Terminology - Project vs Project Web Access

[Doctor Lard]

Hiyall,

I would be grateful for some clarification on the use of actual work in
MSProject and the same in Project Web Access.

In Project Web Access, the right-hand pane of the timesheet view has a row
for 'Act. Work' and a row for 'Act. Ovt. Work'.

It appears that the 'Act. Work' value actually equates to the 'Regular Work'
value in MS Project(?)
Actual Work in MS Project includes both regular and overtime work it appears.

I can't see a good reason why 'Act. Work' in timesheet view isn't 'Reg.
Work' to avoid confusion.

Is there any way to edit the right-hand pane of the timesheet template?
Admin functions within PWA only seem to let you pick what fields get shown
in the left-hand pane.

Thanks in advance for any info or wisdom you can put my way.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Doctor Lard --

In the future, please tell us what version of Project Server you are using.
2002, 2003, or 2007? From your description, it sounds like you are using
Project Server 2003. Assuming so, keep the following in mind in Microsoft
Project 2003:

1. Work = Actual Work + Remaining Work
2. Work = Regular Work + Overtime Work

In #2 above, Regular Work is planned non-overtime work, while Overtime Work
represents planned Overtime Work. For example, I plan 48 hours of Work on a
task, 8 hours of which will be planned Overtime Work (Regular Work = 48 - 8
= 40 hours, therefore). Microsoft Project 2007 costs Regular Work at the
rate specified in the Std. Rate field for the resources assigned to the
task, and costs Overtime Work at the rate specified in the Ovt. Rate field
for the assigned resources.

In PWA 2003, Actual Work represents one of two things: (1) the total amount
of work done on a task, or (2) the total amount of Regular Work done on the
task. If your organization does not plan to cost Overtime Work at a higher
rate, resources can enter any amount of work in the Actual Work cell, up to
24 hours in a day. If your organization wants to cost Overtime Work at a
higher rate, resources must enter no more than 8 hours in the Actual Work
cell (representing Regular Work) and must enter any work above 8 hours in
the Actual Overtime Work cell. Thus, this becomes a training and
performance issue with your team members. Teach them your company's
methodology for using the View My Tasks page and then hold them accountable
for their performance.

Beyond this, there is no way to edit the names of the lines that appear in
the timesheet portion of the View My Tasks page. Hope this helps.

 

[Doctor Lard]

Dale,

Many thanks for the response and the information therein.

And you are quite right, I'm using the 2003 version; apologies for the
omission.

Just to set the scene a little more;

I am looking for some facility that will allow each Head of Department to
easily see what projects their team members have booked hours to each week
once the timesheets are processed.

Right now I'm building the OLAP cube and trying to set up a view that simply
shows the staff members in each team, the projects they have booked to and
the non-overtime and overtime hours booked to each project and the total
hours.

This is all pretty much done - all I need in the view is the data item
(field) that shows just the non-overtime hours booked which is what I'm
struggling with.

All I want is:

Team Member A
Project X Non-overtime: 7.5 hours Overtime: 1.5 hours Total:
9.0 hours

If I use actual work it includes the overtime so I get:

Team Member A
Project X Actual Work: 9.0 hours Overtime: 1.5 hours Total:
11.5 hours

Yes it is easy to look at the above and work out what the non-overime
portion is; alas some of my Heads of Department would struggle with this and
would simply see an over-booking (what that says about the company is another
issue, but anyway!).

Actually whilst I'm typing this I'm, thinking I can just achieve what I want
using a calculated field (actual work minus actual overtime work) but I would
still be interested to know if this data item can be sourced directly from
the cube data(?)

Again; thank you for the help.

Doc

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Doctor Lard --

For your purpose, I would use the custom calculation. You might also
consider using a Resource Assignments view for this purpose. Your RM's can
create a list of resources in that View and then use the Save Link feature
to save the list of names, plus the custom layout of the View. Just a
thought. Hope this helps.