External Costs - Tracking & Reporting

M

Mike S.

I cannot seem to locate anything that describes the recommended way to enter
and track external costs into projects so that reporting through project or
PWS will break it out from the overall project costs.
Example1: Implementation of Exchange2003 - purchase hardware & software.
Example2: Implementation of ADS - external consultants to be used (only need
to see this as a flat rate, no need to track hourly work for these).

Using Project 2003 Pro & PWS 2003 SP1
Any general direction would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Mike
 
D

Dale Howard [MVP]

Mike S --

If it were my projects, I would do the following:

1. Open the project in question
2. Click View - Gantt Chart
3. Click View - Table - Cost
4. Enter the external cost in the Fixed Cost column for the task with an
external cost
5. Double-click the task, select the Notes tab, and enter a note to
document the external cost
6. Click View - Table - Entry
7. Save the project

If you use the above process, Fixed Costs are available for viewing on the
project level in Portfolio Anlayzer views in PWA. Hope this helps.
 
M

Mike S.

If this is the best option - I can make it work. The issue I see with this
is that the 'Fixed Cost' amounts do not roll up to the project summary.
Therefore in an executive type view in PWA the summary line does not reflect
the cumulative of all the tasks with fixed costs assigned. Maybe I'm
missing something else.

The goal is to be able to track external costs against the initial budget
established for the project. I add the original budget items to tasks in
the project and set the baseline to match the original budget (of course
internal work is on top of that budget number). I then 0 out the budget
items and establish the accurate estimates for each external cost. This
gives an estimated picture for the project based on what the resources know
to date (Scheduled). Then as monies are actually spent - the cost for the
individual tasks are updated to reflect the actual. The result is a full
picture from original budget, to estimates and finally the actuals. I am
hoping to capture this type of data more automatically vs. having to fill in
a spreadsheet each week for reporting. We are getting close based on how
the system works, just not a complete picture yet.
Thanks.
Mike
 
D

Dale Howard [MVP]

Mike S --

The limitation of using the Fixed Cost column for tracking external costs is
as you have discovered: Fixed Costs do not roll up to each respective
summary task or to the Project Summary Task (Row 0). The functionality is
by design, as Microsoft assumes it is possible for a Fixed Cost to be
asssessed to an entire Phase or Deliverable represented by a summary task,
or to the entire project as a whole represented by Row 0.

To get around this issue, I believe you may be able to use a custom
enterprise task Cost field to track your external costs. Your Project
Server administrator would need to do the following to make this happen:

1. Launch Microsoft Project Professional and log into Project Server with
administrator permissions
2. Click Tools - Enterprise Options - Enterprise Global
3. Click Tools - Customize - Enterprise Fields
4. Select the Task option and the Cost field type
5. Select an available Cost field and click the Rename button
6. Name the new field "External Cost" and click the OK button
7. Click the Formula button
8. Click the Field button, select Cost, and then select Fixed Cost
9. Click the OK button and then click OK again when prompted
10. Click the Rollup option and select Sum from the rollup pick list
11. Click the OK button
12. Save and close the Enterprise Global
13. Exit and relaunch Microsoft Project Professional

After the Project Server administrator has completed the above set of steps,
you can open any project and insert the new External Cost field into any
task View. The first time you add this custom field to a View, you may need
to click the F9 key to recalulcate the project and populate the field values
for the new field. At this point, you will be able to see your external
costs for each task, with the totals rolled up to each summary task and to
the Project Summary Task as well. Hope this helps.
 
M

Mike S.

I am now using the method below as this will help for sure.
The remaining piece of this that I cannot resolve is how can I leverage this
process to have the PWA Projects view show this in a column (thus exportable
to .xls). It appears that I am limited to selecting project level fields
vs. the task level field that I created below following the instructions.
If I create a custom project cost field and reference the custom task field,
that results are always $0, no matter what I do (F9 or anything else to
update the field).
Thanks
Mike
 
D

Dale Howard [MVP]

Mike S --

What formula did you use in your custom enterprise Project field? Your
formula should reference the custom enterprise Task field, not the Fixed
Cost field. I am able to make both fields work correctly in my environment.
Let me know if this helps. If it doesn't help, your next message should
explicitly state:

The custom enterprise Task field used (and the name you gave it)
The formula use in the custom enterprise Task field
The other settings for the custom enterprise Task field in the Customize
Fields dialog
The custom enterprise Project field used (and the name you gave it)
The formula used in the custom enterprise Project field
The other settings for the custom enterprise Project field in the Customize
Fields dialog
 
D

Dale Howard [MVP]

Mike S --

It just dawned on me to ask you if you remembered to publish your project
after adding the custom enterprise Task field to a View and clicking the F9
key. You must publish the changes to the project before the changes are
visible in either the Project Center or detailed Project views in PWA. Let
us know.
 
M

Mike S.

IT WORKS!! I believe the F9 trick did it. I had forgot to use that.
Again Thanks & happy projecting!
Mike
 
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