Cost Field vs. Customized Cost Fields

[glenn]

Hi,

I have set up 4 customized cost fields. They are Cost1 for Material Costs,
Cost2 for Labor Costs, Cost3 for Equipment Costs and Cost4 for Total Cost.
Cost4 has a formula that adds Cost1+Cost2+Cost3. These fields are all in a
custom table view named Schedule / Estimate Integration.

I would like to have Total Cost in the Cost Table View to be equal to the
Total Cost in the Schedule / Estimate Integration Table View. If I attempt
to insert a column field, you can choose Cost or custom cost fields as Cost1,
Cost2, Cost3, ... etc. I attempted to use the Import Custom Fields button on
the Customize Fields dialog box but the costs in my Cost4 (Total Cost) in one
table view did not get put into the Total Cost field in the Cost Table View.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Glenn,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

There are cost tables for tasks and cost tables for resources, and the
customised fields are different. You might like to see FAQ Item: 37 - Custom
Fields in Tables. FAQs, companion products and other useful Project
information can be seen at this web
address:http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm.

Also, the Total Cost field is calculated by Project, so I wouldn't expect it
to be updated by importing from another field. I'm not sure I understand
what you're trying to achieve. The Total Cost field is the summation of
resource costs, material costs and fixed costs, so why create another field
to do this?

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on

Mike Glen
Project MVP

 

[Rod Gill]

The only way you can set Total Cost = Cost1 is with a macro that you would
need to run each time you wanted to update.

As Mike said, Project calculates resource costs, material costs and
equipment costs and puts them into Total Cost anyway.

 

[glenn]

Hello,

First off, thanks to you folks for responding to my sketchy question on how
to handle costs in Project.

I guess I forgot to mention that I am not using resources with any given pay
rate and instead I am just applying a cost for material and labor and
sub-totaling a cost for each task in my own custom field called 'Total Cost'.
It sounds like I will need to transfer these figures into Project's 'Cost'
field with a macro. In so doing, it would be my understanding that I would
be able to have Project's other cost related fields such as 'BCWP', 'BCWS',
'ACWP', 'EAC', 'VAC' and other earned value fields to receive their
respective values as a project's schedule moves forward.

Thanks for the link to the MVP site.

and Thanks for your help...