Work with project costs at your preferred level of detail in work in progress (WIP) schedules—Early Adopter

As a participant in the Early Adopter program for this feature, here's the information that you need to set up and use the feature.

WIP schedules show project cost totals for each WIP schedule project, including costs from any subprojects. If you break down project costs to a lower level of detail, you can view project costs and enter PM forecasts at that level of detail (except for the PM forecast contract value, which you enter at the WIP schedule project level in the WIP schedule page).

Set the level of detail for project costs

1. Go to Projects > Setup > Configuration.

2. In the Work in progress (WIP) management section, select the Level of detail for project costs:

   • WIP schedule projects: Do not break down project costs. View and enter them as totals at the WIP schedule project level.

     This is the default level of detail.

   • Subprojects: Break down project costs by WIP schedule projects and their subprojects.
   • Tasks: Break down project costs by tasks within each WIP schedule project and each of its subprojects.
   • Tasks and cost types: Break down project costs by combinations of task and cost type within each WIP schedule project and each of its subprojects.

For all levels of detail other than WIP schedule projects, you cannot directly enter or change project cost totals for WIP schedule projects on the WIP schedule page. These totals are calculated based on the detail values that you enter.

Enter PM cost forecasts for details

If you break down project costs, you enter PM forecasts for project costs on the WIP Schedule Project Breakdown page, which you can open in the following ways:

• On a WIP schedule, select Details in the Project breakdown column.
• On the WIP history page, select More actions > Show project breakdown.

The WIP Schedule Project Breakdown page shows details for one WIP schedule project at a time. The grid on this page has columns that match ones on the WIP schedule page, but it breaks down costs to the level of detail you use. It provides an interactive, hierarchical list of a WIP schedule project and its subprojects, and of tasks and cost types if you use them. You can expand or collapse sections of this list to see the information that you want.

Refresh existing WIP schedules

Changing the configuration setting for level of detail does not change existing WIP schedules. However, if you refresh a WIP schedule, it is updated to use the level of detail that's currently set in configuration.

Be careful about refreshing existing WIP schedules, because changing the level of detail for a WIP schedule can have unintended consequences:

• Connections can be lost between the WIP schedule and other WIP schedules (end of year WIP schedule, prior period WIP schedule, and next period WIP schedule). This will happen if the WIP schedule's new level of detail is different from the level of detail for those other WIP schedules. Some information might change or no longer be available at all:

  • If the connection is lost with the end of year WIP schedule, year to date fields show job to date values.

  • If the connection is lost with the prior period WIP schedule, the following changes result:

    • Prior period values are no longer shown.
    • CFO forecasts, period earned profit, and period earnings change to zero.
    • Period billings and period costs change to be based on GL postings instead of WIP schedule values.
    • If a primary estimate exists, PM forecasts change to the values from the estimate. Otherwise, they do not have any default values.
    • You no longer have the option to update PM and CFO forecasts with those from the prior period WIP schedule.
  • If the connection is lost with the next period WIP schedule, that WIP schedule will have the same issues listed in the previous point.

• Information in the WIP schedule can become incorrect if the projects in the WIP schedule do not have complete data at the new level of detail.

  For example, if you change the level of detail from WIP schedule projects to Tasks and cost codes, but some projects in the WIP schedule do not include complete data for tasks and cost codes, the updated WIP schedule will show incorrect information.

Import information

When importing information to WIP schedules, the process you use is the same regardless of the level of detail for project costs. However, the fields and information that you can import differ depending on the level of detail:

• For all levels of detail:

  • CFO forecast contract value
  • CFO forecast cost at completion
  • CFO forecast cost to complete
  • PM forecast contract value

• For the WIP schedule projects level of detail:

  • PM forecast cost at completion
  • PM forecast cost to complete
• For the Subprojects, Tasks, and Tasks and cost types levels of detail:
  • PM forecast cost at completion: details
  • PM forecast cost to complete: details
  • Comment: details

See warnings for details in the project breakdown

When viewing a WIP schedule, you can see at a glance if there are errors or warnings, including if there are any for project cost details. This information is shown in the grid:

• The Errors and Warnings columns show if there are messages related to information in the WIP schedule page.
• The Warnings in project breakdown column shows if there are warnings related to information in the WIP Schedule Project Breakdown page.

View history of cost forecast details for work in progress (WIP) projects

Depending on the level of detail you use for project costs, you have different options to view historical information for WIP projects.

• If you break down project costs by WIP schedule projects or by Subprojects, you can view project-level history on the WIP History page.
• If you break down project costs by Tasks or by Tasks and cost types, you can view history at different levels using the following pages:
  • WIP project history: This is the same as the WIP History page.
  • WIP detail history: This page shows information at the level of detail you use.

  Both of the history pages show information from all WIP schedules for your entity, so you can see historical trends for projects and create customized sets of data for analysis. You can also export WIP schedule information from both pages.

  Learn about the WIP History page (the procedures for using the WIP History page also work for the WIP Detail History page).

  At the top level, the history pages show WIP schedules for all entities.