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Custom Fields

4 replies [Last post]
Wed, 2009-05-13 06:42
Mal Leadbetter
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Joined: 22 Aug 2001
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I am working with a client who wishes to see a bit more information on his gantt chart reports.

We have number of resources that are grouped. Group 1 being Project Management, Group 2 Design Services.

What I would like to be able to do is use some custom fields to show actual and remaining cost for the 2 groups. Ie

Cost field 1 - PM Group Actual Cost
Cost Field 2 - PM Group Remaining Cost

Cost Field 3 - DEsign Services Actual Cost
Cost Field 4 - Design Services Remaining Cost

The costs above are based upon rates per hour within MSP 2002.

If this cannt be done by group then I can use a generic resource for both ie PM Services & Design Services

Any help greatfully received

Also anyone have a solution for lump sum costs in MSP using a resource ?

And before any suggests it, changing software is not an option !

All the above, a doddle in PowerProject!

Cheers
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Replies

Thu, 2009-05-14 05:38
#1
Mal Leadbetter
User offline. Last seen 10 years 32 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 22 Aug 2001
Posts: 61
Groups: TILOS
Trevor

Totally agree with your first 2 paragraphs.

This is maybe boiling down to the way MS Project can produce data against the way another planning tool such as PowerProject. I must also consider my knowledge(or lack off) using MS Project, not used it in anger for a long time, have been using PowerProject.

The abreviations are

O/D - original duration
R/D - remaining duration
A/D - actual duration
e/s - early start
e/f - early finish
a/c - actual cost
r/c - remaining cost

If it can’t be done using custom fields and formula then it can’t be done. Will just have to hand ball it

Many thanks your replies, its good to get thoughts from others when drawings complete blank !

Cheers
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Thu, 2009-05-14 04:19
#2
Trevor Rabey
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Joined: 29 Nov 2005
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Before even thinking about the problem, or rather the more exotic and demanding version of the problem, the short answer is that maybe it is possible and maybe it isn’t. Maybe it is easy and maybe it is hard.
But what is the point of spending time and effort trying to do something which is mainly cosmetic, and largely based on a whim, and adds not one $ of value, when the time and effort could be much better spent doing something which is more important and productive?

The Gantt Chart is primarily about Tasks, and all of the fields are Task fields. You could tag the Tasks manually as PM or Design and then group and sub-total on that, and then think about tagging with a formula

I can figure out what some of the abbreviations are, but can you tell me anyway, just to be sure.
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Thu, 2009-05-14 03:11
#3
Mal Leadbetter
User offline. Last seen 10 years 32 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 22 Aug 2001
Posts: 61
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Trevor

Thanks for the reply. A possible solution that I will need to put forward.

Basically the client had seen some example reports done in PowerProject. One of which showed the gantt chart and the spreadsheet side detailing

ID, Name, O/D, E/S, A/D, R/D, E/F, E/F Variance, A/C PM Services, R/C PM Services, A/C Design Services, R/C Design Services.

On face value, it would appear MSP needs to produce 2 reports to do this, hence asking if via the use of custom fields and formula it was not possible to extract the cost information from the task for each reasource into the custom cost fields.
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Wed, 2009-05-13 20:37
#4
Trevor Rabey
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Actual Cost and Remaining Cost (of Resources) are Resource fields so the Actual Cost and Remaining Cost data is available for each Resource so the problem is only about extracting the data and arranging it.

If you "tag" each Resource with the department they are in by using a spare resource field, that is a text field, or the built-in Group field will do, then you will be able to sort, filter and group on that field.

fred, PM Department
bob, Design Services
carol, PM Department
ted, Design Services
alice, Design Services

Make a new Group (Project, Grouped By, More Groups etc) and group on the "tag" field.
Then in the Resource Sheet View, show the Cost Table, then run the Group that you just made

How about slightly re-phrasing the question so that we are asking to see:

Actual Cost For Tasks with PM Group resources assigned.
Remaining Cost for Tasks with PM Group resources assigned.

In the Gantt Chart View, and showing the Cost Table, Group by Resource Name.
This is not one of the built-in Groups so you will have to make one (Project, Group By, More Groups)
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