Earliest/Latest Date Calculations

Normally MinuteManPlus calculates all dates on a "do it as soon as possible" basis. Each tasks' start date is set to the finish date of its last-completed predecessor. This is called the "As Soon As Possible" or "ASAP" method.
However, in some cases you may want to have one or more tasks actually occur As late As Possible or "ALAP", to defer expenses or labor.

MinutemanPlus supports ASAP and ALAP methodologies, selectable on a per-task basis . By selecting the menu entries for Options and Overall and Select ASAP/ALAP the Data area of the screen will be changed to look as follows;

Note that the area formerly used to display Links and Costs has been replaced with a drop-down-list and the EXECUTE, Help ("?") , and Close ("X") buttons. The Links and Costs can still be accessed via the related Toolbar buttons. Operation of these new features is as follows;

• "X" reverts to the mode of displaying the Links and Costs.
• "?" Displays a very brief summary of this operation
• "Execute" is used to activate choices selected in the drop-down-list
• The drop-down-list choices are;
• "New Tasks are ASAP" means whenever you enter a new task it will be treated as an ASAP task
• "New Tasks are ALAP" means whenever you enter a new task it will be treated as an ALAP task
• "Set All Tasks to ASAP" will convert all existing ALAP tasks to ASAP when Execute is clicked.
• "Make Selected Task ASAP" - Highlight an ALAP task, click "Execute", and the task will be converted to ALAP.
• "Make Selected Task ALAP" - Highlight an ASAP task, click "Execute", and the task will be converted to ASAP.

Note that the label "Start" for any ALAP task is modified to "Late Start", to allow it to be distinguished from SAP tasks. Here are a couple notes on how ASAP/ALAP timings are calculated; All calculations are done in a two-pass mode; The entire project is first calculated with each task as ASAP (including the Critical Path identification). Then any tasks identified as "ALAP" are delayed as much as possible without delaying any ASAP tasks, and without changing the Critical Path. This dual calculation is transparent to you - all you see is the end result.

Note this means that if there is a conflict between tasks such as an ALAP task being the only predecessor to an ASAP task, the ASAP task "wins" and stays where it is, whether on the critical path originally or not.