Adding Outside Vendors

[RandyK]

(MSPS 2003) In our enterprise, we have an extract that pulls billable hours
from Actual Work Protected that feeds a chargeback system. We are going to
be having outside vendors perform billable work on projects.

Can anyone tell me if there is another way to track hours for these vendors
without adding them to the ERP and having the PM enter their hours through
PWA?

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

RandyK --

I'll render an opinion on this, but perhaps the others will contribute as
well. Assuming you are using Managed Time Periods, since you referenced
Actual Work Protected, Project Server 2003 assumes that all actuals arise
from PWA timesheets and does not allow PM's to manually enter Actual Work in
the Microsoft Project plan. So, in your situation, I believe you will need
to add those vendors to the Enterprise Resource Pool. If you enable the
Adjust Actuals permission for members of the Project Managers group for the
My Projects category, then your PM's can use the Adjust Actuals feature to
enter Actual Work for the vendors. Just a thought. Hope this helps.

 

[RandyK]

Thanks Dale - Actually, we do not used managed time periods. We really
should - but I was delaying rolling that out in the hopes of moving to MSPS
'07. We still rely solely on Actual Work Protected to feed the extract
that is used to bill the county (client). Management wanted me to see if
there was another way to get hours for outside vendors into the chargeback
process (I told them that I didn't think there was). You basically just
reaffirmed my initial thoughts.

Again - thanks.
RK

RandyK --

I'll render an opinion on this, but perhaps the others will contribute as
well. Assuming you are using Managed Time Periods, since you referenced
Actual Work Protected, Project Server 2003 assumes that all actuals arise
from PWA timesheets and does not allow PM's to manually enter Actual Work in
the Microsoft Project plan. So, in your situation, I believe you will need
to add those vendors to the Enterprise Resource Pool. If you enable the
Adjust Actuals permission for members of the Project Managers group for the
My Projects category, then your PM's can use the Adjust Actuals feature to
enter Actual Work for the vendors. Just a thought. Hope this helps.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

RK --

Well, even though you are not using Managed Time Periods, I still think you
need to follow my advice to preserver the integrity of the reporting system.
Just a thought. Hope this helps.

Thanks Dale - Actually, we do not used managed time periods. We really
should - but I was delaying rolling that out in the hopes of moving to
MSPS
'07. We still rely solely on Actual Work Protected to feed the extract
that is used to bill the county (client). Management wanted me to see
if
there was another way to get hours for outside vendors into the chargeback
process (I told them that I didn't think there was). You basically just
reaffirmed my initial thoughts.

Again - thanks.
RK