Evaluating Project Connected Objects—Exercises
Required Data
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.
- Create activities in your subproject structure.
General exercise for Building
Project Plan
Connecting Objects to 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. In order to do
the exercises below, you must connect some objects to some of your project activities.
- Create a miscellaneous project demand. From this miscellaneous demand, create
the project supply request. In the case of purchasing, process the purchase
requisition so that a purchase order is created. The result of this step will
be an activity-connected purchase order, shop order or DOP header. Release the
order to obtain a Committed cost.
General exercise for
Registering Project
Demand
General exercise for
Purchasing Project
Miscellaneous Demand
General exercise for
Manufacturing Project
Miscellaneous Demand
General exercise for
Procuring Project
Miscellaneous Demand with DOP
- Alternatively, manually connect objects to your activities. Objects
you can connect are purchase order lines, shop orders, work orders, DOP headers,
customer order lines and material requisition lines. Release the order to obtain
a Committed cost.
General exercise for
Connecting
Manual Purchase Requisition/Order Line
General exercise for
Connecting Manual Shop Order and DOP Header
General exercise for Connecting
and Registering Work Orders
General exercise for
Connecting Material
Requisition Line and Customer Order Line
Main Exercise
Purpose: The purpose of these exercises is to show you how
to evaluate the cost and progress of objects connected to activities. This lesson
will also show you how to evaluate activity exceptions. You will learn how the Gantt
chart can be used when evaluating activity exceptions and connected objects.
Windows:
Project Navigator
Project Connections
Activity Exceptions
Evaluate activity connected objects in the
Project Navigator window:
- Open the Project Navigator window,
and query for the project to be evaluated.
- Select the activity to be evaluated and click on the
Connections tab.
- Observe the connected objects with their associated costs and progress in
the upper part of the table.
- Click on an object connection row in the upper part of the table and observe
the breakdown of costs into cost elements in the lower part of the table.
- You can also right click on the desired object connection row and click
Object Details to view the object details more clearly.
- Navigate to either the Activity/Cost
or Activity/Hours tab (or the
Summary tab on the
Project
window), select the desired rows, right-click and then click Project Connection
Details to view the relevant records in the
Project Connections
window.
Evaluate activity connected objects in the
Project Connections
window:
- Open the
Project Connections
window and query for the desired records to be analyzed. For example, it is
possible to query for a project ID, specific activities, object types or cost
elements.
- Observe the costs (estimated, planned, baseline, committed, used and actual)
per connected object and per cost element.
Note: To analyze a planned value exceeded exception in your project perform the
following steps:
- In order to do this, we have to create a planned value exceeded exception.
Find an activity with a connected object that has reported a Committed or Used
cost. Ensure that there are no Planned costs for this object or change the Planned
cost for this object to be lower than the Committed cost.
- Open the Activity Exceptions
window (alternatively the
Project Exceptions
window) and query for the project and activity you worked with in the step above.
- Click the Planned Values Exceeded
tab and observe that the cost by which you exceeded the planned values has been
tabulated.
Note: To analyze a time critical object connected to your project perform the
following steps:
- In order to do this, we have to have a late connected object.
Find an activity with a connected object that is expected to arrive later than
the finish date of the activity. Change the Early Finish Date of the activity
to be earlier than the intended date for the connected object.
- Open the Activity Exceptions
window (alternatively the
Project Exceptions
window) and query for the project and activity you worked with in the step above.
- Click the tab corresponding to the type of late object and note that the
connected object has caused an activity exception because it is expected after
the Early Finish Date of the activity.
Note: To analyze the activity and connected object causing the planned value
exceeded exception perform the following steps:
- Open the Project Navigator
window and query for the project for which you created a planned value exceeded
exception in the exercise above.
- In the project navigator, select the activity with the planned value exceeded
exception.
- Click the Gantt
tab and observe that there is an exclamation mark to the left of an activity,
indicating that there is a exception for that activity.
- Right-click on the exclamation symbol and select the menu option Activity
Exceptions.
- Click the Planned Values
Exceeded tab and observe that the cost by which you exceeded the
planned values has been tabulated.
Note: To analyze the activity and time critical object perform the following
steps.
- In the project navigator, select the activity with either a late
Purchase Order Line, Shop Order, Work Order or DOP header.
- Click the Gantt
tab and observe that there is an icon with red text for the connected object
which lies in the range of its order date. You can right click on the object
and click Object Details to view the connected object details.
- You can also observe that there is an exclamation mark to the left of an
activity, indicating that there is a exception for that activity.
- Right-click on the exclamation symbol and select the menu option Activity
Exceptions.
- Click the tab corresponding to the type of late object and note that the
connected object has caused an activity exception because it is expected after
the Early Finish Date of the activity.