We have fix budget amounts fpr projects that we need to track costs from.  How can you enter a one time amount for a project and have all costs deducted from that amount?    And please don't tell me I can do this in a Crystal reoport.  Need to be able to fliter/sum and do all the good things PPM6 provides for the individual costs.

Thanks

Derrin

 

Please be specific about your Cost items in order to get a valid answer.  I'll answer based on a generalization:

The native "Budget" field is your one time amount.
In most cases customers desire Task cost and Expense application costs so this configuration applies to those two applications.  In some cases additional cost items can be added to the configuration but again, you have to be specific about what they are (a currency custom field, cost from Change items etc..).  These are all profile fields below.


First we need the Expense costs to total up.  Create a Custom Aggregate field titled "Total Actual Expenses" - here are the settings:

Step 3:  Currency and Sum
Step 4:  Select applications "Where Items Live in a Project"
Step 5:  Select Expenses and Add
Step 6:  Check "Actual Expense" and save.

This is grabbing all actual expense costs inside that one project and rolling it up to a custom field in the Project Profile.

Now create a calculation field called "Remaining Budget" with the formula:
Budget - (Scheduled Cost + Total Expenses).

Assuming Tasks/users are set up with proper rates and timsheet settings are executed you will see the total cost minus the budget as you have asked for in the Profile or in a View you create.  You can add in Change via the Aggregate field, just choose Expenses and Change apps and select the appropriate fields.  If you are trying to capture a Project Currency field you can add that in to the calculation.

Rollups may be impacted by your specific hierarchy and set up so you may need to adjust where the data is pulled from.  Hope this helps.

Steve,

I can not have these fields as profile fields.  I need them to pull data from the DA's I built that capture the invoices/costs.  Then I need these costs to be subtracted from the budget.

 

Thanks

Derrin

OhioHealth

Hi Steve,

I read your post with interest, as we have somewhat of a similar requirement and not sure how to best implement in eProject. Basically, at the Request stage level, we want to be able to capture some customer forecasted project benefits and capital costs ($$) projections, earmarked to specific year/s and month/s.  So, there's the notion of:  a) a "Total" forecast value ($$), b) that value split out to individual year/month value/s, and c) the "draw-down" value which is (a-b).

  We're possibly going to use an InfoPath form to collect this data (which is a separate discussion, introducing our need to interface to eProject via web services) and InfoPath has the notion of a "repeatable table" object for capturing this kind of data in the way we want.  So, we not only need to know how to set it up in eProject, we then need to figure out how (and if) we map the fields on the form to individual fields in eProject.

 

Appreciate any guidance you can provide.

Sincerely,

Pete Brumm

Business Objects

pbrumm@businessobjects.com

Perhaps I'm not quite sure how you have the information laid out to be tracked.  The only way to get a total number from a DA and subtract it from a project field is by having an Aggregate custom field at the Project level (which is a Profile or Status field).

Perhaps you mean you want a Dynamic Application field that lists end result instead of a Project field?  If so that is something we can't really do at this point in time.

Can you list an example with some real numbers and what you expect to see?

Steve,

Ours is simliar to Pete's however we have created a DA in eP that we will build our budget(s).  Within this DA we have budget categories and each has Capital/Opperation areas.  I tried the aggreagated field reference method, and it does work, however, it does NOT continue to throughout.  Meaning, once you reference the field we need it to continuing subtracting from the amount.

Example, is simply like your checking account on-line.  Despoit goes in and costs are subtracted from it.  The system is able to keep the running total and do the math accordingly.  In eP you do an aggreatgated field and it does pull the data from the Budget DA, but it keeps the orginal amount.  You can not have the orginal amount pulled every time against new costs.  And we don't want to be doing the on going math as then we wouldn't be gaining anything moving to eP.

Thanks

Derrin

OhioHealth

614-566-4617    

What about if in the DA you had a currency "deposit" field that the first entry is your budget total for the project, each subsequent line item deposit is an amount added to it.  You also have a charge field that deducts (also a currency field).

Your DA would be like this:
Item                    Credit Amount                    Debit Amount
Initial Budget       $3400
Materials                                                       $-200 (you wouldn't need the "-" sign)
Labor                                                            $-100
Sales                  $2000


You're aggregate fields would be Debit Total, Credit Total in the project workspace which total up the DA fields:

Credit total  $5400
Debit total $-300

And a Project Calculation field that is the remaining balance: $5100.

Don't use the native budget field (or just put that as the starting budget for reference, which should match the first line item in your DA.

edit - actually I guess you could just as easily have a single currency field for each item instead of Credit/Debit, just put in the amount as positive or negative.

Steve,

 Now we might be on to something here.  My question to you on this is, how would the system know to use the $5100 (new budget amount) to calculate against the next cost?

Because in either method (two value fields, or one value field with -/+ values) it is a running total calculation field we're using for the current budget, just like the online bank account scenario you mentioned.

peteb:

Hi Steve,

I read your post with interest, as we have somewhat of a similar requirement and not sure how to best implement in eProject. Basically, at the Request stage level, we want to be able to capture some customer forecasted project benefits and capital costs ($$) projections, earmarked to specific year/s and month/s.  So, there's the notion of:  a) a "Total" forecast value ($$), b) that value split out to individual year/month value/s, and c) the "draw-down" value which is (a-b).

  We're possibly going to use an InfoPath form to collect this data (which is a separate discussion, introducing our need to interface to eProject via web services) and InfoPath has the notion of a "repeatable table" object for capturing this kind of data in the way we want.  So, we not only need to know how to set it up in eProject, we then need to figure out how (and if) we map the fields on the form to individual fields in eProject.

 

Appreciate any guidance you can provide.

Sincerely,

Pete Brumm

Business Objects

pbrumm@businessobjects.com

Provided you have enough fields to capture B (might be pretty busy tho) you could get the info you desire assuming that C is just a total remaining for each year/month.

A = Just a total $ field
B = multiple $ fields representing each Year and Month - you would have to have a set amount of fixed years to plan for however.  Couldn't just add another year if the project runs longer than the preset time frame - this is the hinge point.
C = Same as above but is a calc field for each Year/Month - tricky.

If you could allow for this computation after the request stage (right at project generation) then we might consider how a dynamic app could do the job.

Steve,

Are you able to test this for me and provide results?  I do not want to run this in the current DA.

Thanks

Derrin

This is something you should test with your DA for consistency.  An easy way to do it is download your DA, then re-upload it and rename it (to "test" or something).  Enable it in a test project and put in some data values then create your custom field and validate.