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Jan
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 Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 9:26 pm Post subject: Calculating projects |
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When calculating / planning a projects budget it would be very helpful to display what every task will have to cost. At the moment (Copper 2008) planing looks like this:
1. Add new task
2. insert effort (hours / days)
3. insert budget (target)
4. Add resource
If you work with different resources the costs are always different so you have to check in administration | users what cost / charge-rate this resource has.
So it would be very helpful to do it like this:
1. Add new task
2. insert effort (hours / days)
3. Add resource
-> Because Copper already has cost / charge-rate of this resource it could now display an estimated target-budget (hours * charge-rate)
4. insert budget (target) I would like to charge
Think with this you would make every projectmanager very happy because it makes planing a job much easier, too. |
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Ben
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| Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2007 3:59 am Post subject: |
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I like the thinking here Jan, but a foreseeable confusion is when you start adding specific hours to each resource.
There are now extended ways to allocate a resource.
You can just allocate a resource to a task (for the purposes of them seeing that task in their springboard), but the new resourcing feature also allows you to commit actual hours to a resource (e.g. I want Jan to work 3 hours on wednesday for this task).
How would you make the distinction between your total estimated effort for the task (e.g. 10 hours) and say allocating 5 hours to a specific resource? In that hypothetical would the estimated cost be 10 hours x resource rate, or 5 hours x resource rate? |
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Jan
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| Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2007 1:21 pm Post subject: |
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Ben, you already got the solution - just display an additional estimated forecast what the costs of this task could be with two values:
1. estimated (best case)
2. estimated (worst case)
Example: You set up a new task with the values
- Estimated = 10 hours
- Add resource Jan to work 3 hours (resource rate = 50,- per hour)
- Add resource Ben to work 4 hours (resource rate = 60,- per hour)
Now the new cost-forecast-info will display the following values:
1. Best case (Ben & Jan will complete the task in time): 3 x 50 + 4 x 60 = 390,-
2. Worst case: (Jan is a lazy dog and did nothing for that task and Ben had to do everything): 10 x 60 = 600,-
Option for worst case (Jan is not a lazy dog):
2. Worst case: (Ben & Jan need more time than assigned):
- total assigned = 3 + 4 = 7 hours
- Janīs part = 1/7*3 = 0.428
- Benīs part = 1/7*4 = 0.571
For Estimated = 10 hours this will be:
- Janīs part = 10 * 0.428 = 4.285 hours
- Benīs part = 10 * 0.571 = 5.714 hours
- costs: 50 * 4.285 + 60 * 5.714 = 557.09
Just an idea...  |
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