NetPoint User Guide

Getting Started

Welcome to the NetPoint® 4 user guide. NetPoint is powerful and easy-to-use graphical scheduling application. Basic operation of the software can be mastered quickly, but beneath the apparent simplicity are numerous advanced tools and features. To ensure that this functionality is well understood, and that the full capabilities of NetPoint are realized, we encourage you to use this guide as a reference, to browse through the other online resources, and to consider signing up for the NetPoint training program. For more information about NetPoint training, please visit our services section.

Setting up a Schedule

Before building a schedule and drawing activities, it may be helpful to configure the plan accordingly. Depending on whether or not you’re starting with a blank canvas or importing activities from another application, the page size, time unit, and project dates should all be optimized beforehand. Once set, they can be returned to at any time during planning.

Building a Schedule

In NetPoint, a schedule is created by drawing or placing objects—such as activities, milestones, and benchmarks—on a time-scaled calendar called the canvas. Each object represents a real-world task or event. These objects can be related to one another by placing logic ties between them, which are represented by links.

Objects are scheduled wherever they are placed on the canvas, which can be anywhere within their total float range (at the time). When an activity is first added to the plan, it may be positioned on the early dates that a CPM forward pass would yield. However, once linked to predecessors and successors, stakeholders can re-position the activity to achieve a more desirable scenario. This is because GPM permits activities to be scheduled on an “as-planned” basis. This flexibility allows for a more realistic schedule.

Optimizing a Schedule

Once a schedule has been built, a number of steps may be taken to further optimize and analyze the network. Descriptions and IDs may need repositioning to minimize clashing, dates and durations may need adjusting in order to level resources, or the schedule may be analyzed for integrity, risk, or other factors. NetPoint provides a number of tools to facilitate these processes.

Updating a Schedule

Once a schedule has been created, it may be updated to track and monitor progress. In NetPoint, entering actual dates and durations (also known as “statusing”) is done just like drawing activities or leveling resources—graphically on the canvas. The entire process involves setting a data date, storing a target, statusing activities, and then actualizing statused activities. An update is complete once all activities left of the data date have been actualized.

Unique to NetPoint is the ability to calculate float attributes forensically. As the schedule is revised right of the data date, drifts, floats, and total floats continue to refresh for actualized activities left of the data date, reflecting any re-planning of the network.

Tip: To maintain a record of date-specific as-built forensic float attributes, save each update individually. Also, the user may choose to further secure the data. See Setting a Password.