ASTA DEVELOPMENT PLC

MACRO USER GUIDE

FOR

Progress Transfer

And Progress Toolkit

Author Andy Lote

Last Revised 06 Nov 2007

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Document Overview

The purpose of this document is to provide a basic guide to installing and using the
macro for customers and their IT staff.

Table of Contents

Document Overview....................................................................................................................................... 2
Table of Contents ...................................................................................................................... 2
Macro Overview ........................................................................................................................ 3
Progress Transfer Description ........................................................................................................................ 3
Progress Accessory Tools............................................................................................................................... 5
Remove All Progress................................................................................................................... 5
Remove Selected Progress........................................................................................................... 5
Unmerge Progress ....................................................................................................................... 6
Show Progress Detail .................................................................................................................. 6
Installing the ProgressTransfer.VBA file ....................................................................................................... 6
Adding a Shortcut ........................................................................................................................................... 7
Understanding Messages and Errors........................................................................................ 7
Messages and the Option Buttons ................................................................................................ 8

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 Macro Overview

The ProgressTransfer.VBA file contains the main Progress Transfer macro and some
accessories that make use of the main macros functionality. The accessories are not
required to use progress transfer. They were only included as they may be useful for
some users.

Progress Transfer Description

This macro will transfer Overall% Complete progress values from one project to another.

This allows a project to be updated with Actual Dates (referred to as As-Built Progress), but the
progress values transferred to another project to show only the “jagged-line” values (referred to
as Progress Record).

The Intended Purpose is to show the true progress on the Contract copy of the project and the
percent completes on a Client copy . This is useful where a jagged view is considered preferable
to customers or were padded durations are used on the client programme. Note the Client
programme need never be rescheduled unless desired.

From this: Contract programme To this Client programme

Before running the macro you need to create a copy of the project or a baseline to transfer
progress to. Typically this will be the initial contract baseline. If you have merged progress into
your baseline it can be removed from a copy with the remove all progress utility.

Open the project to transfer

progress from.
Run progress transfer.

You will be greeted by the Welcome

Screen which confirms which macro
is running and what it will do.

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Choose the project to transfer
progress to.

The ‘next’ option will not become

available until a destination project
has been chosen.

This stage may take some time as

the destination project is loaded
and analysed here. You may also be
asked to provide a project
password.

If your destination project is a copy

or baseline of the source project
then use internal task id.

Unique ID is for advanced users

who wish to link dissimilar projects.

If the UniqueId option is not

available then the reason why will
be displayed underneath.

You may transfer any combination

of progress periods you desire but
typically people just send the most
recently applied period. Any periods
which have been previously
transferred will be removed and
recreated if they are sent again.

A summary of how well the projects

are matched is displayed to aid in
ensuring that you have the
expected project.

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The progress log contains a great
deal of detail most of which is only
useful when problem solving. It can
be saved and sent to Asta support
in the event of tricky problems.

When the macro is complete the

Word finished will appear in the
bottom left corner.

Progress Accessory Tools

Remove All Progress.

As the name suggests this is a very dangerous macro that will remove all progress
from a project or a baseline opened as a project. Its most obvious use with progress
transfer is cleaning the progress of a newly created baseline which you would like to
use to show a jagged line programme.

Remove Selected Progress.

Allows you to remove all the progress allocated to a particular progress Period from
the project or view. This is different from deleting the progress period in the project
library which would simply reallocate all progress from the deleted period to the
default period.
The most common use for this accessory is removing out of sequence progress or
after an error in automated progress application.

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Unmerge Progress

If progress has been applied with the option to ‘merge completed sections’ turned
on. There is no way of editing the records that make up the completed section. This
accessory rebuilds the projects progress as if it had been created with ‘merge
completed sections’ turned off.

Show Progress Detail

To use this accessory select a task with progress on it and click the shortcut to
receive a detailed description of the progress applied to the selected task. This is
most useful where you have run out of distinctive colours for your progress periods
or are attempting to correct out of sequence progress.

Adding a toolbar shortcut is highly recommended if using this accessory.

Selecting a completed section (the part of the task with a progress line above it)
Will return just that sections detail. Selecting an un-progressed part of the task will
return all progressed sections for the task.
Using the mouse or the arrow keys to change between details will update the details
at the base of the dialogue including the colour swatch.

Installing the ProgressTransfer.VBA file

With Asta Powerproject closed. Use My Computer or Explorer to navigate to the

Addins folder. By default this is ‘C:\Program Files\Asta\Asta Powerproject\AddIns’ .
Copy the ProgressTransfer.vba file to the addins directory.

The macro is now ready to run from the menu, Tool > macros > macro. But you may
wish to add one or more shortcuts as described below.

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Adding a Shortcut

Open Asta Power Project and right click on a free area of the menu bar.
Select customize from the popup list that appears.

The customise dialog has two tabs, Toolbars and

commands. Select the commands tab as shown >>

Scroll down the list until you find Macros.

Double click on Macros to expand the list. This will display
the names and public functions of all the macros you have
available.

Choose Coins mod_ProgressTransfer.TransferProgress for

the main macro or choose one of the accessories.
Press and hold the left mouse button then drag the selected item to where you
would like the shortcut to appear on the menu bar.
A vertical ‘I’ bar will appear when the mouse is over a free location.
When you release the mouse button a small icon will appear.
If it does not, then try again until you find an acceptable spot.

You can set the appearance of the shortcut to meet your needs
By default the Display As box has ‘image only’ selected. You can change this to
‘Text Only’ or ‘Image and Text’.
Both the image and the text can be edited form this dialog.

Understanding Messages and Errors

In most macros, errors will be

brought to your attention via
message boxes. But not all
messages are errors. It is all too
easy to just read the main message
and miss much of the information
given to you in a message box.

Title
Firstly the title should give you an indication of the type of message you are dealing
with. Is it about the data entered or a user error ? These can normally be resolved

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 by the user. If on the other hand the title is ‘Unexpected error’ or ‘Program error’ it
may be time to call for help.

Icon
The Icon will give you a further contextual clue to the severity of the situation and
may imply things which are not explicitly stated but help you understand what
happens after you close the message. The exact graphics used may vary with each
windows operating system.

Message Box Icons

Question The program wishes you to make a decision.

Information The program is informing you of a fact.

Used with warnings and non critical errors. These may also
Caution ask you to make a decision.

Critical An error which will stop or close the program.

This is also the default icon if no other has been specified.

Messages and the Option Buttons

If there are more then one option buttons available you are being asked a question
regardless of any other information on the screen. In a well designed message this
should be obvious, unfortunately this not always the case. Part of the reason for this
is that there is only a limited list of buttons available to a standard message and
these may not always be appropriate. So take your time reading the message and
ask yourself how the buttons relate to whats written above them.

Pay particular attention to any specific pieces of information such as object names
or error numbers which appear in the message and consider writing them down
before closing the dialog. These bits of information are often of vital importance in
fixing the problem and will save you having to recreate the error which may take
considerable time on large runs.
If writing things down is too much trouble, consider holding down the Alt key and
pressing the print screen button on your keyboard. This will temporarily place a
picture of the active dialog into the windows clipboard which can then be pasted into
a word document.

The dotted focus line (default line) around one of the buttons indicates the initial
default choice. This is also triggered if you hit SPACE or ENTER rather than using the
mouse, or if you close the dialog using close box. You can change which button has
the focus by using the tab and arrow keys.

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