EVMS with Cost Resources, Is It Possible?

[Andrew Lavinsky]

Just doing a bit of testing and realized that Cost Resources don't seem to be
included in MPP 2007 EVMS calculations.

Researched the issue a bit, and came across the final comment in this blog,
which needless to say, was not encouraging:

http://blogs.msdn.com/project/archive/2008/07/22/infrastructure-update-and-cost-resource-behavior.aspx

Anyone got the skinny on Cost Resources and EVMS in MPP 2007....? Does it
work now and I haven't figure it out? Is there a hotfix out there that
hasn't crossed my radar?

Any assistance would be appreciated.

[Jim Aksel]

In Project, you cannot earn PV (BCWS) or EV (BCWP) against a cost resource as
items like "Travel" do not ordinarily earn value. On the Resource or Task
Usage Views, you can insert [cost] for Cost Type resources if you insert the
[cost] row on the right side. These costs do register as part of [Baseline
Cost], [Cost], [EAC] and [Actual Cost]. However, you never see them on ACWP,
BCWP, or BCWS.

Set Tools/Options/Calculations. Uncheck the box for automatic cost
calculation by Project so you can enter these costs yourself. See if that
will show up in your costcalculations.

If you want to keep track of items list travel, you may want to consider
using them as material resources.

--
If this post was helpful, please consider rating it.

Jim Aksel, MVP

Check out my blog for more information:
http://www.msprojectblog.com

[Unknown]

Just thinking if I could meet my needs w/ Material Resources. Probably to
an extent, but that makes it tough to do cost contouring - i.e. if I have
a contract for 20K across four weeks, manually allocating that amount against
time periods.

Thanks for taking the time to respond, and certainly appreciate the suggestion.

-A

> In Project, you cannot earn PV (BCWS) or EV (BCWP) against a cost
> resource as items like "Travel" do not ordinarily earn value. On the
> Resource or Task Usage Views, you can insert [cost] for Cost Type
> resources if you insert the [cost] row on the right side. These costs
> do register as part of [Baseline Cost], [Cost], [EAC] and [Actual
> Cost]. However, you never see them on ACWP, BCWP, or BCWS.
>
> Set Tools/Options/Calculations. Uncheck the box for automatic cost
> calculation by Project so you can enter these costs yourself. See if
> that will show up in your costcalculations.
>
> If you want to keep track of items list travel, you may want to
> consider using them as material resources.
>

[andrewandrew]

Thanks Andrew for pointing this out and Jim for a great explanation.

I know MSP already has many options, but it would be great to be able to
control the calculations on this. There are tons of Fixed Costs that I want
to track individually and whose costs should be calculated as Earned. Fixed
price contracts are a great example of that, I want to track work on
different contracts separately, many tasks will be on each contract, and
their completion counts as earned value.

Another point this gets to is the uselessness of the material resource
type--what kind of job uses more of a material the longer it goes, in direct
proportion to the duration? It would be great to be able to track fixed costs
for materials, but I can't begin to express how the current solution is not
the right way to do it.

Cheers

[JulieS]

Hello Andrew,

To clear up a confusion point -- material resources, unlike work
resources, do not necessarily increase or decrease due to variations
in duration. If you assign the material resource as a flat unit,
not x/day, then the amount of material resource used does not alter,
nor does the cost for the material resource.

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

"andrewandrew" <andrew...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
message news:5955AFBC-897F-4273...@microsoft.com...

[Unknown]

Saw this hanging out there, and figured I'd add some more for posterity.

Here's an example where you could use material resources in direct proportion
to duration:

I am planning a seminar. I can set up each of the following as material
resources, and tie it to the duration of the seminar to model cost:

1) Rental Cars / Days
2) Hotels / Nights
3) Room Rental / Days
4) Meals Vouchers / Day
5) Per Diem / Day

-A

>>>> at e-and-cost-resource-behavior.aspx