PWA 2007 Data Analysis - S Curve

[Hadi]

Experts,

I use the data analysis section of PWA 2007 often for resource usage / time
analysis. I love it and I think it's great. I always export to Excel when I
want to graph an S Curve for cost or work hours. Basically I export to Excel
and manually add a column or row to calculate the cumulative numbers so I can
graph it. Is there a better to do this? perhaps directly in PWA?

thanks,

Hadi

 

[Andrew Lavinsky]

You could always do it in Project natively:
http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/ep...roject-pro-leveraging-the-resource-graph.aspx

 

[Hadi]

Andrew, this is very helpful thank you! I still want to be able to do it in
PWA for several reasons. one simple example, analyzing resources over 1000+
projects can be challenging inside Project Professional. Is this possible in
PWA?

 

[Andrew Lavinsky]

You can get something like an S-Curve, i.e. a line graph of resource work
over time, but unfortunately you don't get cumulative calculations out of the
box without some finagling. Here's an old blog from 2003 which looks like
it's close to what you're looking for:

http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-5030578.html

Personally, I'd recommend doing it in Excel Services. That's pretty much
the only option in the 2010 version.

 

[Hadi]

Andrew, thanks. this is exactly what I'm looking for. I am running into one
problem. when i use the formula for Cost To Date or Work to Date
Sum(PeriodsToDate([Time].[All]),Work, i get an error saying that The
PERIODSTODATE functions expects a level expression for the 1 argument. a
member expression was used. what does that mean?

 

[Andrew Lavinsky]

Unfortunately that pretty much taps out my knowledge of Data Analysis. I
note if you search this newsgroup for PERIODSTODATE, you get a number of
hits though.

Hope that helps.


- Andrew Lavinsky
Blog: http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/epm

 

[letapia]

Hadi,
Instead of "Sum" use "Aggregate". I tried and it worked for me. Don't ask
me why as I'm not an expert on BI. Maybe it's a difference between PS2003 and
PS2007. Here's the formula I found in another site.

Aggregate(PeriodsToDate([Time].[year]), [Measures].[Cost])

Andrew, thanks. this is exactly what I'm looking for. I am running into one
problem. when i use the formula for Cost To Date or Work to Date
Sum(PeriodsToDate([Time].[All]),Work, i get an error saying that The
PERIODSTODATE functions expects a level expression for the 1 argument. a
member expression was used. what does that mean?

You can get something like an S-Curve, i.e. a line graph of resource work
over time, but unfortunately you don't get cumulative calculations out of the
box without some finagling. Here's an old blog from 2003 which looks like
it's close to what you're looking for:

http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-5030578.html

Personally, I'd recommend doing it in Excel Services. That's pretty much
the only option in the 2010 version.