Cost Calculation

[M. London]

I am using MSP 2003.

Ihave a large project with about 200 tasks and about 35 resources. My tasks
are either fixed duration (most) or fixed units. The resource usage
calculations calculate the work based on the units of each resource and the
duration at the time the resource was added. After that it treats the
calculations on the resource usage page as fixed work. Changes on the gantt
chart of duration or units will be reflected correctly in dates on the gantt
chart, but not on the assignment information table found by double clicking a
taks beneath a resource on the resource usage sheet. That table will show
the dates necessary to maintain the fixed work (different start/end dates
than the gantt chart!!!!). This makes MSP useless for calculating cost if
any changes are made after the initial entries.

How can I fix this?

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi M,

Assignment start and end dates only can differ from task start and end dates
when there are several resources on a task: not all assignments are
necessarily simultaneous.
And fixed duration can force Project to create splits (work is done but
duration forces the task to "continue")

There's nothing to be fixed, but I agree it is sometimes hard to understand.
Hope this helps,

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
+32 495 300 620
For availability check:
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/Calendar.pdf

 

[M. London]

Perhaps an example will help. I have a fixed unit task that I added to the
project. When a task is first added it comes up as a 1 day duration. I
added a number of resources before adjusting the duration. Two of them, call
them Bob and Jane, were added at 20%. Later I changed the duration to about
a year and a half. The correct hours would thus be about 600 for each.
However, the resource sheet shows them starting and stopping the same day,
with a total 2 hours each.

I deleted Bob and then reentered him at 20%. Now the resource sheet shows
him with the correct hours, but Jane is still at 2 hours. If you look at the
task information you'll simply see both Bob and Jane, each at 20%. Clearly
the resource calculations are stuck in fixed work although the task is fixed
units.

Another task, this one fixed duration, has several resources at 50% for 4
weeks. Checking the resource sheet shows them starting and finishing 4 weeks
apart. However, if the duration is changed to 8 weeks, their total work does
not change, and the start and end dates still show 4 weeks apart. Again,
obviously fixed work calculations.

Oddly, there are other task/resource combinations on the project that behave
exactly as expected; if the duration is doubled, so will the work be, with
the start and end dates following.

I have no idea what I did differently when entering these various tasks.
Many were entered with durations before resources, but that shouldn't be
required.

Deleting and re-entering all my resources is ridiculous, there are probably
1500 task/resource combinations. Similarly deleting and re-entering all the
resources every time I change a duration, or want to chang a resource's
units, is asking a bit much for a tool that's supposed to make this easier.

Perhaps my comment about Project being "useless" was a little harsh, but at
this point at least I haven't learned how to get a correct hours total out of
it. Because of this issue, we've had to create an Excel spreadsheet to
mirror the project in an effort to get an accurate hours estimate. In
addition to the extra work, the potential for error is great in using two
independent tools. We're using this to cost what will be about an $11M job,
so accuracy is important, and the frustration level is high.

Thanks for any help.

M. London

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi M,

I seems to me that most of your problems stem from those tasks which have
assigned multiple resources or result from changes being made after entry.
Remember that the effort driven tag does not come into play until you change
something. The relationship between work, units and duration must be
maintained by Project, and this creates problems when different resources
are assigned and changed, needing you to know which resources are the lead
resources whenever you want to change data. Try using the split screen
technique under these circumstances so that you can see and control what's
going on.

You might like to have a look at my series on Microsoft Project in the
TechTrax ezine, particularly #10 on multiple resource assignments, at this
site: http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc or this:
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMFrame.asp?CMD=ArticleSearch&AUTH=23
(Perhaps you'd care to rate the article before leaving the site,
Thanks.)

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: <http://www.mvps.org/project/>

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP

 

[M. London]

Hello Mike,

Thank you for your response. All of my tasks have multiple resources. I
was not aware that the resources are in different classes (e.g. the lead
resource). I'll check out your article.

I should have pointed out in my origianl post that none of my tasks are
effort driven. "Effort driven" is unchecked globally (set as default), and
I've verified it in the task information of the tasks that are giving me
trouble. I did that specifically to give me the flexibility to adjust both
units and durations independently. I will note, however, that I didn't do
that at the beginning of the effort. I reallized that I needed to do that
after durations started to change. So, a large number of the tasks were
originally entered with effort-driven checked, but I selected all tasks and
unchecked it. I also set the default for new tasks (although that doesn't
always hold, some new tasks still were created with it checked). I then
verified it in each task I openned after that. Is it possible that once the
resource assignment is created with effort driven checked that future changes
to the task information do not flow down?

M. London

 

[Mike Glen]

You're welcome, M

As a general rule, Project will not change things in retrospect, otherwise a
simple change you make for a new situation would be reflected back
throughout your plan upsetting what you are already happy with. Generally,
if you make a change to the parameters, it will only affect what happens on
the future. This means that sometimes, to get what you want, you may have
to re-enter data.


Mike Glen
Project MVP
See http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc for my free Project Tutorials