Actuals do not match timesheet data

U

uffeh

We recently completed the implementation of Project Server 2007, and had all
our resources input their timesheets from the beginning of this year up to
the present. The problem that I have is that when I look at the OLAP cube
and display the Actual Cost over time, I get values that do not correspond
to the actual timesheet entries, i.e. we have actual costs for December 2006
even though no time was recorded for that month. When I look at the tasks
corresponding to those actual costs, I can see that Project has moved the
start dates in some cases back to December 2006. This is of course annoying
in itself, and would presumably result only in the cube showing planned cost
for December 2006 - and not actual costs. Aren't Actual Costs supposed to be
a direct computation of time reported on the timesheets times billing rates?
Has anyone else experienced this?
 
M

Marc Soester [MVP]

hi uffeh,

that is an interesting observation that you made. Lets try to see why this
occurs.
Firstly, MS Project would not "automatically" ( or better without the users
interation) move project start dates to late last year. You may want to have
a chat with your PM to why this could have occured. First thing that comes
into my mind would be that the start date may have been in 2007, but actual
data was entered in December 2006, time has been approved and therefore MS
Project moved the start date to correspond with the actual start date.

Secondly, the timesheet and task update functionality are 2 different
functions. If users enters time in the timesheet and do not update the
project tasks with time entered in the timesheet, it could well be that the
cost differs from the timehseet time entered. I would check on a project,
compare the actual work entered on the project and then I would look at the
timesheet actual work entered. I would assume that these 2 values differ due
to the fact that the task update has not happened. That would explain the
variance between your timesheet and your project tasks.
Let me know if I am on the right path here and please feel free to ask any
questions where you are unsure of what I have tried to explain.
I hope that will help you
 
U

Uffe Henrichsen \(UHen\)

Hi Marc,

Thanks for your reply, and sorry for the delay in answering.

I can say with some confidence that Project does move the start and end
dates around (all of our tasks are set to Fixed Work), but it isn't due to
the scenario you mention. We started on MOPS 2007 on Jan 1 of this year, and
we have not defined any timesheets for 2006 - so it's not possible that
there are actual values on the timesheet. What seems to have happened is
that Project has 1) Moved the start date of certain tasks back to Dec. 2006,
and then 2) Copied the planned work values to the actual work (but not
overwriting the timesheet). Example: a task that was planned for Jan 2 to
Jan 31, with a total work of 8 hours, has been moved to start Dec. 26, and
the actual work in the cube now shows a fraction on an hour each day,
starting Dec. 26. When I check the timesheet, it is correct, and no time has
been recorded for 2006.

From your last paragraph, I summise that actual cost is derived from the
task updates and not from the timesheets. We have in some cases accepted
that resources simply fill in their timesheet without updating the status of
their tasks. The timesheets are updated at the task level however. If we
cannot get the actual cost as derived from the timesheets from the Actual
Cost field in the cube, is there another way to get this information?
Thanks.

Uffe.
 
M

Marc Soester [MVP]

Hi Uffe,
The only way to update the cost is by updating the Project Task. If your
resources upodate task under my task and the PM approves these changes, than
you will get actual cost calculated.
hope this helps
--
Marc Soester [MVP]
State Manager: EPM
http://marcsoester.blogspot.com
 
S

Steve Franklin

Uffeh
We also have a similar problem. Hours entered into tasks are being changed
by the system. For example, I may have put 3hrs in for a task for a day and
come back later to find that it is now some fraction that is spread over a
number of days. Likewise, we are seeing costs in our cube for projects that
have Zero rates against the resource.
SteveF
 
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