Autocost rules in Primavera 3.1

Hi,



I often refer to the P3 Help menue option when trying to understand the "Autocost Rules", (along with any other bits of P3 that I infrequently use)



It gives a very clear understanding, more than can be said for the manuals.



Regards



John

Haresh,



If you are new to P3 then Paul Harris’s book @ http://www.eh.com.au/ will help.



I’ll explain the two you asked about:-



ETC - add actual to ETC or subtract actual from EAC



I prefer to use the add option because if I miss updating the ETC then I get an overun and will go back and find it. The subtract option will assume you are on budget until your actual exceeds the budget.



Allow negative ETC - used if you expect to get rebates or insurance payment so the ETC is -ve until they come through.



Link Budget and EAC for none progressed activities.



I check this when I am setting up the schedule (so that when I change the ETC or UPT both the ETC and Budget are updated)and usually take it off once the Budgets are finalised and the project is underway (so that an overrun on a repeatable activity which you realise cannot be brought back into Budget can be forecasted on the unstarted activities and the Budget is NOT updated).



There are no hard and fast rules but you need to examine each setting and determine what is best for your project/company. I would encourage the company to set a standard so that all proejcts can report using the same rules otherwise analysis across projects becomes a little murky.



Good luck

This can be a very long post to explain all the settings. Have you tried reading the help system in this regards or have a look at the manual?