF ( Finish to Finish ), SF ( Start to finish ) and SS ( Start to Start ).

Finish to Start indicates that the Finish on one activity will start the subsequent activity. You can as well specify the Offset to start.

One of the methods to give relationship to the activities in Network graphic. Open the Project and select the network header or any one activity. Now select the network graphic button. Ones you are in the graphic screen, you can choose “Connect” Button and draw a line between the two activities. Depending upon from which side of one “activity box” you connect to another “Activity”, you will get relationships i.e. FS, FF, SF and SS. Double click on the link to open up a pop up , where in you can give offsets to the activities if required.

Other ways to connect the activities is in Project planning board

The recommended way to connect the activities is <u>Finish to Start relationship</u>. Suppose if Finish of activity 1 starts the activity 2, then you can give a simple logic as FS between activity 1 and Activity 2. The same relationship can be given as SF between activity 2 and activity 1. Definitely you would agree that the FS relationship seems logical and easy to understand.

Once you give the relationships in the network graphic, and then choose the button “Adjust”. This button will adjust the graphical representation in the best possible way.

In network graphic there is a button “Rel”, relationship display, where you can choose to see the relationships as defined by you in two possible ways i.e. In FS relationship or time dependant relationship.

Hope this explanation helps you to understand the Relationship concept in PS.

Warm regards,

Srinivas Potluri

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[Former Member]

Hi Srinivasan,

In addition to inputs furnished by Srinivas to your query, would like to add few more points so that you can get better picture.

Apart from Relationships, we can also define "Intervals" to activities. For example, Activity B is predeccor to Activity A. Relationship between them is FS.

It means, B starts immediately after completion of A. But as a Project Manager you have different plans and starting of B is not necessary at that time. however, Activity B will start definity after completion of A. This type of situation will call for some sort of maintaining time gaps between them. but how, this can be addressed by maintaining "Intervals" between activities.

We can define time intervals either by % or by days - duration.

Hope this will address ur requirement and in case u need any specific information pl post in.

Enjoy SAP......

Regards

Sudhakar

[Former Member]

Hi Srinivas

Relationships are assigned chronological and sequential order to activities depending upon successor and predessor of each activity thereby network scheduling can be done. Besides, it would help users to find out the critical path also.

I am providing you the link to help and to better understand importance of activity relationships in a network. You would be best judge to decide which needs to and how it to select the relationships among activities.

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_47x200/helpdata/en/c0/1885347860ea35e10000009b38f83b/frameset.htm >>>> select Network Scheduling and also check for Network Relationships. It will certainly help you to overcome the problem.

Enjoy SAP.....

Regards

Sudhakar

PS: Pl reward points for solution.