A user is asking whether it is possible to create an EPC column display where the week numbers are the columns. They want to show in which week each activity takes place.
Is it possible to do this?
[I changed the subject and body of this post to make it more clear.]
Almost anything is possible, whether or not it is a good idea is another thing.
The EPC column models allow the columns to represent organizational elements or Application System Types. There is no "official" representation of "weeks". If you only wish to create a graphic representation without creating relationships in the database then you can create graphical elements using the drawing tool and put them at the top of the column and place objects under them. Just be aware that these are only graphics and will cause other features not to work so well on these diagrams (i.e., don't try the automatic layout, results will not be good).
If you want to have actual relationships you may want to look at the attribtue-based modeling feature that was introduced in 7.1. I haven't had much of a chance to use it but the premise is that objects are placed across a timeline (think project plan) based on the value of attributes of the object (start date and duration). I'm not sure if this comes in an EPC style of diagram. You can check attribute-based modeling in the help or perhaps someone who has used this feature more will chime in here.
The last alternative would be to recast one of the organizational elements as weeks. Either make use of an object you don't intend to use or assign a new symbol to an object and use that. This will provide the benefit of creating relationships between the objects. Again, use caution any time you are using objects for other than the intended purpose. You should have a good working knowledge of the meta model before trying this, or get the help of someone who does.
Mark,
As Rick mentioned attribute-based modeling (ABM) is an option and IMHO the best one in this case. Among EPC model types it can be used only with EPC row display but actually it does what you are looking for as all week borders (if proper scale is used) cross all rows. There are three nice things about attribute based modeling:
1. The position and dimension attribute value based placing and extending of time dependant objects which work both ways - changing the value changes the horizontal dimension of the object symbol and its placement and when changing those manually, the attribute value(s) is updated.
2. You can choose among all standard time based attributes which will apply for ABM . I just can't remember if user defined ones could be used as I did only with the standard ones so far.
3. You can choose for which symbols ABM will be applied so one and the same object can have two occurrences with different symbols and only one of them could be "ABM-driven".
ABM can be used in three other model types as well.
Regards
Ivo