The "Tracking" tab is where we begin to examine how to track a
project's progress. Basically, tracking is an on-going input of actual
project results. First, click on the "Tracking" tab.
Note that the "Tracking" tab (highlighted in white) has four sub-tabs:
"Task," "Cost," "Resource," and "Report." The default sub-tab is the
"Task" sub-tab, which we see displays each task, the "Task Start," the
"Task End," and "Duration." You will recognize the initial display as
the projected values, which we entered ealier. The values in this
"Task" sub-tab will eventually be 'actual' data that you enter as the
project progresses, but the intial display is taken from the
projections. There are two selection columns, "Update Actuals" and
"Modify" task. The "Update Actuals" checkbox allows you to record the
actual task duration, start and end dates. The "Modify Task" checkbox
will update task projections using the information you input on this
screen. If you click the "Modify Task" checkbox, Project Manager will
re-calculate the start date, end date, and or duration based upon the
values you entered, as well as make any "Pre-" task adjustments only
for the selected task. For example, suppose we changed the start date
and duration for task G. Project Manager would adjust the end date and
make sure the new start date did not violate any "Pre-" task conditions
for task G (task G cannot start until at least 1 hour after task F
finishes). Thus, at this point in the evolution of Project Manager,
you,as project manager, would still have to re-check all other task
schedules and "Pre-" task conditions.
Whether or not you choose to use the "Task" sub-tab to update your
projections, the main use for the "Task" sub-tab is to track actuals
(task events that actually happen and when they actually happen).
This way, you can create and maintain a record of how your projections
compared to what actually happened.
The next sub-tab is the "Cost" sub-tab.
The "Cost" sub-tab also has two views, one for tasks and one for
resources. The task view shows each task along with projected cost
information next to input text boxes for recording actual cost
information (fixed, total, and to-date). The resource view shows the
same information for resources. While this ability to record, display
and compare actual costs with projected costs is useful, it can be
cumbersome to record costs in this manner because you would have to
pre-calculate all of the costs before they could be entered. In order
to make it easy to enter cost information, Project Manager provides the
"Resource" sub-tab.
The "Resource" sub-tab lists each resource with its task assignments,
projected regular assignment hours, and projected overtime assignment
hours. It also provides input text boxes where you can enter
incremental actual hours worked since the last update and a box to
enter the date the hours are valid through (which defaults to the
current date). This allows you, or others, to regularly enter hours
worked by each resource on each task. When you enter the hours in the
"Resource" sub-tab, that information is used to calculate costs and
populate the "Cost" sub-tab costs.
Here we have recorded some hours for Ann and Bill. To enter the
information, just click the "OK" button.
We note that the information has been recored and the "Date Updates"
column now shows the date that the hours were updated. But what about
the "Cost" sub-tab?
We see that the "Actual To-Date" columns now have data values recorded
and displayed for the tasks and resources we recorded in the "Resource"
sub-tab. If we navigate back to the "Cost" tab, we see that the "Actual
Cost" column is now populated with the costs calculated from the hours
we previously inputted.
You can now, if you wish, navigate back to the "Cost" sub-tab of the
"Tracking" tab and input any actual fixed costs incurred, and, or
update the total costs. A note with regard to the allocation of
fixed costs between resources and tasks: Project Manager leaves this
allocation to you, so you must insure that if a resource has a fixed
cost, you allocate that fixed cost among the tasks to which you assign
that resource.
As you have seen, Project Manager provides simple yet powerful means to
track project costs from projected to actual among both tasks and
resources. We next turn our attention to generating reports using
Project Manager.
Currently Project Manager provides 15 distinct reports grouped into
four categories. You generate reports by navigating to the "Report"
sub-tab of the "Tracking" tab.
The four report categories are Summary, Cost, Task, and Resource. You
may select to generate up to four reports at once, one from each
category. To choose a report, simply click the desired category
checkbox and click the report radio button and then click the "OK"
button. You will notice that Project Manager does not generate a
ready-to-print, formatted report. Instead Project Manager generates a
text report using a comma separated value (CSV) format. Future
enhancements are planned that will provie the option of generating
pre-formatted reports, but the CSV formats provide an extra degree of
flexibility - along with some additional work.
Here we have selected two reports: the "Project Report" from the
Summary category, and the "Time Report" from the Cost category. But,
you might ask, "What do we do with these?" First, open a text editor,
or word processing program. Second, within the text box of one of the
reports, select the entire report text.
Third, copy the text to the clipboard (usually <CTRL>-c). Fourth,
paste the text into the text editor or word processor you opened in
step 1.
We run Linux, so we'll use K-Edit, but it works the same using
Microsoft's Notepad. Fifth, just save the file and give it the file
extension CSV (e.g., "cost_report_1.csv"). Sixth, open your spreadsheet
program (Excel, Gnumeric, Calc, etc.). Seventh, open the ".csv" file
you just saved, or import the file, whichever your spreadsheet program
requires.
We are using OpenOffice.org Calc and are importing the file
"cost_report_1.csv" as a comma-delimited file, which is being parsed as
shown. Finally, you can save the newly created spreadsheet and then
format your report however you wish. You can then print it, or send it
out via e-mail. "Eight steps!" you say. Actually, those eight steps
probably take under a minute to accomplish - go ahead, try it.
Let's take a closer look at each of the reports. The first report is
the "Summary - Project" report.
This report is a summary of several project dimensions: start and end
dates, work hours, costs, task status(total, in-progress, late,
finished), and resource status (person, material, overtime, and total).
This is a basic summary report that tends to compare projected and
actual task and resource data. The next report is the "Summary - Task"
report.
The "Summary - Task" report displays each task, its projected duration,
start and end dates, percent complete together with actual costs and
hours of resources assigned. The next report is the "Summary - Work"
report.
This report shows the standard work calendar along with any
non-standard work calendars for resources. The next category is the
"cost" category, which contains three separate reports: "Time," "Budget
vs. Actual," and "Budget Analysis." The last "Summary" report is the
"Summary - Critical" report, which generates a critical path/task
analsysis.
The "Critical Task Analysis" is fairly important in project management
because it identifies tasks that must start and finish on schedule,
otherwise the project itself will fall behind schedule. The
"Summary-Critical" report shows, for each task, the early and late
start and finish times (on a scale relative to time=0), the slack
or float (how much time a task can slip without impacting the project
finish date), and whether or not the task is a critical task.
There are three "Cost" category reports. The "Cost - Time" report shows
weekly task cash flow over the life of the project using task
projections.
The next report, the "Cost - Budget vs. Actual" report, shows a
task-by-task comparison of projected versus actual costs for total and
to-date.
Finally, we examine the "Cost - Budget Analysis" report, which is, in
most respects, a report version of the display from the "Cost" tab.
The next report catehory is the "Task" category, which consists of four
reports: "Pending," "In-Progress," "Completed," and "Late."
All of the "Task" reports have the same format, but show different
tasks depending on whether the task is pending, in-progress, completed,
or late, based upon the current date relative to the projected dates.
The report shown above is the "Task - Completed" report. You can see
that these "Task" reports show each task, resources assigned to the
task, task hours and resource assigned hours. The report also
provides task and resource assignment start and end dates as well as
"Pre-" task relationships.
The final category of reports is the "Resource" category. The first
report is the "Resource - List" report.
This report lists each resource, the total hours they've been assigned
on the project, each task to which they've been assigned including the
assigned hours, start date and end date. The next report is the
"Resource - Time," or "Resource - Schedule" report.
This report shows resource assigned hours for each week of the project
by resource and task. The next report is the "Resource - Periodic"
report, which displays each resource, followed by each week of the
project and the tasks to which the resource is assigned for that week
along with the assignment hours, start date-time, and end date-time.
The final report is the "Resource - Overtime" report, which shows, by
resource for each resource with scheduled, or projected, overtime hours
by task and date.
These are the current set of reports available in Project Manager.
Future plans include additional reports, formatted reports, and a
custom reporting capability.
Well, we've now completed our examination of Synapsis Project
Manager. We hope you have found these pages helpful and that you
find your use of Project Manager to be rewarding.
