Nenad Trajkovski

Hi,

as I promised I will write about tracking actual work and cost on the Project in MS PROJECT 2010.

In my previous blog I recorder progress for my three Tasks:

First I will choose the Work Table:

and I will get:

As you can see, in this Table I have work in hours which is based on formula Duration in days X Hours per day. For the Task4, Duration is 7 days, e.g. 7 days X 8 hours per day = 56 hours!

I will put 40% in the % W. complete, and I will get:

40% of 56 hours is 22,4 hours, and you can see this value in the Actual field, and the Remaining is 56-22,4  = 33,6 hours. I will open the Status window for the Task4:

and I will get:

Notice that Actual duration is 2,8 days, and Remaining duration is 4,2 days! Why? Because Actual work is 22.4 hours, Actual Duration is 22,4 hours / 8 hours per day = 2,8 days. And Remaining duration is Duration – Actual duration = 7 days – 2,8 days = 4,2 days.

Now suppose that you want to track Actual work in hours per Resource for each task! First you should open Task usage view:

and you will get:

Now I can double click on the resource name under each Task and I will get:

Here I can put:

• Work:  How many hours are needed for the Task and Resource
• Actual work: How many hours are already spent on this Task by particular Resource
• % Work complete: The percentage of work completed on the Task by particular Resource
• Remaining work: How many hours are needed to finish the work, beside Actual work on the Task by particular Resource
• Actual start: When the Resource has started to work on this Task
• Actual finish: When the Resource has ended (completed) with work on this Task

I will not explain how MS PROJECT 2010 calculates fields because it does it on the same way as it was described in my previous Post.

The most detailed information is to put the exact number of hours spent on the Task by the particular Resource, on a day by day basis. You can do it like this:

and you will get:

I manually put 4, 12 and 20 hours in days, so the Actual work is 4+12+20 hours = 36 hours, Remaining work is 56 – 36 = 20 hours, and % Work completed is 36/56 = 64%

Which method to use? The answer is simple: The most accurate! And of course, consider the time you need to fulfill all those fields!

OK! How to track Costs, or better how to put the real costs in your Project?

For Fixed cost that is easy. For example, choose the cost table in Task Usage (or any other View, for which is applicable the Cost Table):

and you will get:

Now you can change Fixed Cost, for example, from $300 to $400 in Task4. Just retype it, and you will get:

But what can you do with Costs for resources. They are calculate automatically. You can leave them “as is”, and let MS PROJECT 2010 to calculate those values based on price per hour, day etc. for the Resource and hours spent on the Tasks. Or  you can put all the costs manually. To do that you should set MS PROJECT 2010 up:

ant then:

Now I can put manually Actual Costs. For example notice that Task4 I have:

• Total Cost: $22.800
• Actual: $14.620
• Remaining: $8.180

I will now put $25.000 in the Actual Cost Field and I will get:

As you can see, Remaining cost is same, and Total Cost is$33.180 (e.g. Actual cost + Remaining).

WATCH OUT! DO NOT USE THIS METHOD IF YOU ARE NOT 10000000% SURE WHAT YOU ARE DOING, BECAUSE YOU CAN RUIN YOUR PROJECT. You can also change the Baseline field! DO NOT DO IT! LEAVE IS AS IT IS!

I will now change my setting again to the:

and I those changes for the Task4 are gone:

In my next post I will show you, how to track Variances against planned values using different tables.

Until then,

Best Regards!