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The Score Window

The score window is where the results of the schedule analysis are displayed. The two main parts of the window are the Score Window Toolbar and the Results Area.

The Score Window Toolbar

The score Window has its own toolbar, which looks like this:

 

Each button's function is explained in the following table:

Close	Close the Score Window.
Return	Return to Microsoft Project, but leave the Score Window displayed.
Score	Analyze and score the project schedule.
Edit	Edit the active criteria set.
Export	Export the results to a CSV file (for import by Microsoft Excel, databases, etc.)
Export to PowerPoint	Export the results to Microsoft PowerPoint.

The Results Area

The Results Area in the Score Window is where the scores are displayed. Each criteria is scored, and the results are displayed in a horizontal Score Strip, like this one:

 
There are seven elements in each Score Strip:

Indicator	This will be an "led" colored green, yellow, red or gray, based on where the score falls in the scale.
Criteria Name	This is (obviously) the name of the criteria. You can give criteria whatever name you wish, including the criteria in the SPA Criteria Library.
Filter Link	A criteria score may highlight tasks that need attention. The tasks that do not meet the criteria are tracked by SPA, and you can quickly view them with these filter links. Click on the links, and SPA will create a filter (by using the marked task column) and apply the filter in Microsoft Project.
Information Tooltip	Each criteria may have descriptive information explaining why it is useful for analysis purposes. Move the cursor over the information tooltip and let it stay there for a second or two, and this information will pop up in a "bubble." Click on the tooltip icon, and the information will pop up in a window.
Edit Button	Clicking on the Edit Button (pencil image) will load the Editor window, with the current criteria already loaded.
Percent Score	This is the score that SPA calculated, rounded to the nearest percent.
Scale	This is the graphical display of the score for this criteria. The black triangle shows where the actual score is on the scale, and the green, yellow, and red segments of the scale are based on the threshholds set in the Edit window.

The Edit Window

The Edit Window allows you to edit the active criteria set. There are seven elements in the Edit window:

 

Edit Window Toolbar	The Edit Window toolbar contains the buttons that allow you to save changes, close the window, move criteria up and down the list, etc.
Criteria List	The criteria list displays a list of the criteria that have been loaded into the active criteria set. Selecting an individual criteria by clicking on its name in the criteria list.
Criteria Name	You can name the criteria whatever name you choose.
Scoring Tab	There are two methods for scoring, and the scoring area allows you to select which method to use, as well as the specific filter or library criteria to use.
Grading Tab	You use the Grading Area to specify which side of the scale (lower, higher, or ideal value) is "better."
Threshhold Area	The threshhold area is used for setting the values that constitute green, yellow, and red indicators in the score strip.
Description	Used to enter or change a description of the criteria.
Prerequisite Criteria	This section forces conditions within other criteria situations to be true before considering the score of this criteria valid. You may assign one or more prerequisite criteria to this criteria.

The Scoring Tab

The Scoring Tab allows for either a filter within Microsoft Project or a custom built library to be selected as the source for scoring the tasks within the Project. The two radio buttons allow you to make specify the source. When the Project Filter is select, Steelray Project Analyzer will automatically query Microsoft Project for its available filters. This list will be displayed when you click the filter link. If only one filter is selected, a count of all the tasks that match the filter will become the final score. If two filters are selected, the top filter's count becomes the numerator and the bottom filter's count becomes the denominator. The score is then the ratio of the two numbers represented as a percentage.

 

The Grading Tab

 

 

The grading tab presents a number of options related to how the scores are graded. The first group of options called Scale determine how the numbers relate to the colors. In most situations, green is considered positive or acceptable, yellow is acceptable but requires attention and red is negative or unacceptable.

• No Grade - Indicates that no color is assigned to this criteria. This is useful in a situation where the score is simply informational and does not have an impact on the schedule.
• Higher is Better - Indicates that a higher score is better. The bar is drawn from red to yellow to green in a three color situation. Red to green in a two color situation. The higher the score, the further into the green and the better the score.
• Lower is Better - Indicates that a lower score is better. The bar is drawn from green to yellow to red in a three color situation and green to red in a two color situation. The lower the score, the further into the green and the better the score.
• Ideal Value is Best - Indicates that a value in the middle is better. The green bar is drawn in the center based on the value and the yellow and red values extend to the right and left. The closer the score is to the ideal value the better score. The further away in either direction, the worse the score. In a simple case where 50 is the ideal value, 50 is a perfect score. Scores of 75 and 25 are equally bad with this scale.
• Yes or No - Simply red or green. A score of greater than 0 is considered green.

Indicators

Indicators will tell the scoring module if two or three colors should be used when displaying the scale on the score card. This is applicable to all grading types except for the No Grade, which displays no color and the Yes or No scale which displays red or green only.

 

Thresholds

Thresholds tie score values together with colors on the scorecard. As options are selected, the way the color bars are drawn will change. In the sample above, the 3 color, lower is better scale is shown. The thresholds are 25 and 75. This indicates that the green begins at 0 and runs to 25. The red begins at 75 and runs to 100. In the 3 color configuration, this means that the yellow area is between 25 and 75. In a two color situation, there would be a single value to demark where green ends and red begins.

 

Prerequisites

 

Prerequisites

The prerequisites are a list of criteria that must obtain a certain score before the main scoring calculation can be considered valid. For example (shown above), the score for Out of Sequence Tasks may not be considered valid if Tasks that Should've Started (But Haven't) does not receive a green grade. All prerequisites must be satisfied before the score is considered valid.

To create a prerequisite, simply click on a new row on the far left. This will create a new row. Select fields for each of the three drop down lists. The left side is a criteria item, the middle drop down is an operator and the right side is the score.

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Changing Criteria

Everyone won't agree on how a project schedule should be graded. The power in SPA lies in being able to customize the criteria to suit the needs of your organization.
 
You can change the active criteria set in the Edit window. There are two ways to launch the Edit window:

1. Click on the edit icon (the pencil) on the Score Window toolbar. This will launch the Edit Window, but it won't load a specific criterion.
2. Click on the Edit button in the score strip. This will load the criteria in the Editor Window.

Deleting Existing Criteria

Deleting a criteria is a two step process:

1. Click on a criterion in the criteria list so it is loaded in the Edit Window.
2. Click on the Delete button below the criteria list.

Editing Existing Criteria

To edit an existing criterion, click on the criteria name in the criteria list. Then, edit the criteria as explained in the sections that follow.

Adding New Criteria

To add a new criteria to the active criteria set, click on the Add button below the criteria list. Then, edit the criteria as explained in the sections that follow. 

Copying Existing Criteria

You can add a new criterion that is based off of an existing criterion. To do this, click on a critrion name in the criteria list. Then, click on the Copy button on the Editr Window toolbar.

Setting Up Prerequisite Criteria

To add a new prerequisite criteria item, simply double click on an empty cell. Each cell will contain a drop down list to select values. To remove an existing prerequisite, single click on the row to delete and hit the Delete key.

Criteria Values Explained

Criteria Name
The criteria name can be anything you want it to be. This appears in the criteria list (on the left), in the Score window, in reports, and in exported files. It does not have to be the same value as the filter name or the name of the criteria in the library, although it can be.
 
Scoring
The Scoring area is used to specify the formula used to calculate a score for the criterion. There are two types of scoring supported by SPA: scoring by filter and scoring by library. Each method is described in greater detail in the sections below, but before those methods are presented, the Grading and Description sections will be explained.
 
Grading
SPA supports three types of grading: Higher is better, Lower is better, and Ideal scoring:

Higher is Better	The closer to 100%, the better the score. You may specify threshold percentages where the score will be yellow and red.   Example Suppose you want to make sure that all non-Milestone non-Summary tasks have resources assigned. Ideally, 100% of these tasks would have at least one resource assigned. You decide that under 95%, the score is yellow, and underneath 85%, the score is red.   Green is automatically 100%, so you would specify these two values for yellow and red: Yellow: 95 Red: 85
Lower is better	The closer to 0%, the better the score. You may specify threshold percentages where the score will be yellow and red.   Example Suppose you want to make sure that there are no Summary tasks that have resources assigned. Ideally, no Summary tasks would have a resource assigned. You decide that above 1%, the score is yellow, and above 3%, the score is red.   Green is automatically 0%, so you would specify these two values for yellow and red: Yellow: 1 Red: 3
Ideal Scoring	Use Ideal scoring when there is a "perfect" value. For example, if you think that exactly 10% of a project's tasks should be summary tasks, and values higher or lower than 10% are not as good, use Ideal scoring.   In ideal scoring, you specify three values: Green: this is the ideal (perfect) value. Yellow: this specifies the maximum distance from the ideal value that a score can be to remain green. Red: this specifies the additional distance from the yellow threshold that a score can be to remain yellow.   Example An example makes ideal scoring easier to understand. Suppose we choose 10% as the perfect value for summary tasks. We decide that if a score varies more than 3 percentage points from 10 (e.g. less than 7 or more than 13), we want the grade to be yellow. If it varies more than 5 percentage points from the yellow (less than 2 or more than 18), we want the grade to be red.   Our three values would be:     Green: 10 (ideal value)     Yellow: 3 (maximum distance from 10 that it can remain green)     Red: 5 (maximum distance from the yellow/green border that it can remain yellow)   Values less than 2 will be red. Values 2 through 7 will be yellow. Values 7 through 13 will be green (3 in each direction from 10). Values 13 through 18 will be yellow. Values 18 and higher will be red.

 
Description
The description is text that describes the rationale behind the criteria. You can add anything you wish to this section. Whatever text you provide in the text box will show up in the Description tooltip on the score strip for this criteria.

 
Prerequisite Criteria
Prerequisite criteria is configured to validate or invalidate the score of another criteria item. For example, the criteria Incomplete Critical Tasks may not be useful or valid if the criteria Incomplete Tasks is red. In this case, a prerequisite criteria item would be set in the Incomplete Critical Tasks criteria.

The Two Types of Criteria: Library and Filters

There are two type of criteria: library criteria and filter criteria. Library criteria are "prepackaged" criteria that have already been created. Filter criteria are built from filters in Microsoft Project.

The differences between the two are summarized in this table:

	Library Criteria	Filter Criteria
Calculation	The criteria's programming code is called, and a score is calculated by the code.	Two filters are applied in Microsoft Project, and SPA calculates by counting the number of tasks that match each filter.
Formula	The formula is unique in each criteria. Formulas are published in the SPA Criteria Library Reference.	The count of the first filter is divided by the count of the second filter.
How to Develop	Library criteria may be written in C#, C++, or VB.NET. See the SPA Criteria Developer API Reference for more information.	Compose filters in Microsoft Project, and reference those filters from the Criteria Edit Window.
Included With SPA	The 24 criteria that are included with SPA are all library criteria.	No filter criteria are included with SPA.
How to Deploy	Once you've developed a DLL, Add it to the SPA Plugins folder (where SPA was installed).	Copy the filter to the Microsoft Project global.mpt file used by the SPA users.
Flexibility	There is almost unlimited flexibility in what can be calculated. The entire Microsoft Project VBA library and .NET programming framework is accessible.	Only criteria that can be expressed in Microsoft Project filters can be used in calculations.
Restrictions	Software development experience is required.	A basic knowledge of composing filters in Microsoft Project is necessary. No software development is required.

Scoring With the Criteria Library

Using a library criterion is an easy process:

1. In the Scoring area, select "Criteria Library."
2. Select a criterion from the list of criteria in the library.
3. If the criterion has adjustable settings, click on the Settings button and make any adjustments.

Scoring with Filters

If you wish to create your own criteria without using a programming language, you can do so with filter-based criteria. The process is best illustrated with an example.

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