Defining Activity Planned Cost Driver—Exercises

Required Data

Creating Activities with Estimated and Planned Values

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to familiarize you with the data that must be in place before you can do the exercises below. For this exercise to be meaningful, you need to assign resources to some activities, and plan with project deliverables. The exercise refers to the sample activities in the following table.

1. Create a subproject with at least three activities.
2. Enter estimated values for cost elements in each activity, for example, as shown in the following table.
3. Using the information in the table below as an example, assign resources to the activities, and enter the values for planned Hours. The planned work cost is automatically calculated and will depend on the cost information for your resources.
4. Using the information in the table below as an example, define tasks and enter planned values for the different cost elements.
5. As an alternative to steps 1–4 above, copy Subproject S10 from Project P100 to your project. In the Copy Estimates From list, click Estimated. Specify that you would like to copy the source project's subproject, activities, tasks, and resources. Make necessary additions to the data so that you have the planned values per cost element as in the table below.

General exercise for Building a Project Plan
General exercise for Building a Project Plan by Copying Existing Projects or Subprojects
General exercise for Assigning Resources and Analyzing Resource Capacity
General exercise for Creating and Connecting Tasks

Main Exercise

Purpose: The purpose of these exercises is to show you how to define the activity-planned cost driver. You will understand what an activity's planned cost is based on, depending on which planned cost driver you choose.

Windows:
Project Navigator/Activity
Project Navigator/Tasks
Project Navigator/Resource

Choosing Connected Objects as Planned Cost Driver

1. Open the Project Navigator window.
2. Query for your project.
3. Select Activity 10010 in the project Navigator. This activity has been planned with connected objects, i.e., tasks.
4. Click the Tasks tab. Note the planned hours and planned costs per cost element for each task.
5. Click the Activity tab.
6. In the Planned Cost Driver list, select Connected Objects. Save your changes.
7. Click the Cost and Hours tabs. Note that for each cost element, the value in the Planned field is the sum of the values from the connected tasks. You should see the following: 

Choosing Estimated Cost as Planned Cost Driver

1. Continue to work with Activity 10010.
2. In the Planned Cost Driver list, select Estimated Cost. Save your changes.
3. On the Cost and Hours tab, note that for each cost element, the value in the Planned field is equal to the value in the Estimated field. You should see the following:

Choosing Activity Resources as Planned Cost Driver

1. Select Activity 10030 in the project Navigator. This activity has been planned with allocated resources.
2. Click the Resource tab. Note the planned hours and planned costs per cost element for each resource allocation.
3. Click the Activity tab.
4. In the Planned Cost Driver list, click Connected Objects. Save your changes.
5. On the Cost and Hours tabs, note that there are no values in the Planned column.
6. In the Planned Cost Driver list, select Activity Resources. Save your changes.
7. On the Cost and Hours tabs, note that the total planned hours and planned costs per cost element is retrieved from the connected resources. You should see the following:

8. Select Activity 10020 in the project Navigator. This activity has been planned with both connected tasks and allocated resources.
9. Click the Resource tab. Note the planned hours and planned costs per cost element for each resource allocation.
10. Click the Tasks tab. Note the planned hours and planned costs per cost element for each task.
11. Click the Activity tab.
12. In the Planned Cost Driver list, select Connected Objects. Save your changes.
13. On the Cost and Hours tabs, note that for each cost element, the value in the Planned column is the sum of the values from the connected tasks.
14. In the Planned Cost Driver list, click Activity Resources. Save your changes.
15. On the Cost and Hours tabs, note that the planned hours and planned costs per cost element from the resource allocations are shown in the Planned column. If a connected task or an estimate has any planned costs in the same cost elements as found on resource allocations, these values will not be included in the Planned column. If a connected object has planned costs in cost elements other than the cost elements connected to the resources, these costs are also updated in the Planned column. You should see the following: