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Procedure for Applying Resource Assignment Actuals via

10 replies [Last post]
Sun, 2008-07-27 23:05
Mark Porter
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Hi All,

Does anyone have a procedure for applying resource assignment actuals to scheduled activities via the Primavera SDK. My company is investigating new time capture software that we want to hook into Primavera & therefore we need to access the SDK tables. If anyone has already written a program to do this it would be great if I could get a copy of what you’ve done.

Kind Regards

Mark Porter

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Replies

Mon, 2008-08-04 19:59
#1
Mark Porter
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Hi Oliver,

I agree with your posting & I should have clearly stated EVPM (not EV) eg. ANSI EIA-748A, AS4817, etc.

My personal belief when planning & executing a project is that neither cost nor schedule should be looked at in isolation noting that BCWS (PV) only give 1/2 the picture as you can be;
On schedule & either over/under budget, alternatively;
Behind schedule & over/underbudget.

The organisation that I recently moved from was far more advanced than where I am currently employeed, however we have a unique opportunity to advance the scheduling process as we are currently rolling out SAP (Without CATS) & therefore whatever we develop now will be used for the next ~5 years or so.

As far as collecting the CPI of an activity is concerned, I believe that if you are performing multiple projects of similar type (As we are), then analysis of the performance for each individual task is imperative to improving on previous benchmarks.

Kind Regards
Mark
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Mon, 2008-08-04 06:51
#2
Oliver Melling
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Mark,

EV is not directly related to actual data.

EV calulation all depends how you plan to record progress. EV in Primavera is your planned (baseline) units multiplied by your activity % complete.

For example, by updating the physical % complete (and remaining duration etc) in Primavera, the EV (BCWP) for each task is calculated based upon what physcial % complete is entered. Similarly if you use Duration or Units % complete then the EV is based on that.

Actual hours are only used for CV, CPI etc.

IMHO, planning to a level that ensures enough detail to allow timebooking to activities requires a mature PM environment.
As all the projects within my company have not yet reached that stage, we use the overhead codes function within timesheets to create a code for each project (or each stage of a project) and capture actuals at project or stage level. (The timesheet module is not ideal for this but it does work)
I have no option of using a different method as Primavera timesheets had already been purchased when i arrived at my current employer and the planning isnt at a level that allows activity level booking!
Mainly, the CPI and cost variance can only be calculated at an elevated level and external from the Primavera package.

If you already have a finance package that captures time-booking data then you need to ponder the expected benefits of system integration:
How many reports do you create directly from P5/6?
How much will the integration cost?
Do you actually need the ability to report actual based EVM calculations for reporting?

One question i sometimes ask is how often do you want the CPI of an activity? A project, discipline or area maybe, but a task?!

Please comment.
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Mon, 2008-08-04 06:07
#3
Mark Porter
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Hi Oliver,

Thanks for your interest in this subject. With regard to your earlier post, we are aiming to capture actual labour units at the resource assignment level, so our preference wouldn’t be to use the Primavera timesheets overhead codes. My understanding of the overhead codes was that they wheren’t assigned to any particular project so if you are using the them i would be interested in how are you calculating your EV?
We are aiming upload our actual via the API interface (JAVA queries). We looked at Primavera timesheets but the organisation balked at the ongoing maintainance costs. If we are to assign "actual labour units" to the "Actual this period" field. Can this be set up to capture daily information whilst only storing period performance once / week?
When I looked at Primavera Timesheets you had the ability to do this but when I have used the front end application I haven’t yet seen how I can enter actuals on a daily basis (And then store period performance only once / week) so I would be interested to see if anyone knows how to do this
Mark
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Mon, 2008-08-04 04:02
#4
Oliver Melling
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Mark,

I am currently getting some developers to look at the possibility of integrating our intranet based holiday request system with P5 resource calendars, so as to capture the non-working time of staff.

The API requires java development i believe.

I will pass on any info i come across.

Oliver
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Mon, 2008-08-04 03:57
#5
Dieter Wambach
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Mark
Sorry I never used the API as a programmer. But as far as I know there is a documentation for on the API-cd. Tomorrow I can check. A data model - as a pdf, size A0 - you can find on the documentation cd.
Regards
Dieter
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Mon, 2008-08-04 03:51
#6
Oliver Melling
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Mark,

If you don’t want to book resource actuals down to activity level then you can use overhead codes in the Primavera Timesheets module.

Oliver
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Mon, 2008-08-04 03:20
#7
Mark Porter
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Hi Dieter,

Do you know were the definitions for the data pertaining to the API fields can be accessed? Are they on the API installation disc’s? I’m led to believe that most of the table fields are as per the front end of the application, but I would realy like to check it off against something similar to the schema documentation (If it exisits)

I have been tasked with writing up a scope for our programers

Cheers

Mark Porter
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Wed, 2008-07-30 01:11
#8
Dieter Wambach
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Mark
As far as I know the German Primavera dealer created such a procedure already for customers. Of course I have absolutely no information if they sell it to others and on conditions. (www.inteco.de)
Hope this might help.
Dieter
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Tue, 2008-07-29 21:09
#9
Mark Porter
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Hi David,

I have talked to our local Primavera agent. He suggested using the SDK to prove proof of concept, then redo in the API.
I personally think that procuring the time sheets module would posibly be the way to go, but it is quite expensive when you have to pay for bums on seats & it also forces you to assign individual resources to each activity. We currently resource at the role level.

Hoping to get info on the tables that will need to be accessed (both via the SDK & the API)
Have been advised that I will need to access at least;
1) Task table (Activity Id)
2) Resource Table (Resource Id)
3) WBS table
4) project table
5) task resource table (Resource Assignments)
6) & maybe the Taskproc field (Activity Steps)
I have a copy of the schema doc’s but was hoping that someone may already have a procedure developed for updating actual resource assignments
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Tue, 2008-07-29 11:02
#10
David Kelly
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The SDK is awful. Try and use the API instead......
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