CS Project

Using & Configuring Reports

Menu options:
View > Histogram > Edit Histogram Options

Configuration > Histogram Options

A histogram in CS Project is a graphic representation of costs or resource units. This can be shown as a profile which displays the exact cost/units per period. Alternatively it can be shown on a cumulative basis, where the values of successive periods are added to the total amount of the previous periods, i.e. the histogram starts at e.g. 0 at the project start and rises to its maximum at the project finish.

A histogram on a cumulative basis will show the total project cost or the total man hours planned at the end of the project.

Menu options: Right-click on the Histogram and select Chart Properties 

The grid allows you to set up a maximum a 255 simultaneous curves. Each curve can be individually customised.

Field: select the field to display. A field can be repeated for more than one curve.

Title: the text that will be displayed on the legend.

Display: a field can be displayed as a curve on the histogram and/or in the table underneath the histogram.

Style: choose between solid and line graphs.

Colour: the colour to be used for the graph.

Pattern: the pattern to be used for the graph can be selected from a list. If the style of the graph is solid, a fill pattern can be selected otherwise a line style can be set.

Format:the curve can either be periodic (sum the values for every period), cumulative (running total), average rate (apply to labour/other resource unit fields (Scheduled Units, Actual Units, etc.), and displays the number of people/machines used as opposed to total man/machine hours) or % of Total.

Res Filter:specifies the resources to be included when the histogram is calculated. You can choose between Total (all resource types), Activity (Only activity based Fixed Cost / Number values), 

Material, Labour, Other and Specific Resource options. The Activity Fixed Cost values will be aggregated only on the histogram of the Total resource. The Res Filter option will work best if a summary resource such as the Total Resource is selected.

Res ID: identify the resource for which the curve must be drawn if the Specific Resource option is selected in the Res Filter field. This feature is useful on the Total histogram to draw curves for multiple resources on the same histogram.

Filt. Tasks: if selected the curve will be calculated for the filtered activities in the Bar Chart view only (as opposed to all the activities).

Sel. tasks: if selected the curve will be calculated for the selected activities in the Bar Chart view only (as opposed to all the activities). Single or multiple activities can be selected.

Stacked: if selected the curve will be drawn from the previous stacked curve, instead of from the origin, i.e. the curves are stacked on top of each other.

Table Align: the alignment of the text in the table below the histogram can be set to Left, Centre or Right.

Table Format: the format of the text in the table below the histogram can be set between General and Fixed.

Dec Places: the number of decimal places used when the Fixed format is chosen.

The following options can also be set on the histogram.

Labour units as: this drop-down list allows you to select the units (hours, days, etc.) which are to be displayed on the scale of the histogram for all Labour resources. These units will also be used in the table of the Bar Chart.

Other units as: this drop-down list allows you to select the units (hours, days, etc.) which are to be displayed on the scale of the histogram for all other resources. These units will also be used in the table of the Bar Chart.

Calc. over all projects: if selected the histogram curves will be calculated from all the projects in memory.

To extend the use of the graphs within CS Project Professional, it is now possible to create user defined Activity Variables, and use these new fields in the Histogram.

User defined Activity Variables in Histogram Options:

Menu options: Right-click on the Histogram and select Chart Properties

Fonts:specify different fonts for the various areas of the chart.

Nonwork Shading:controls the display of non-work periods on the chart.
(None, Holidays - only periods marked as holiday in the calendar, Weekends - show weekends as well, All - show all non-work periods including shifts). 

The shading for the TOTAL resource is drawn according to the project calendar. The shading for specific resources are drawn according the relevant resource calendar.

Menu option: Reports / Histogram
Alternative: press the Print button on the toolbar when the Histogram view is active.

Printer – the printer can be selected from this drop-down list. This list displays all output devices currently registered in your system. To install additional devices, please consult your Windows documentation.

Properties – press this button to invoke the currently selected device’s setup dialog. The dialog that is displayed now is that of the current printer driver. For more help on setting up the current printer, consult its documentation or online help.

All/Pages/From/To – if All is selected, then all pages of the report will be printed. If Pages is selected, you must enter the page number to start printing from in the From field, as well as the page number to print to in the To field.

Copies – enter the number of copies you wish to print.

Print for resources – choose whether to print histograms for selected, displayed (i.e. filtered) or all resources.

Histograms/Page - control the number of histograms to be printed per page.

From/To - specify the date range of the histogram. If the From field is blank, the start date of the current project is used. Similarly if the To field is blank, the end date of the current project is used.

Legend - if selected, a legend will be drawn below each histogram.