In data field design, the activity number which is assigned to each data field refers to the activities that you are planning to schedule. Each data field is assigned either to one of the activity numbers or to none of the activities (activity zero). You do not need to set up activities until you are ready to set up for scheduling, however activities are assigned from within data field design.

For example, in an open cut coal operation if you intend to schedule overburden drilling, overburden removal and coal mining, then each of these items would be assigned as activities. They are each given a number, according to the order in which they are most likely to occur.

In a bord and pillar underground coal mine you may require activities for development and pillar extraction. Since the development occurs before the pillar extraction, development would be assigned as activity 1 and pillar extraction as activity 2.

For some deposits there is no logical order for the activities, and in these cases the activity order is not important. For example, in a database for an open cut metalliferous deposit, the activities may be defined as waste mining and ore mining. The order of these activities is not always the same and depends on the geology in each block in the deposit, hence the numerical order of the activities is not considered important.

Setting up activities

To set up activities for your project, select Edit > Productive Activities from the application menu. This can be done from any database in your project or from schedule setup. Click here for further information on setting up activities.

Assigning activities

Use the drop down list in the activity column to assign an activity to each of your data fields. XPAC will display, in the list, all the activities that have been defined.