Material Cost Input and Calculation

[Debbie P]

Our Material Cost View is not acting consistently and am wondering if anyone
knows what the reason and/or fix might be.

In some instances it is working as desired where once the material resource
is assigned to a task you must enter the units into Actual Work then Actual
Cost is calculated. Entering directly into Actual Cost is blocked.

In other instances it will block from allowing input into Actual Cost on the
first input column then will allow it after that. If data is input into the
Actual Cost field Actual Work is not calculated and the 2 become out of sync.

In even other instances it allows input into Actual Cost on the first try.

The problem does not seem to be project specific either. Sometimes it works
OK on a project and other times it doesn't. I have not been able to identify
any commonality in occurance.

Thanks,
Debbie

 

[Rod Gill]

Which version of Project and what Service Pack (SP) level? Click Help, About
to find out.

Under Tools, Options and the Calculation tab, is the setting "Actual Costs
are always calculated by Microsoft Office Project" checked or unchecked?

 

[Debbie P]

Microsoft Office Project Professional 2003 (11.2.205.1801.15) SP2
"Actual Costs are always calculated by Microsoft Office Project" is checked.


--
Debbie P

Which version of Project and what Service Pack (SP) level? Click Help, About
to find out.

Under Tools, Options and the Calculation tab, is the setting "Actual Costs
are always calculated by Microsoft Office Project" checked or unchecked?

 

[Rod Gill]

To update material units, either double-click a task and edit the units
under the Resource tab, or view the resource usage view and edit the work
(label) cells or insert the Actual work row and enter actual work (label).

This works for me, so what update method do you use exactly?

I used 2003 Prof SP2

--

Rod Gill
Project MVP
Visit www.msproject-systems.com for Project Companion Tools and more

Microsoft Office Project Professional 2003 (11.2.205.1801.15) SP2
"Actual Costs are always calculated by Microsoft Office Project" is
checked.

 

[Debbie P]

We are using the Material Cost view to enter and are able to do as you
indicated below. My problem is that when the system allows them to enter
directly into the Actual Cost field (see scenarios below) it is putting
Actual Cost and Actual Work out of sync. Plus I cannot figure out when/why
sometime it will allow direct input into Actual Cost and sometimes it will
not. I'd like to set it so it would always not allow direct input into that
field.

 

[Rod Gill]

The Material Cost View is not a standard view so someone at your work has
created it. In the absence of what your view is based on, use what Microsoft
recommends for updating material tasks which is in the help file and what I
detailed before.

The "Actual Costs are always calculated by Microsoft Office Project" should
prevent the actual cost field from being edited. Try experimenting by
clearing and testing then resetting and testing again.

Does this problem occur in different projects and on more than one PC?

 

[Debbie P]

As of this morning I'd come to the conclusion it wasn't a standard view but
one created by our Microsoft rep during implementation. Since our material
units and costs are a 1:1 I am going to remove the Actual Cost field from the
view so it cannot be entered into.

Yes, it occurs on multiple projects and pc's. And, it's not consistent on
the projects. One time it will prohibit entry into the cost field and the
next time it will allow it.

 

[Rod Gill]

Then I have no further answers, here, but it sounds like you have a work
around by just making available to recommended fields.

Good luck!