accumulating multiple material costs for a task

[Michael Hansen]

Hello

I want to separate out travel related expenses (material) from service
related costs (work) from software vendors.

Each task will consist of resources mostly of type work. But when travel is
required there are material expenses to deal with these costs (e.g., flights,
taxi, hotel, meals).

I have added a new Travel Cost column and thought I could use the "iff"
statement to extract the cost as a material cost. However, the problem is
that mulitple material resource costs are assigned to the task (e.g., flight,
taxi, hotel, meals) which I want to be able to accumulate into the new Travel
Cost column for the task.

Could someone please advise of the best way to deal with this scenario to
accumulate all the material costs associated to a task into the new Travel
Cost column.

Please let me know if I need to better explain this requirement.

Regards
Michael Hansen

 

[JulieS]

Hello Michael,

I'm afraid a formula is not going to work in this circumstance. If I
understand you fully, you need to add the values of multiple
assignments, differentiating by resource type and show it in a custom
column. It may be possible to perform using VBA, but I am not the
best resource on that. If you're interested in pursuing that option,
post to the Project Developer (microsoft.public.project.developer)
newsgroup

However, I can provide an alternative that may work for you. If you
display the Task Usage view and create a custom group, you should be
able to show total costs per task for resource type. Add the Cost
field to the table (left side) of the task view and then create a
custom group to group and summarize costs.

Below is a sample custom group definition that will get you started in
the right direction.

Project > Group By > More Groups, New.
Name it as you wish --

Turn on the option Group Assignments, not Tasks

First Row:
Group by:
Field: Name ID
Field Type: Task
Order: Ascending
** This grouping will keep the Project in ID order

Second Row
Then By:
Field Name: Name
Field Type: Task
Order: Ascending
** This group is just to show the Task Name easily

Third Row:
Then By:
Field Name: Resource Type
Field Type: Assignment
Order: Descending

The final group should divide the assignments based upon whether the
resource is a work or material resource. The Cost field should
summarize total cost per assignment per resource type.

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie
Project MVP

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for the FAQs and additional information
about Microsoft Project

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[Michael Hansen]

Hi Julie

I took action on your first option and posted it to the Developer discussion
and now have a solution to my problem.

I also started to experiment with the second option but it was not going to
satisfy my immediate needs. However, I will use this later in the project
when I need to report on these budgeted travel costs to track against actuals
with the accountants.

Regards
Michael Hansen

 

[JulieS]

Super Michael. I'm glad you were able to get some information that
helps. Do post again if you have any further question.

Julie