Below is a list of tips and tricks for the Project Reporting course. Click one of the items below to see information that may be helpful to you as you go through the course.
| Role | User | Emp No | Employee Name | Subproject ID (Project ID: 202) |
| Teacher | ALAIN | 1002 | Alain Prost | 99 (Management) |
| Student | ALEX | 1004 | Alexander Danielsson | 01 |
| Student | DAVID | 1014 | David Coulthard | 02 |
| Student | EDDIE | 1016 | Eddie Irvine | 03 |
| Student | EMERSON | 1018 | Emerson Fittipaldi | 04 |
| Student | ENZO | 1020 | Enzo Ferrari | 05 |
| Student | GIANCO | 1022 | Giancarlo Fisichella | 06 |
| Student | JAQUES | 1026 | Jacques Villeneuve | 07 |
| Student | JEAN | 1028 | Jean Alesi | 08 |
| Student | MARIO | 1034 | Mario Andretti | 09 |
| Student | MIKA | 1036 | Mika Häkkinen | 10 |
| Student | MIKE | 1038 | Michael Schumacher | 11 |
| Student | NIGEL | 1040 | Nigel Mansell | 12 |
The subproject ID in the above table is the subproject that each user is manager for.
Many users find it difficult to
understand the priority order in project pricing definitions. Stress that the
tab order in the Pricing windows is the same as the actual priority order, i.e., the
leftmost tab always has the highest priority. There is one exception: within the
Internal Price/Employee Price tab, the rightmost column has the highest priority.
Encourage the users
to define and use their own resource groups. This decreases the risk of users
inadvertently disturbing each other when doing the exercises. The users should
connect their own employee to their resource group.
The most common
causes for not getting a price in a transaction is that you have either
forgotten to connect the price list to your project or you have not defined a price
for the currency that is used in the transaction.
Encourage the users
to use only their own report codes because the data that is entered here affects all
users.
Note that the data entered in this window affects all users.
In this exercise, a long time interval
should be used for the report codes. The time interval is not changeable after it has been saved.
Encourage the users to use only report codes connected to their own report code group, as this decreases the risk of interfering with the exercises of other users.
Project Analysis is
generally regarded as one of the most difficult functions in
Project Reporting. To help the users develop an understanding, you should let
them take their
time with this exercise and encourage them to experiment with different queries
and see what the output is.
Note that the
Unconfirmed Days window is based on the Position structure in the Organization
component, not on the Project Access structure. This means that to get any data in
the window, the users should enter hours on their projects for their subordinates
according to the position structure. To be able to do this, they will first have
to give the subordinates access to the project.
The basic data in
Employee Presence Analysis is global, so changes by one user affect all other
users. To circumvent this potential problem, you could divide up the columns
among the users so each
user gets one column.
Note: Employee Presence Analysis is dependent on data in Organization, Time & Attendance, and Schedules & Rules.
The
Invoicing Plan
wizard only supports integers for the Interval (Months) value. In other words, you
can only plan for whole months, not parts of months.
Note that you need to
enter a total sales amount, i.e. the sum of all the plans you want created.
To avoid that one user starts invoicing of another user's project, all users should use the Choose a specific project(s) check box when running the Batch Invoicing wizard.
Note:Batch invoicing is run as a background job. If you do not want to wait for the background job to run automatically, you can start it manually by right-clicking in the Background Jobs window and then clicking Execute.
It is only possible
to credit invoices that have been released. If you want to correct a preliminary
invoice, you could delete it or edit the included transactions.
The correction function for project transactions should only be used for invoiced or cost-accounted transactions. Other transactions should be edited instead. Note: Editing a transaction that is included on a preliminary invoice updates that invoice.
Editing a transaction that is included on a preliminary invoice updates that invoice.
To be able to use the
Material Withdrawal functionality, you need to set up some basic data in other components. If this
is not already set up, enter the following data:
Note: In addition to this
data, you still need sites, inventory articles, etc. If you are using
the Racing database, it is recommended that you use the IRP site.
You cannot
create project transactions for material that has not been issued.
Before you can create project transactions based on issued material, you need to set up report codes of type Material and connect these to your project activities.
You can
only forward posted invoices. The process used for posting a
preliminary invoice depends on how basic data is set up for a company. In some
cases, a supplier invoice is posted when you save the information on
the
Postings tab. In other cases, you also have to right-click
and then click Post
Invoice.
When you forward a supplier invoice, the invoice date is used for the transaction that is created. This means that you have to ensure that your project activity is released on this date and that the report code chosen is valid for this date.
The
Project
Transactions window is the single most important window in Project Reporting, as
almost everything that is done in the component either ends up here or uses
information that is stored here. You should, therefore, give the users ample time
to complete this exercise. Encourage them to experiment with all fields in the window,
not just the ones outlined in the exercise. Get them to ask themselves (with
help from the instructor) about the purpose of the fields in the window so they
really understand its uses. When teaching a Project Reporting
course, you should also encourage the users to return to the
Project Transactions
window while they are doing other exercises so they can see the effects of their
actions.
Before you are able
to approve a project, one of the financial code parts must be defined as a
project code part. You can verify this in the
Define
Code String window. One of the code parts should have the value Project
Accounting in the Code Part Function field. If no code part has this
value, choose a code part (except for code part A, which is reserved for the
Account code part) that shows No function for the code part function and Not Used for the logical code part.
Change the code part function
to Project Accounting and the logical code part to Project for
this code part. The Code Used field should have Yes for the chosen
code part. Note: Code part B is generally
used as cost center,
while code part F is generally used for project.
If IFS/General Ledger
is installed in the database, you will have to connect the project to a
financial project group when the project is approved (this automatically creates
a corresponding financial project). If no project groups exist, enter them in
the Project Groups window. To do so, you
need to use a Financials client file that includes General Ledger (the
standard HR client files does not include it). When entering the project group, you only have to enter information in the
header. It is recommended to use project type No Capitalization for the
Project Reporting course.
Sometimes, the valid
dates of the financial project that is created when you approve the project have
too short an interval, which can cause a problem if you report on the project before the
Valid From date. To avoid this problem, once again use the Financials client
file and extend the validity interval (Valid From and Valid Until)
of the created projects in the Projects window.
You can manually change the actual start date of a project activity. This can be useful if you want to report for days that fall before the day on which you released the activity.
Three projects have been created for training purposes within Project Reporting. Understanding these projects saves the instructor a lot of time when preparing for the course. Customer for all projects is 2000 - ProjRep Customer.
This project is meant to be a demonstration project for the instructor. This project has subprojects in 2 levels and duration is about 6 months. With the relatively short duration it is possible to demonstrate project progress more realistically, because Scheduled Progress will change almost from day to day. Planned hours and costs are relatively low which means that Actual Hours and Work Costs become comparable to the planned figures when making just a few registrations. Project is in status "Initialized".
This project is meant for copying to individual projects, one per attendee. The duration is only one month, and the Project Start is set when using the Copy Project Wizard. Project Start should be set to Monday, 2-3 weeks before the actual date. Again, short duration and small figures allow a comparison of progress and actual costs to planned data. Project is in status "Initialized".
This project has 13 subprojects, where subproject 01-12 are meant for attendees and Subproject 99 for the instructor. Every Subproject has a different subproject manager and the attendee will only have access to his/her subproject, while the instructor (ALAIN) is the project manager and sees it all. Therefore, don't let the attendees use ALAIN. This project can be used as it is. Planned ending date is December 31, 2003. This project is aimed for training purposes starting directly with project time & cost reporting. This project is approved and its activities are released, ready for reporting.