Planning Workflow Utilities

To access this screen:

  • Activate the Planning ribbon and select Utilities.

The Utilities screen host general utility functions that support the Studio UG planning workflow. The following functional groups are available:

  • Join Activity Values to Points, Solids and Outlines: Associate existing geospatial attributes with activity points, volumes and outlines. See Join Activity Data.

    Note: You can also do this in a tabular way using the Report panel, but this method can help you visualize your attributes in their relation to processed schedule data.

  • Export Designs to Ventsim: Access the Ventsim Integration screen. This is used to export data in Ventsim's proprietary (.vsm) format.
  • Deplete Block Model: Set up rules for block model depletion and deplete the assigned model.
  • Project Settings: General information about the currently active planning project, including:

    • Type: Either Master or Standard, depending on whether the project has been converted to a master project or not. By default, projects are of the Standard type, meaning they contain isolated dependencies and data. Master projects are a container for one or more Standard projects that share the same planning workflow settings. See Planning Project Settings.

    • Last Updated: at the end of processing or updating dependencies, your project is stamped with a date and time. If nothing has yet been processed or updated, "N/A" will appear. This date can be used in a standard project, compared with the last imported date and time of that project in a master container project to see if a re-import of the sub project is necessary.

  • Convert to Master Project: only available if a Standard project is loaded, this will convert the current project to a master type, allow the project to reference sub-projects for inter-project dependency setting.

Dependencies in Master and Standard Projects

When you add a standard project to a master project, you need to consider how manual and automatic dependencies can be affected.

  • Manual dependencies may exist that are fully defined within the standard project. That is, they represent the relationship between two or more activities in standard project. These 'isolated manual dependencies' will be preserved if the standard project is added to a master project, as they only rely on data held within the standard project.

  • Manual dependencies between standard projects that are stored at the master project level (that is, they are configured whilst a master project is active) will not be preserved if any of the associated standard project are re-imported. In this situation, it is necessary to recreate the inter-project dependencies after re-importing.

  • Automated dependency rules are also imported with a standard project, but their impact may be different when run as part of a master project. For example, if a standard project automated dependency rule is spatial (i.e. a dependency is automatically configured due to the proximity of one activity point to another), that rule will be applied by a master project to affect activity points from any standard project. For example, if a 'create stope access drives' rule is set up to define (automatically) a finish-start relationship between terminal drive finger points and complex solid mineable stope shapes within 20 meters, this rule will be applied by the master project to consider all data of all standard projects, not just the standard project from which the rule was derived.

  • Similar to the above, if an automated rule relates to the type of design data within a sub-project (e.g. FXS Cubby positions must be applied every 30m down a decline), this rule will be applied to all data of all standard project after import.

To convert a standard project to a master project:

Warning: Converting a standard project to a master project will remove project settings and is not reversible. You should make a backup of your sub-project before converting it to a master project.

  1. Create a new template project containing the same dependency layers, spatial dependency rule sets and attribute dependency rule sets as you intend to set in the master project. This becomes the 'standard project template'.

  2. Use this template as a basis for all sub-projects you intend to (eventually) manage using a master project.

  3. Create a master project (by converting the standard project template).

  4. Import all sub-projects into the new master project.

  5. Generate a master schedule representing all standard projects.

Related Topics and Activities