AC missing in visual report in MSP 2007
Peters
When using the visual report for earned value over time report, I do not
seem to be able to get any Actual Cost values.
I have:
- created a sample file with one activity with work and duration
- assigned a resource with a cost per hour
- set the baseline
- registered acutal work in resource usage view
- set the report date to approximately the middle of that task
- checked in Gantt view that there are BCWS, BCWP and ACWP values that are
correct
- run the visual report Earned value over time report
- tried both with %phsyical complete as well as % complete as earned value
method
EV and PV shows correctly in the Excel pivot-table created, but there is
just no values in AC (which I guess would correspond to ACWP). Am I missing
something?
Thanks in advance,
Peter
Scott S
Under Tools - Options, on the Calculation tab, there's an option "Actual
costs are always calculated by Microsoft Office Project." Do you have that
checked?
JulieS
Is your status date equal to the date of the actual work you have
tracked? I noticed when I had applied actual work but hadn't updated
the status date that I was getting inconsistent results (zero AC) with
the report.
After updating the status date, I had to change the level of usage data
in the report (switch from Weeks to Days or Day to Weeks) to get the
data to populate. I am *guessing* that forcing the change in level of
usage forces a re-build of the olap cube.
I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.
Julie
Project MVP
Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for the FAQs and additional information
about Microsoft Project
"Peters" <Pet...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:69264CF5-FF7D-486C...@microsoft.com...
Peters
I did have the "automatic calculation" option crossed. To be on the safe
sida I also tried "Calculate now" with no change.
/Peter
Peters
I tried to move the status date to the day after the last day with actual
work and did the visual report and it worked. Tried to move the status before
the last day with actual cost registered and it did not work. I thought I was
on to something there, but I can not repeat it. Changing from days to weeks
Visual Report window and "Select usage data to include field" sometimes
produces AC values, sometimes not. The results seems random, which worries me
since I would want to trust my earned value reports, which seems hard to do
right now.
I only have one task in my plan, could the problem be related to that? Does
it matter what current date is set to?
Frustrating!
Peter
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Peter
JulieS
I don't believe the issue you are seeing is related to only one task in
your project. I do not know precisely what is causing the problem you
note, other than to comment that I can also reproduce what you saw when
I have Actual Work entered after the status date of the project. My
recommendation is to make sure that you always update the status date to
correspond with the date of the tracking data. Earned Value data in
Project is closely tied to the status date and not only may you see odd
data in Actual Cost, but the other data may be off as well.
The current date is used by project when working with earned value if
you do not specify a status date.
I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.
Julie
Project MVP
Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for the FAQs and additional information
about Microsoft Project
"Peters" <Pet...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:C3F3978C-BB8D-49DA...@microsoft.com...
Peters
of December. The last registered actual work is on 5th of December. I run the
Visual Report, there are actual costs. I change status date to the 5th of
December, no Actual costs. Change back to 6th of December, NO actual cost.
Now my question is, can I trust the data coming out of the visual reports at
all?
Should I be using DecisionEdge's earned value graphs instead?
It is only software, but I think it will win!
JulieS
My comments are inline.
Julie
Project MVP
Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for the FAQs and additional information
about Microsoft Project
"Peters" <Pet...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:C60374D0-1A79-4A9C...@microsoft.com...
>I started up MS Project again to try again. I put the status date on
>the 6th
> of December. The last registered actual work is on 5th of December. I
> run the
> Visual Report, there are actual costs. I change status date to the 5th
> of
> December, no Actual costs. Change back to 6th of December, NO actual
> cost.
>
[Julie] When I experimented with Status date and viewing actual costs,
after changing the status date, I had to change the usage detail
information to get the data to re-appear. As I noted below, my *guess*
is that it takes a cube rebuild to correct the error.
> Now my question is, can I trust the data coming out of the visual
> reports at
> all?
[Julie] Based upon the errors that you have seen as well as some other
errors, my comment is that I would always verfiy the data for accuracy.
In other words, if you created a visual report, I'd compare the
information from the report with data from the Earend Value table
applied to the task view.
>
> Should I be using DecisionEdge's earned value graphs instead?
[Julie] Sorry, Peter, I'm not at all familiar with DecisionEdge, so I
can't make a reasonable comparison.
>
> It is only software, but I think it will win!
[Julie] It does sometimes feel that way :-)
I hope this helps.
Julie
andrewandrew
circumstances:
Create new project, one task, 10d duration, one resource, $10 per hour.
Current date is Sunday, PJ Start is last sunday, status date is today. Set
baseline. View Earned Value Over Time report and AC is there. THEN I switch
to the Taks Usage view, and AC is zero. Switch back to Gantt chart, AC is
gone.
Two conclusions:
Apparently Microsoft decided to relabel the ACWP field as AC just for the
reporting feature. Thanks for that.
AC doesn't work (perhaps due to nomenclature problems? ACWP anyone?), so I
just use Actual Cost instead. It's not cumulative like ACWP, but it's good
enough. CV and SV still work fine.
Andrew