project summary task, ID # 0

[John from NY]

On page 295 of Project, Inside Out, item #4 says to select the project
summary task which should be task ID "0" at the to of the sheet view.

All of my projects, Gantt, Tracking Gantt, start with ID #1, not zero.

Project is not letting me assign the budget "resources" to that top most task.

How do I fix this challenge, to enable proceeding to set up the budget?

I am striving to improve, expand, master my skills at using MicroSoft
Project 2007 for construction project cost accounting.

Something I learned last week was to use semi-colens in task names rather
than commas; because when exporting, saving to ASCCI, to enable importing to
QuattorPro, commas are the field delimiter marker.

 

[John from NY]

I found the answer, it was in the last line of page 294 and the first line of
page 295.

 

[John]

On page 295 of Project, Inside Out, item #4 says to select the project
summary task which should be task ID "0" at the to of the sheet view.

All of my projects, Gantt, Tracking Gantt, start with ID #1, not zero.

Project is not letting me assign the budget "resources" to that top most task.

How do I fix this challenge, to enable proceeding to set up the budget?

I am striving to improve, expand, master my skills at using MicroSoft
Project 2007 for construction project cost accounting.

Something I learned last week was to use semi-colens in task names rather
than commas; because when exporting, saving to ASCCI, to enable importing to
QuattorPro, commas are the field delimiter marker.

John
Are you setting the option for the Project Summary Task under
Tools/Options/View tab? Is the view filter set for "all tasks"? Also,
make sure there is no grouping or sorting.

John
Project MVP

 

[John from NY]

The solution was Tools, Options, View, and under Outline Otions, select the
Show Project Summary Task check box. That results in the Zero level task
showing at the top.

 

[John]

The solution was Tools, Options, View, and under Outline Otions, select the
Show Project Summary Task check box. That results in the Zero level task
showing at the top.

John
Yeah, OK, but I'm curious, but what Project Summary Task did you think
you had?

John
Project MVP

 

[John from NY]

I think of all tasks that have 'children', sub-tasks, as summary tasks.

I am still working on mastering the budgeting part, and expect it to take a
bit of time and practice.

I hope it works with shared resources across a master project with multiple
sub-projects.

One of my concerns is to be able to provide for an allowance for overhead,
and an allowance for profit. Our insurance company wants their premium, the
telephone and electric company want to get paid. There are real estate
taxes, and many other realities that make up overhead. And without a
reasonable profit, there is no incentive to operate a business, so all these
need to be factored in. Can allowance for overhead be treated as a budget
'resource' labeled 'cost' as contrasted to work or materials or fixed cost?

 

[John]

I think of all tasks that have 'children', sub-tasks, as summary tasks.

I am still working on mastering the budgeting part, and expect it to take a
bit of time and practice.

I hope it works with shared resources across a master project with multiple
sub-projects.

One of my concerns is to be able to provide for an allowance for overhead,
and an allowance for profit. Our insurance company wants their premium, the
telephone and electric company want to get paid. There are real estate
taxes, and many other realities that make up overhead. And without a
reasonable profit, there is no incentive to operate a business, so all these
need to be factored in. Can allowance for overhead be treated as a budget
'resource' labeled 'cost' as contrasted to work or materials or fixed cost?

John,
You're right that any task row that has indentured performance tasks is
a summary line. However, there is only one Project Summary Task. Just
for reference, summary lines are not tasks at all and it's too bad that
all the Project nomenclature refers to them as "tasks". Summary lines
simply summarize data fields for performance tasks indentured under them.

Realize that Project is a scheduling application, not an accounting
application. You can put rudimentary burden costs into a project file,
but it should not be used in lieu of accounting software.

There are basically 5 cost categories in the corporate world - basic pay
rate, fringe, overhead, G & A and profit. Each of those elements combine
to form the "price" for any given set of activities. Project is set up
to handle basic pay rate and even fringe since it is simply a factor
added to the basic pay rate. These values can even be escalated by
using effective dates and multiple cost rate tables for each resource.
There is no fringe for material resources but there is a material burden
- usually a percentage of the material cost. Again, that can be factored
into the material rate.

Overhead may be fixed or it may be apportioned over each program under
the corporate umbrella. General and administrative costs (G & A) are
generally a fixed percentage of each program value. Finally profit is
added to the bottom line of all the above.

Can overhead, G & A and profit be incorporated into Project's Budget
Cost field. I'd say no. Sure, you can include their value as a factor
but as the project is executed, unless some extra costing algorithms are
employed, those parts of the program overall cost are not going to be
tracked - only resource and material cost will be tracked in Project.

Don't try to make Project do something is wasn't designed to do. It will
only cause more work and give generally unsatisfactory results.

My humble opinion.

John
Project MVP

 

[JaniceA]

On page 295 of Project, Inside Out, item #4 says to select the project
summary task which should be task ID "0" at the to of the sheet view.

All of my projects, Gantt, Tracking Gantt, start with ID #1, not zero.

Project is not letting me assign the budget "resources" to that top most task.

How do I fix this challenge, to enable proceeding to set up the budget?

I am striving to improve, expand, master my skills at using MicroSoft
Project 2007 for construction project cost accounting.

Something I learned last week was to use semi-colens in task names rather
than commas; because when exporting, saving to ASCCI, to enable importing to
QuattorPro, commas are the field delimiter marker.

 

[JaniceA]

I have a large project and I don't know how I should set project up - meaning
should it be three separate files for Development, Pilot and Rollout or
should it be all one?

 

[JulieS]

Hello JaniceA,

I'm not sure what your question has to do with Project Summary tasks
(the topic of the original question) -- but I'll see if I can help
out.

The choice to split a large project into separate files is really
your call. I would say there are several factors that would make me
advocate splitting it up:

Size - a project file with a large number of tasks (over 2000) may
take a considerable amount of time to open.
Functional responsibility - are there 3 separate project managers or
schedulers responsible for each component? If so, splitting the
project file up makes sense. Then each PM or scheduler can be
working on his/her project file at the same time as other users.

To argue against splitting
If it is the same resources executing and you need to see overall
utilization across the phases, a single project file is a bit
easier. You can accomplish the idea of the same people -- different
project files -- through resource pools. However, resource pools do
add an additional layer of care to usage.

And finally, to answer the question of Project summary tasks, ID
0 --
Tools > Options, View tab and enable "Show Project Summary task".

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