Removing Resources Creates Negative Cost

[Sandra]

Hello Everyone,

I have a resource loaded baselined schedule. Whenever I remove the
resources from one particular task in the schedule it creates negative cost.
When I assign a resource the cost is 0, then when I assign anymore resources
it becomes positive cost.

Has anyone ever seen this problem before?

Sandra

 

[Brian K - Project MVP]

Hello Everyone,

I have a resource loaded baselined schedule. Whenever I remove the
resources from one particular task in the schedule it creates
negative cost. When I assign a resource the cost is 0, then when I
assign anymore resources it becomes positive cost.

Has anyone ever seen this problem before?

Sandra

If the task was a 1 day duration task with a negative Cost of -800
before resources were assigned, and then you assigned a reosurce that
was 100 per hour the task would be come 0 cost. Then assign another to
it and it would be come a +800 cost task (assuming a fixed work or Non
effort driven task).

My guess is that somehow the task was given a negative cost before any
resources were assigned.

Remove the resource assignments, set the cost to 0 and then reassign
them.

 

[John]

Hello Everyone,

I have a resource loaded baselined schedule. Whenever I remove the
resources from one particular task in the schedule it creates negative cost.
When I assign a resource the cost is 0, then when I assign anymore resources
it becomes positive cost.

Has anyone ever seen this problem before?

Sandra

Sandra,
I can't say that I've seen this type of behavior before but perhaps you
have stumbled unto the ultimate cost saving measure

Seriously, a a few things that come to mind may hold the answer. First,
is the negative cost just on that particular task or on the whole
schedule? How many resources are assigned to that task? Does this same
phenomenon occur with that particular resource on other tasks? If all
resources are removed from that task, is there still a cost value
(positive or negative)? If that latter is true I suspect that at some
point in time a negative value was inadvertently entered directly into
the Cost field or the Fixed Cost field. You can easily check this by
displaying the Fixed Cost field and checking to see if it has a non-zero
value. If it does and it is unintentional, simply delete it.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

 

[Sandra]

Thanks Brian and John,

The task is 5d and was originally 0 cost prior to resources being assigned.
when one resource was assigned full time cost was a positive number (it's not
effort driven and is fixed duration). When the resourse is deassigned it
becomes negative cost. This is the only task in the schedule that reacts
this way.

Brian - that's exactly what we had to do, remove resources and set the cost
to 0 - then is started reacting normally once again.

I guess it's possible that we inadvertantly added neg cost to the task prior
to adding resources but the "how" is what bothers me. Anything's possible!

THANKS for the help guys! I REALLY appreciate it!!!!!

Sandra

 

[John]

Thanks Brian and John,

The task is 5d and was originally 0 cost prior to resources being assigned.
when one resource was assigned full time cost was a positive number (it's not
effort driven and is fixed duration). When the resourse is deassigned it
becomes negative cost. This is the only task in the schedule that reacts
this way.

Brian - that's exactly what we had to do, remove resources and set the cost
to 0 - then is started reacting normally once again.

I guess it's possible that we inadvertantly added neg cost to the task prior
to adding resources but the "how" is what bothers me. Anything's possible!

THANKS for the help guys! I REALLY appreciate it!!!!!

Sandra

Sandra,
Thanks for the feedback and, you're welcome.

Sometimes the "how" can never be determined. It sounds like whatever
occurred was an artifact of an inadvertent operation and those are real
hard to replicate.

John

 

[Brian K - Project MVP]

Thanks Brian and John,

The task is 5d and was originally 0 cost prior to resources being
assigned. when one resource was assigned full time cost was a
positive number (it's not effort driven and is fixed duration). When
the resourse is deassigned it becomes negative cost. This is the
only task in the schedule that reacts this way.

Brian - that's exactly what we had to do, remove resources and set
the cost to 0 - then is started reacting normally once again.

I guess it's possible that we inadvertantly added neg cost to the
task prior to adding resources but the "how" is what bothers me.
Anything's possible!

THANKS for the help guys! I REALLY appreciate it!!!!!

Sandra

Thanks for the thanks!

I agree with John. Often with Project there are way too many things
going on and too many steps the user takes to really get a handle on
the how. Im glad it worked out though.

I tried for 45 minutes to figure out how that might have happened and
could not figure a way that did not involve the task having negative
cost BEFORE the resources were assigned. Chalk this one up to crazy!