Forecast to go

Nah, this has always been a bug with P3, in that the budget value is only frozen once an activity has started.

I usually create a CDI to hold the value of original resource budget and a global change spec to copy the budget values into this field.

Found a method in the Auto cost rules that appeared to suit my requirements. But what is CDI, I haven’t heard that acronym before?

Custom Data Item

Sounds interesting. I suppose that would allow me to have a constanlty rolling forecast at completion independant of original budget. Does have one limitation though, I would not be able to see the additional hours spread over time to compare profiles, and thus review manpower plans to suit required peaks in engineering effort.

Good thought though and I will try to see if it helps
Ta
Dave W

Once the programme is approved or the budget is fix you can then save a copy of project as the baseline (target) then you can do whatever you like with your current schedule and at the same time you can still access to the original budget and print an S-Curve with the difference.

No you can’t

Change the budget, you alter the earned to date, and therefore progress calculated. I dont know abouit you, but I never alter any of the original values in a schedule, despite having to or three baselines.

Alex Wong is right...you obviously can do what he said.

I do not agree - and if I caught one of my planners doing that - they’d get the dreaded "Spanish Archer".

Alex is only right if he is not calculating progress on man-hours but some other method. Otherwise every time he changes the budget, and retains the same progress, he alters the earned values and therefore overall progress, if like me you are calculating rolled up EV for disciplines to platforms to project.

NOT A GOOD IDEA. This is precisely why I wanted alternate methods other than Autocost rules, and CID appears to fit the bill partially.

Anyway, that is irrelevant, my original question was how do I adjust QAC WITHOUT affecting BQ and only show the variance.

Once the budget is approved together with the plan and the rest..., you can freeze the schedule and create the baseline, then the current schedule become a "live" entity in which you can modify budgets and/or costs (Change Alert, Change Orders, etc.), resources, add-delete activities, the scope of work can be increased or decreased and many others...and still can measure earned value, actual to date, estimate to complete, estimate at completion...of course there are some specific conditions according to each contract which has been agreed, etc.
Have you tried "Freeze resource units per time period" from Autocost Rules?

And so the plot thickens eh?

You are assuming that the plan has yet to have the baseline established? If you are, it has already been baselined for well over 18 months now. Modifications to budgets are strictly prohibited by the client due to the nature of the project and management "issues". BUT they want to see the results of a cost control manhours forecasting exercise cascaded upto the our level 3 plan. SO, I have to figure out how to get that data up onto activities as a forecast to complete WITHOUT changing any budgets.

So far the Autocost rule seems to be the best option. Did not try the "Freeze resource units per time period" but used "Link Budget and EAC for non progressed activities"

Will try out your suggestion and see how it compares. Many thanks for the inputs! I you think of owt else, drop a line !!

David

Your earn value is base on your baseline budget so once the baseline is approved and you save the project as your target all you progress is calculate from you baseline(target) project

Try and see

I seem to remember an option to calculate Earned Value from either current or target schedule ......

Ah HAAA !!

I will try that out today !!Thanks guys for the tip !!