(1) Explain your problem, don't simply post "This isn't working". What were you doing when you faced the problem? What have you tried to resolve - did you look for a solution using "Search" ? Has it happened just once or several times?
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Dear guys,
I am trying to undestrand how the remaining costs work in Ms Project 2003. In Primavera P6 you are able to do this in several editors and it is easy to obtain spreadsheet data for budgted/actual/remaining where
Remaining = Budgeted - Actual
In the resource usage spreadsheet (only material cost items have been assigned in the planning) are available only data for actual (effective cost) and budgeted if a baseline has been saved. But nothing to get a distribution of remaining costs by the user defined timescale even if the Remaining cost column is displayable.
Somebody knows how get the remaining costs distribution?
Thanks in advance.
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Hi Evengy,
you are right, in the first month for the task 1 only 200$ have been spent because, for example, I started to perform the activity at the ending of M1... so the remaining duration go ahead and the expected finish date has been postponed... the different amount of the whole M2 as budgeted (2500$) and the M2 as expected (3000$) could be due to the type of accrual/distribution (like gaussian, I don't know, that's an example). If the distribution was uniform in the M2 there was the same amount and only the amount in the 3rd month increase.
The meaning of what I want to highlight is the distribution of the units quantity in the time later on the data date. The reamaining units (money or man-hours) should be redistribuited on the timescale after the data date... the rule of 100% to obtain a progress S-curve is: Remaining = Budgeted - Actaul.
In my case I need not the real actual cost spent, I need not to verify if I spent well and/or in time or delay, simply I would like to have a redistribution of remaining units after the data date and these remaining units should the the budgeted less the actual units (100% rule).
I hope for the clear explanation.
Michele,
Just a question: in the first months you underspent 800€ on Task1.
How did P6 deside, that 500€ of them have to be redistributed to M2 and 300€ to M3?
Regards.
Evgeny
Evgeny,
thanks for your support and for your explanation.
Unfortunately the retain logic for the scheduling in P6 is very different. Parameters like ACWP, BCWP and BCWS are not used in P6 by the way CPI and SPI indexes have been used... but the scheduling logic and the earned value logic to obtain these values is different. That's not my problem.
What I mean it's better shown in the picture below. The meaning of what I said is the simple rule of 100% to make the progress S-curve.
http://postimg.org/image/m6qbr7cuf/
I am confident you have an answer for this matter... at this moment I am using P6 to get these data but it's a special effort for me... I'd like to use the same software to manage planning and S-Curves.
Thank you once again evgency. Excuse me if you are wasting your time for me.
Michele,
Sorry for delay in responding.
The pictures you posted disappeared already, therefore I will try to remember, what you posted.
I am not familiar that much with P6, therefore I am looking at it from common sense point of view now.
Call me stupid, but I don’t understand the equation: Remaining = Budget – Actual. This can be true only if the schedule is executed 100% in accordance to the plan.
EXAMPLE:
If your budget for 2 nights hotel accommodation was 200 USD, but for whatever reason there were no cheap rooms, and actual for the 1st night was 150 USD, this does not mean that your cost for the 2nd night will be 50 USD, quite contrarily it will be the same 150 USD, unless you take some drastic cost reduction measures, and move to cheaper hotel, but then it will be different schedule already.
Therefore the equation, which I understand is the following:
Total Currently Predicted Cost of the Project = Actual + Cost to Finish the project.
If you want to talk about Budget (Planned Value), and Remaining (Estimated Cost To Complete), then we can use Earned Value Analysis and calculate the CPI (Cost Performance Index) of the already completed work to predict remaining costs. In this case the following will apply:
Estimation of Remaining = (Budget – Earned Value)/Cost Performance Index
Does P6 use earned value analisys to "auto compute" field called "Remaing" ? If not, then I don't understand how it is doing it.
Regards.
Evgeny
P.S.
To make sure your pictures do not vanish in time, look at this topic
Thanks once again Evgeny. I use the resource usage editor because I have 22/23 costs items (lump sum) and it's easier to display costs spreadsheet/distribution by this editor. In this way I can check easily if all the lump sum items have been assigned correctly as % of assignment.
About the data distribution shown in that picture, the remaining costs are not spread/ditribuited in the timescale over time because there is no "auto compute" field called "Remaing" as should be. Moreover (the main problem) if I didn't perform all the actual costs scheduled, the monthly remaining cost is not the balance... accordingly the remaing cost field (that should be Budgted - Actual) should re-distribuite over time. For example Primavera P6 does it, but is incredible this is not available in Ms project.
:(
In the following table an example of what I would like.
Michele,
why don't you use the task usage view. In this view everything, which is located rightwards from your virtual Data Date (date, till which you have done your progress update) will be your remaining cost in time distribution:
Thanks evgeny. I know how show the remaining cost column. I need the distribution on remaining costs in the time, for example in the usage resource aditor. In Ms Project you are not able to choose remaining costs between the available field. How is this possible?
Simply, I would get the distribution of remaining costs (bugeted costs - actual costs) spread in the timescale.
Thank for support guys, I am still looking for a solution. :(
Michele,
you need to show the "remaining cost" column.
See below
Regards.
Evgeny
Email: PPadmin@planningplanet.com
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