Timesheet

Hi All,

The information in here has been extremely valuable in assessing what we might do, as P5 users.



However, we are considering upgrading to P6, and I was wondering if any user can tell me if the P6 Timesheeting is exactly the same as P5, and introduces the same challenges/issues?



Cheers All.

Doug

Timesheeting is a two edge saw.



If you setup the system/procedure/processes/people correctly then it will give you power to manage project resource+claims+forecasting+++



However, if any components out of the system/processes/people is fail, it will becomes a nightmare.



Having said all that what I recommend the most important step to utilise Timesheet is asking what do you want to get out of the timesheet processes.

Just to get people weekly pay

To capture progress info

To capture actual hrs

To forecast hrs

To manage key resources

For contractural dispute/claims

For high level resource management

Different answers combination will need different setup



HTH



Alex - Back to work

Agreed Gordon,



there should be some on demad audit trail, to check the performance/ progress, and complimented with the timesheets checks,





Me also, my view is also the same "Schedule on a scheduling tool, collect actuals on an accounting tool.. analyse in excel"



Hope this is working, especially where you need to check the progress of your engineers....



Waseem Saber

Hello everybody,

Timesheet analysis is very easy through Resource Assignment View. It does not take so long comparing forecasts and Actuals (dynamic analyis through Group & Sort choices).



Kindest regards.

One of the most worrying aspects of getting your guys to fill in their own progress is that [i]your guys are filling in their own progress[/i].



You have to have some kind of mechanism in place to verify / challenge the progress your guys are reporting... I’m sure pretty much everyone on here will appreciate that engineers and even foreman can perhaps be.. a shade optimistic.. when reporting progress.



It is imperative that you have some means of keeping them honest, make sure you walk around site / the departments to check progress.



Personally, my view is Schedule on a scheduling tool, collect actuals on an accounting tool.. analyse in excel... can’t go wrong

Hi Jerry,



Yes, you can tick off steps in the timesheet browser, but the snag is that you can also just as easily "untick" these steps; so you need to establish some discipline in your user community. ("Done" means "done", for instance)



If you set your activities to physical % complete and set the project to calculate the activity % complete based on steps, it will show progress based on the steps ticked off by the timesheet users.



Adding and removing steps is too good to be true I’m afraid.



Local Primavera dealers can supply you software with a temporary license. Beware, these systems are complex and testing options can take a LOT of time!



H.T.H.



Niek.

Niek,

Very sound advice indeed, if you wish to use the module, couldn’t agree more.



Andy

Timesheet systems which derive their data straight from the schedule can work perfectly, but it is important to keep a few basic rules in mind:



- Keep the schedule high-level (i.e. 40-80 hour chunks in each assignment on average) If you try to use the timesheets as a detailed checklist you’ll stifle the entire organisation and kill yourself in maintenance.



- Ensure buy-in from the resources performing the work. If you fail to do that, people won’t understand why you want to measure their performance and what you will do with that information. Be genuine!



- Keep the schedule up-to-date at all times. If your people don’t recognise what they are assigned to they’ll wing it and the system will fail.



I’ve used Primavera timesheets since Webster on top of P3 (which was 10 years ago didn’t work by the way) and moved to P3e since then. Assignment based time tracking can be successful but you need to keep the above constraints in mind at all times.



H.T.H.



Niek.

Hello,



I am not a specialist of the Timesheet module, but I experienced it ; I think that it could be parameterized, so that it is not necessary to get the correct nominative resource known to allow the timesheet on the task.

For instance, in the case of rework by a production team : at the moment you schedule, you do not often know which personn of the team will do the work. So you can load the task with ’generic resource’ of the team. If you only permit to nominative resources to declare timesheets on the tasks where they are loaded, it will quicky be a nightmare for you.



Is there anyone who knows more about it ?

In many years of planning and scheduling I have never seen a timesheet system that had anything to do with realilty in terms of the schedule and actual progress on scheduled tasks which should have been worked in this last time period.



Timesheets are the mechanism by which people get paid, or attempt to prove they were somewhere near the project.



No major organisation will tolerate the real down time we are faced with when things go wrong, etc



I have seen timesheets where up to 50% of the on site time could not be booked, because of standing around delays due to concrete not doing what it should or parts aren’t there etc etc.



But the contractor’s management went spare because they have a contract which re-imburses time actually booked so they think they will loose money



It is a lack of imagination for creating non working codes which do not allow the worker’w room for slacking.



My view is stay away from timesheets as a means of progressing directly into your software.



Walk around the site like most of do and visibly check what has occurred

Very valid point Andrew!



The use of timesheets puts a serious quality constraint on the schedule, because it needs to accurately reflect the work that is being carried out. Any discrepancy between real life and what’s in the schedule will immediately emerge when people try to enter their time. The more detailed the schedule is, the higher the probability that it’s wrong.



In my experience, you need full-time schedulers to keep up with reality and less granular schedules to avoid excessive maintenance.



Last but not least the schedule must be based on a solid plan, and a decent planning cycle where key contributors have actively participated. Time tracking systems are very vulnerable so you need buy-in from your key resources to make it work...



H.T.H.



Niek.

P.S. I start at a new job in 2 weeks and they use P5 but do there timesheeting elsewhere - YIPPEE

Jerry,

I am currently employed by a company that uses the timesheet module and we suffer on a daily basis by the unachievable balance between timesheets and schedule detail.



Constantly we have people ringing, e-mailing for a code to book there time too, only to find out that they were not originally assigned to that task/activity.



If I were you, I’d make sure that you understand the implications of using the module and have a very detailed set of instructions laying down the timelines you need to work from.



Each week I need to go back in time up to 12 months of weekly timesheets to approve those sheets that were not submitted on time. Understand that we suffer from a large amount of work and not many people to do it and therefore as priorities change on our projects so do the resource assignments on the activities to allow people to book their time to the correct activity.



Then we get to the people who just plain don’t care about the timesheet module and never submit a timesheet. Then we deal with 2 levels of non sequential approval, meaning the Responsible manager of the project or the WBS element needs to approve the hours booked to the activities associated to them, and then the timesheet approval manager needs to approve the full timesheet for the individual resource.



We also struggle with a cost tool called CHEOPS which we integrate with and it works purely on cost accounts and for some stage reason the company has decided to use the cost accounts at the activity resource assignment level and not simply at the activity as a whole or even a cost account level (p.s. they don’t know what a cost account is with respect to project management definition)



Also I hear just recently that even Primavera itself here in Australia are not recommending the timesheet module anymore due to the potential for overhead/man-hours associated with using it.



In closing I would suggest that Primavera is a scheduling tool (somewhere to hold your activity timeline and logic) and you should use a separate tool to do your invoicing and project costs/expenses, and possibly timesheets or even a third tool that captures hours against cost accounts.





Andy

If you can get to P6 I would certainly recommend timesheets. In previous versions, only the primary resource could update the activity through the web browser. With P6 you can associate a user with an activity so the one doing the updates doesn’t have to be the person doing the work.



The only thing you have to be aware of is that the timesheet mechanism helps you to understand if you have received all your updates. (The system warns you that timesheets are missing if you apply actuals.) If you only use the % complete mechanism you will need to define a procedure to verify if you have received all your updates before you reschedule the remaining work.



H.T.H.



Niek.