Over budget and over schedule formulas

[Steve W.]

I wish to develop separate customized fields for projects that show the
percent projects are over budget and over schedule using graphical
indicators. I am considering using Cost Variance/Cost for budget (using a
Cost type field) and Duration Variance/Duration (using Duration type field)
instead of using Baseline Cost and Baseline Duration for the denominator in
both formulas. Since baselines are only a snapshot that will probably change
in the future, wouldn't it be more accurate to use my proposed formulas? I
am just not sure what the best practices are.

Thank you.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Steve W --

First of all, I would use custom enterprise Project number fields for each
of your calculations since you want the resulting number to be expressed as
a decimal value. Secondly, I would strongly recommend using the baseline
fields as the denominator in each of the formulas, since the variance fields
are calculated off the baseline fields. As an aside, I would recommend
against completely rebaselining the project during its life. A more useful
methdology, I believe, is to baseline new tasks added to the project and to
roll up the baseline values to all summary tasks. Doing so will retain your
original baseline values for the project, but will "amend" the baseline
values in the summary tasks to include the new task values. Just some
thoughts. Hope this helps.

 

[Steve W.]

As I have in the past, I will take your advice. Thank you for your
invaluable help.

 

[Steve W.]

Thank you for your advice. When I apply the Cost Variance/Baseline Cost using a Enterprise Project Number field, for some projects we are getting crazy results. For example, for one project, the cost variance is 1050 and the baseline cost is 74200 which according to the formula should calculate to 1.4%. However, for some reason for this project the number calculated is 38,306. What is strange is that some of our projects produce similar results while others appear to accurately calculate the % Over Budget. Any ideas what could be wrong will be appreciated.
Steve

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Steve --

If you click Tools - Options - Calculation and then click the Calculate Now
button, does the formula calculate correctly?

 

[Steve W.]

Dale,

Indeed it does! Thanks once again.

Steve --

If you click Tools - Options - Calculation and then click the Calculate Now
button, does the formula calculate correctly?

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Steve W --

You just learned by experience that formulas in enterprise fields need to be
"refreshed" with the latest project data before they work correctly. Glad
to be of help!