Planned
value, Cashflow, Price revision and Index, how does it all work
and how is it taken into account by PPT? |
How
do I deal with Special contributions in PPT? |
Is
the search form a logical AND or OR between the items workunit,
contract, budget etc..? |
In
'workunits' when searching for budget code 96203, I receive
a list of workunits with not only budget code 96203 but as well
96205 etc. Why? |
The
CTC we were given is insufficient, how do I go about registering
the known expenditure not covered in the CTC? |
The
staff levels we have are insufficient, how do I register the
'missing staff'? Particularly if these staff are not provided
then this will increase the costs on the Industrial Service
(IS) contracts. |
If
I split my activities into Work Units with the granularity you
suggest then my engineers/I will spend all our time filling
in forms. |
How
do I register 'overheads'? e.g. training, travel, claims associated
with the running/operating of several contracts. I do not want
to split 50K over 20 deliverables of 4 contracts |
What
do I do about the operations budget? For example we are installing
equipment already in 2002, but will have 'maintenance expenditure'
on the operations budget until it's use in LHC in 2007. |
A
work unit has several deliverables, how do I weight them? |
How
can we give 'ponders' to different Deliverables? |
How
to configure Excel so that it doesn't insert hyperlinks |
What
kind of resources should go under L1, L2, L4 and L8 |
What
is the link between CFU and the data in EVM |
Is
there a way to order the data by budget code, holders etc...?
|
What
is the WBS? |
Can
we define some more nodes in the WBS? |
When
I look under the WBS node and select the 'Long format' display
I do not see the details? |
How
do I register forthcoming amendments to contracts that are
not yet signed?
|
Planned
value, Cashflow, Price revision and Index, how does it all work
and how is it taken into account by PPT?
Answer:
A clear explanation on Planned Value, Price Revision and Index
can be found on this
page. |
|
How
do I deal with Special contributions in PPT?
Answer:
To
know everything about Special Contributions and how to change
them, please consult the Special
Contributions page.
|
|
Is
the search form a logical AND or OR between the items workunit,
contract, budget etc..?
Answer:
The search form is a logical AND. So if you search for budget
code 94560 on contract F334, the result will be all workunits
containing the two mentioned criteria. Keeping in mind of
course that these workunits may as well have other budget
codes and these would then as well appear.
|
In
'workunits' when searching for budget code 96203, I receive
a list of workunits with not only budget code 96203 but as
well 96205 etc. Why?
Answer:
A workunit
can have several resource assignments each assigned to different
budget codes. When you perform a search on a particular budget
code, the result displayed will be all workunits containing
that particular budget code and other budget codes as well
if any of those workunits have resource assignments to other
budget codes.
|
The
CTC we were given is insufficient, how do I go about registering
the known expenditure not covered in the CTC?
Answer:
That's what EVM is all about: Identifying such costs. Register
them. If the budget code is not yet known then you can put
a dummy
code.
Once
the extra expenditure is approved by the Project Leaders Office,
the dummy code has to be changed to the approved code.
|
The
staff levels we have are insufficient, how do I register the
'missing staff'? Particularly if these staff are not provided
then this will increase the costs on the Industrial Service
(IS) contracts.
Answer:
Staff can be registered without a name,as long as you include
the Job Type in column E (category of personnel). If post
is not granted and costs are incurred on IS contracts then
the cost variance can be explained.
|
If
I split my activities into Work Units with the granularity
you suggest then my engineers/I will spend all our time filling
in forms.
Answer:
The follow-up reporting is done ONLY on Work Units that are
active or should be active. This will be calculated automatically
from the system and you will be sent a link to update only
these work units.
|
How
do I register 'overheads'? e.g. training, travel, claims associated
with the running/operating of several contracts. I do not
want to split 50K over 20 deliverables of 4 contracts
Answer:
Although not an ideal solution according to the EVM principles,
in practice we can register LOE (Level of Effort) workunits,
say spreading the cost by year or with 4 deliverables per
year. Its ok for a very small percentage of cost to be LOE.
To make a LOE workunit you 'suffix' the WU type with 'L' ,
e.g. a work unit of type C would become a work unit of type
CL. Furthermore LOE type work units don't require any deliverables
to be entered as they are generated automatically by the system.
|
What
do I do about the operations budget? For example we are installing
equipment already in 2002, but will have 'maintenance expenditure'
on the operations budget until it's use in LHC in 2007.
Answer:
Register these activities too. The system can differentiate
if they are part of CTC or not. If they are 'recurrent' then
register one per year with a deliverable such as 'maintenance
achieved'.
|
A
work unit has several deliverables, how do I weight them?
Answer:
Use the weight column to indicate the weight of the entire
'deliverable line'.. Note this is not the weight of the individual
unit. The weighting is relative so any numbers can be used.
IMPORTANT: A '0' value is not accepted for the weight. The
minimum value to be given is 1 or leave the cell blank.
|
How
can we give 'ponders' to different Deliverables?
Answer:
There is a weight for each deliverable line (in the excel
file it is the cell before the description) which is meant
to handle the case of multiple deliverables per workunit.
If deliverable1 represents 80% of the work and deliverable2
represents 20% then that weight would be 4 and 1 respectively
(or 80 and 20)
The
weight is for the entire deliverable line, not for each unit
of the deliverable. Example: if my task is to clean 5 offices
(deliverable1) and 1 conference room (deliverable2), then
assuming it's twice as much work to clean a conference room,
the weights would be deliverable1:5 and deliverable2:2.
|
How
to configure Excel so that it doesn't insert hyperlinks
Answer:
You need to :
1.
In the Tools menu, go to AutoCorrect options
2. In the Autocorrect options go to the AutoFormat As You
Type tab
3. Deselect 'Internet and network paths with hyperlinks'
To
remove hyperlinks that already exist in the spreadsheet you
can use the following trick (Microsoft's recommendation -
not mine) :
-
Type the number 1 in a blank cell, and right-click the cell.
- Click Copy on the shortcut menu.
- While pressing CTRL, select each hyperlink you want to deactivate.
(To select a cell that has a hyperlink in it without jumping
to the hyperlink destination, click the cell and hold the
mouse button until the cursor becomes a cross , then release
the mouse button.)
- Click Paste Special on the Edit menu.
- Under Operation, click Multiply and then click OK.
|
What
kind of resources should go under L1, L2, L4 and L8
Answer:
L1
is used for resources paid by the CERN personnel budget (e.g.
staff, fellow)
L2 is used for resources paid by budget material (e.g.
industrial service with label Sxxx (contract number), extensions
of technical students contracts, project associates)
L3 is used for resources expressed in man/month (e.g.
experts, consultants, users)
L4 is used for design office
L8 is used for not yet defined labour
|
What
is the link between CFU and the data in EVM
Answer:
Resource
assignments of type M1 in PPT (Supplies & procurement) refer
to orders in accountancy of type FF.
These orders fulfill two functions:
-
they represent commitments in the future and are used for
preparing budgets
- they are used to pay invoices received from the firm.
Invoices
are linked to the corresponding FF, to the best knowledge
of the invoice office. All these FFs you find in CET with
their actual payments and open commitments. This financial
planning of the contract ( all FFs linked to a contract) is
prepared by AC-DI BP office with a special care to reflect
as much as possible the terms of payments agreed with the
contractor.
FFs
are then spread across Work Units in PPT, as Resource Assignment
lines. You may have several FFs for the same work units or
the same FF spread across several work units (with the proportionate
amount on each resource assignment line).
Having
the correct FFs information in PPT-EVM serves two purposes:
-
it allows an automatic calculation of the actual cost for
each work unit linked to a contract
- the planned end dates of the work unit may be used propagated
to all FFs under this work unit to postpone or advance the
planned payment date of open commitments. This allows the
spending profile of the contract in accountancy to be as
close to reality as possible.
Please
note that this link is not operational yet since we are still
in the data collection phase, but it is planned to come into
production at one point. There is no automatic link yet. This
means that somebody in AC-DI-BP needs to review this contract,
check the financial part of the info (amounts, budget codes)
while leaving the technical info entirely to your responsibility.
After the review there might be a need to create new FFs,
to better reflect the current state of the planning. This
is usually what happens when changes in the payment conditions
have taken place. At the moment there are no tools to allow
a quick review + changes. All this is done manually and it
generally takes quite some time. But it is planned to introduce
enhancements in PPT to care for these requirements as well
as some workflow procedures to ensure that both the Technical
+ Financial people agree on the new planning of the contract.
|
Is
there a way to order the data by budget code, holders etc...?
Answer:
Yes. In the PPT system when you are in the workunit screen,
clicking on the column headers will order your data accordingly.
You can select several ordering at once. The ordered data
will be kept when you export it into the excel file.
|
What
is the WBS?
Answer:
WBS stands for Work Breakdown Structure. The EVM system uses
this in order to be able to identify all of the activities
necessary to complete the LHC machine and to ensure that nothing
is forgotten. It is divided into two parts. The first part
(nodes LHC.1 to LHC.7) are for Engineering and Supply activities
and the second part (nodes LHC.8 to LHC.26) are for Installation
and Commissioning activities.
|
Can
we define some more nodes in the WBS?
Answer:
Yes. You may wish to increase the number of sub-nodes in the
WBS in order to make the structure more useful for your activities.
We do recommend that you keep it fairly simple in order that
it remains clear for everyone. A maximum of around 4 "levels"
is recommended, i.e. LHC.4.1.2.7. At the moment it is not
possible for you to make changes to the WBS - you should send
your requirements to Pierre Bonnal.
|
When
I look under the WBS node and select the 'Long format' display
I do not see the details?
Answer:
Most
probably the problem is with the uploading of the workunits:
when you upload your workunits with resource lines and deliverables,
you have to put an N in front of every line, not only the
workunit lines. In such a case, the easiest is to download
the existing workunits, put a D in front of them and upload
to delete them, and then finally upload your (corrected) file
with N in front of workunits/resource lines and deliverables.
|
How
do I register forthcoming amendments to contracts that are
not yet signed?
Answer:
You should use as description of the work unit and resource
assignment, for example, "Planned amendment to F400" rather
than something like "F400/XX not yet signed". By using this
format, the amendment is not yet formally linked to the contract
in PPT but enables you still to do a search on the contract
in the description field. As soon as an amendment is signed
and the reference becomes official (e.g. F400/01) then it
is important to make this reference appear at the beginning
of the description for the corresponding resource assignment,
e.g. F400/01 extra costs
|