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P3e/c budgeted cost

9 replies [Last post]
Tue, 2005-06-21 04:26
Lloyd Young
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Hi all,

Wondering if anyone has come across this problem before, We are using budgeted cost and we have found that when exporting into excel to verify the figures anomlies are found with remaining actual cost. It also appears that the budgeted cost is front loaded and not spread in the duration of the task. whats more confusing is that when looking at the Remaining Cost column in P3e/c its Zero, so i had a butchers at the resource usage spreadsheet and found that there was remaining cost against the Planned Start Where does this planned start come from? It also seems that Actual start and finishes do not over write the Planned start or Finish..... Any ideas my pedigree chums?

Cheers
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Replies

Mon, 2005-06-27 07:23
#1
Steven Oliver
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Actually, P3e distributes budget and remaining according to the dates held in the planned start and planned finish fields.

HTH

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Sun, 2005-06-26 20:50
#2
Alex Wong
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Henk

I will attempt to answer your question

Firts i cant find the colum Resource duration WHERE IS IT ?

- I guess you had already find it

Second it seems that resource planning is in many ways independed from the activities. I’m a big fan of Primavera but i find this very confusing. Becouse i always schedule activity driven and now suddenly i always have to dubble check that the resource have been equaly spread over the activity.

- Its just like P3 when you set up you activity, OD is always equal RD, However once you alter the OD in next run and the activity already started then the equation no longer applied. It is the same case here. The only different is P3e store the original Plan date to produce the Plan resource curve. That means if you change your plan - the planner have to update the plan date (a global change will do the job nicely) Once you change the plan date for the activity you have a option to link it with your resource - that is very logical (IMHO)


So if this colum resource duration exists you could set Remaining resource duration equal to remaining duration en spread the remaining resources (units) over them ??

(Yes in resource view)

If you have any further question welcome to PP me.

Cheers

Alex
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Sun, 2005-06-26 09:18
#3
Bill McMichael
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Henk,

Are you showing budgeted units or remaining units on your histogram ? This is unclear. Budgeted units will be timephased over the planned dates on the histogram. Remaining units over remaining dates. I also advise you to check your resource durations as this is also a possibiity, but if you never changed them nor changed the default settings, this may not be your problem. It is tough for me to determine exactly what is happening without seeing the project. However, timephased resource calculations are impacted by the following: units, dates, calendar, resource curve if any, and your activity type. Good luck tracking this down.

Regards,
Bill
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Sun, 2005-06-26 08:01
#4
Henk van der Heide
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Bill,

Thanks for your reply. Now ik know were to find resource duration, however.
The rules you mentioned do not give an answer why primavera can set the total remianing resource budged in the first week of an activity while the activitie for examle has an remaining duration of two weeks. I even have seen a project (activity) were the histogram for the remaining butged hours was during a week longer than the activity. So what Alex says makes sence. I mean his words that the resource are in some way independed from the activities (or its is a little bug).

Regards

Henk
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Sat, 2005-06-25 11:44
#5
Bill McMichael
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Henk,

Resource duration(s) can be displayed and edited as resource assignment columns. Go to Activities Screen, display resource tab as part of the activities details, right click to choose columns and you’ll see the fields you can show. This includes resource planned and remaining durations.

Primavera can have activities be independent or dependent of the resources assigned to the activities. This is determined by the activity’s duration type and an assignment fields called "drive activity dates". If you don’t want the activities being driven by the resources, make sure your duration type is either fixed duration & units or fixed duration & units/time. There is a resource assignment column called "drive activity dates". This should be unchecked for activity driven schedules.

Both of these settings can be set as defaults for your project, so you don’t have to set for new activities and assignments. This is done on the project screen -- defaults and resources tabs. If you are using P3 e/c, non driving and fixed duration are the factory defaults for new projects.

You can check this is set up the way you want it, and if you never changed it, it probably is already the way you want it. Then there is no reason to ever concern yourself with checking resource durations.

Regards,
Bill


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Sat, 2005-06-25 08:17
#6
Henk van der Heide
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Alex,

I’ve been reading your answer and here’s my reply
Firts i cant find the colum Resource duration WHERE IS IT ?,
Second it seems that resource planning is in many ways independed from the activities. I’m a big fan of Primavera but i find this very confusing. Becouse i always schedule activity driven and now suddenly i always have to dubble check that the resource have been equaly spread over the activity. I think for many schedulers thats not logical.

So if this colum resource duration exists you could set Remaining resource duration equal to remaining duration en spread the remaining resources (units) over them ??

Regards

Henk
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Tue, 2005-06-21 21:40
#7
Alex Wong
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Hi I split you question in 3 parts and try to answer it

1: "We are using budgeted cost and we have found that when exporting into excel to verify the figures anomlies are found with remaining actual cost. It also appears that the budgeted cost is front loaded and not spread in the duration of the task."

The reason that all your cost is front loaded may becasue of the resource duration - Check resource duration and make sure it is greater than "0" because if it is zero it will cause all cost assigin to the beginning of the activity.

2: "whats more confusing is that when looking at the Remaining Cost column in P3e/c its Zero, so i had a butchers at the resource usage spreadsheet and found that there was remaining cost against the Planned Start Where does this planned start come from?"

Plan start and plan finish date for resource is assigned as the resource created. Therefore the remaining also in the same period of plan start and finish. Again check the resource PS PF + BQ(unit&Duration)

3:It also seems that Actual start and finishes do not over write the Planned start or Finish

P3e had a concept of PS PF + ES EF + AS AF and all of these dates are independent. Why , previously in P3 when you Actual start an activity you will lost its early start date, therefore you have to maintain a target plan without any actual dates. Either you maintain a plan dates in the custom data items or target plan. However you can only display a plan bar but not calculate a resource histogram base on the CDI. To resolve this problem, it P3e they are all independent, can you can compare costing, resource level, timeing with all these dates.

Hope you will understand P3e had a slightly different concept of maintaining plan - to me its a lot easier for analysis and planning.

Cheers

ALex
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Tue, 2005-06-21 16:14
#8
Henk van der Heide
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Lloyd,

I’ve seen the problem before in ourcase the problem occured after importing from p3win.So it is possible that the problem was already in it. Taking of the resource (not the budget) and putting it back on was our solution.
In our case it apeared for only a few activities.


Regards

Henk
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Tue, 2005-06-21 05:08
#9
Andrew Edwards
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Lloyd,

If you bring up the Activity detail box, click on the Resources tab, then in the header where it shows the resource info (Resource ID, Budgeted Cost etc) right click to bring up the Customize Resource Columns button. From the resulting menu box you should be able to pick the option ’Curve’ from the left hand side - it sits under General. Once you’ve done that, it’s a simple matter of double clicking on the Curve box and picking the distibution you require.

Hope this helps.

Andy
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