Connecting Change Orders to Activities—Exercises

Basic Data Setup

Project Cost Element

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to show you how to create project cost elements.

Windows:
Project Cost/Revenue Elements

  1. Create a project cost element on which the planned cost for the change order actions can be reported.
  2. Save your changes.

General exercise for Setting Up Project Cost/Revenue Elements

Required Data

Registering Manual Activity Connected Objects per Project

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to familiarize you with the data that must be in place before you can perform the exercises below.

  1. Verify that the change order object type is allowed to be manually connected to an activity for your project.

General exercise for Creating Projects

Creating Activities

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to familiarize you with the data that must be in place before you can perform the exercises below.

  1. Create activities in your subproject structure.
  2. Save your changes.

General exercise for Building Project Plan

Creating a Change Order

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to familiarize you with the data that must be in place before you can perform the exercises below.

  1. Create a change order (CO) with a change order number starting with XX, substituting XX with your initials.
  2. Add at least one CO line.
  3. For this CO line, enter some corrective actions to be taken. Enter planned values for each CO action.

General exercise for Using Change Management

Main Exercise

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to show you how to connect a change order to an activity.

Windows:
Project Navigator/Activity
Project Navigator/Connections
Activity
Activity/Connections
Change Order

Connecting Change Orders to Activities

  1. Open the Project Navigator window. (Alternatively, open the Activity window)
  2. Query for your project.
  3. In the Navigator, select the activity to which you want to connect the change orders.
  4. Click the Activity tab. (Alternatively in the Activity window, click the General tab.)
  5. Verify that Connected Objects is selected in the Planned Cost Driver list.
  6. Click the Cost and Hours tabs, and note the activity planned values. (Alternatively, this information can be viewed in the Activity window as well.)
  7. Click the Connections tab.
  8. Right-click and select Connect/Disconnect Object.
  9. In the window that opens, click the Change Order tab.
  10. Populate to see all the change orders that are not currently connected to any activity. The change orders which are manually connected to this activity are also listed. To be included in this list, the CO should not be in the Completed or Cancelled status. Select required CO by selecting the Connection check box. Click OK to save your changes.
  11. If there is a planned cost or hours for any of the change order actions, you will get an information message that no cost element has been selected. Click OK to clear the message. On the Change Order/Actions tab, select a value in Cost Element field so that the planned cost and hours of the change order action will contribute to the activity's planned values.
  12. Note that the newly connected CO is shown in the upper table on the Connections tab. Select this row in the upper table to view its planned values in the lower table.
  13. Note that the System Connection check box is not selected as the CO was manually connected.
  14. Click the Activity tab. On the Cost and Hours tabs, note that the activity planned values are updated with the planned values from your CO.
  15. To see more information about the change order, click the Connections tab, select your CO, right-click, and then select Object Details. Alternatively, open the Change Order window, and query for your CO. You can view the corrective actions for each CO line and the number of planned hours and cost per action.
  16. To disconnect a change order, carry out steps 7— 9. Select your CO to be disconnected by clearing the Connection check box. Click OK to save your changes.
  17. On the Change Order/Actions tab, note that your disconnected task no longer has any value in the Cost Element field.

Note: When working in the Change Order window, you can access the activity information for the CO's connected activity by using the Zoom feature from the Activity Sequence field. This opens the Activity window.