Actual Work vs. Actual Work Billable

[Robert]

Hello,

What is the difference between "Actual Work" and "Actual Work Billable" ?
In the timesheets, resources are not using Actual Work billable. They enter
time only on Actual Work.
Timesheets have been validated, but the actuals are not imported in Project
Pro.

I created two Data Analysis views:
- 1st based on MSP_Project_Timesheet cube, which displays the Actual Work.
- 2nd based on EPM Timesheet cube, which displays the Actual Work Billable
(we don't have other choice)

1st pivot table (Actual Work) displays 0 values on months where there are
some (expected) actuals
2nd pivot table (Actual Work Billable) displays the right values where there
are some actuals.

Thanks for your help

 

[Jonathan Sofer]

To answer you second question, there are several steps required for
timesheet hours to make it into the project plans.

Once you have entered your actuals in the timesheets in "My Timesheets"
(this has to be at the task level, not the project level), you then must go
to "My Tasks" and hit the import timesheet option.

From there, you can select the timesheet you just created and import the
actuals.

After that you must check the box next to the tasks you want to send to
project and click submit.

The PM must then review, approve and save and publish the project plan with
the actuals you submitted.

Only then will everything be in synch and the actuals will show in the OLAP
project cubes.

Jonathan Sofer

 

[Robert]

Jonathan,
The actuals are not imported in Project Pro because project managers
consider that this feature is too boring and not efficient. They expect to
develop a tool which will do that. Nevertheless, they want to retrieve the
actuals in the OLAP cube.
I was told that actuals entered on Activities or on Administrative tasks
don't sum up in the OLAP cube. So that is why I tried again. In fact,
actuals on Activities and on Elementary tasks behave the same way on my
server:
- Actual Work don't sum up : display 0 value
- Actual Work Billable is summing up well

Any idea?

 

[Jonathan Sofer]

Actual Work are the hours entered in My Tasks (not sure if they will show up
in the olap cube if they have not been put through the project approval
process and actually imported in the project plans, my hunch is they won't)

Actual Work Billable comes from My Timesheets and will not show up in the
MSP_Portfiolio_Analyzer cube, only the timesheet cubes.

If you want to report the Actual Work hours you might have to pull it
directly from the SQL database. You could use the SQL Reporting Services
tool which can be installed as an add on to Visual Studio 2005 from the SQL
cd. However, developing reports in SQL Reporting Services requires some
kind of developer knowledge.

Jonathan

 

[Robert]

Hi Jonathan,
Thanks for this information!

Actual Work are the hours entered in My Tasks (not sure if they will show
up in the olap cube if they have not been put through the project approval
process and actually imported in the project plans, my hunch is they
won't)

Actual Work Billable comes from My Timesheets and will not show up in the
MSP_Portfiolio_Analyzer cube, only the timesheet cubes.

If you want to report the Actual Work hours you might have to pull it
directly from the SQL database. You could use the SQL Reporting Services
tool which can be installed as an add on to Visual Studio 2005 from the
SQL cd. However, developing reports in SQL Reporting Services requires
some kind of developer knowledge.

Jonathan