Using Project to create cost proposals

[rsmithgi]

I am trying to use Project to create cost proposals for Government contracts.
I am trying to use custom cost fields to compute burdened costs. I have run
into an issue that I have not been able to solve. Historically, I have used
several approaches and each has disadvantages:

1. Use already burdened rates for resources. This is a problem because on
some proposals we need to show a breakout of direct and indirect costs on a
task by task basis.

2. Use custom task cost field formulas. This is a problem because I need to
be able to use different formulas for different cost types (e.g direct labor
vs travel).

3. Use custom resource cost field formulas. This is a problem because I
haven't been able to figure out a way for Project to accumulate those costs
for each task that uses resources.

Any guidance will be greatly appreciated.


thanks
Rich

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

Writing it in VBA will avoid all these pitfalls... but one has to know VBA.

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

 

[rsmithgi]

I have come to the same conclusion. I have written a preliminary VBA macro
that computes the burdened cost for each non-summary task by computing the
burdened cost for each resource assigned to the task. This allows me to vary
the formula for different resource types. I then setup the custom cost field
to perform a sum for summary rows.

I am also using custom formulas to compute the burdened costs for all
resources by type regardless of the task that they are assigned to. A quick
check in excel confirms that the sum of the VBA computed burdened task costs
equals the resource formula computed sum of burdened resource tasks.

I only need to enter raw costs for resources and OH, G&A, and Fee in the
resource sheet.

The only downside that I see is that people need to remember to run the
macro after they make any changes to the schedule.

Can macros be run automatically when the schedule changes?

thanks
Rich

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

Yes BUT..
When the macro itself changes the tasks... it will re-trigger itself, etc.
It can be triggered by some other event than task change for instance before
save.

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