Use this tab to specify how to calculate cost and estimate resource use when you update activities in the selected project.
Activities
Default Price/Unit for activities without resource or role Price/Units: The project’s default cost of work for activities with no resources or roles. Activities may have labor/ nonlabor units with no assigned resources/roles or resources/roles that do not have prices. In such cases, this setting is used to calculate the cost for activities. To change the default price, type a new amount, followed by a forward slash (/) and time unit.
Activity percent complete based on activity steps: Mark to base percent complete on activity steps when using the physical percent complete type.
Link Planned or Budget and At Completion for not started activities: When this option is checked, Budgeted or Planned, Remaining, and At Completion values are set to equal for not started activities. If you want to baseline, or hold constant, the Budgeted or Planned values in your project plan while recording updates to Remaining or At Completion values, unmark the checkbox to turn off this option. When this option is off, Budgeted or Planned values for a Not Started activity are retained when you update its Remaining or At Completion values.
Notes
- If a Not Started activity has Actual Costs, Planned Cost and At Completion Cost are always unlinked, regardless of the setting for this option.
When the Link option is turned on and status of an activity is changed from Started to Not Started or, if you change the Link option from unlinked to linked, P6 Professional observes the 'Reset Planned or Original Duration and Units to Remaining' setting (described below) to determine how to recalculate values.
- If you manually plan future period resource distribution, this setting affects the values you enter in future period buckets. This is how:
- For not started activities, if this setting is marked, the total planned values of the budgeted or planned Units and Remaining (Early) Units for the assignment will always be equal. For example, when you enter a value for a future period in the budgeted or planned Units field of the Resource Usage Spreadsheet, the Remaining (Early) Units field is automatically populated with the same value; the reverse is also true. If this setting is not marked, you can enter different values for the same future period in the budgeted or planned Units and Remaining (Early) Units fields; in this case, the total values for each field are calculated independently for the assignment.
- For activities that are in progress, you can always enter different future period values in the budgeted or planned Units and Remaining (Early) Units fields.
Reset Planned or Original Duration and Units to Remaining: Choose this option to recalculate the Planned duration and dates based on the At Completion duration and Remaining dates and recalculate Planned units based on the At Completion units for activities and assignments. If an activity does not have actual costs, the Planned Cost, At Completion Cost, and Estimate to Complete are equal.
Reset Remaining Duration and Units to Planned or Original: Choose this option to recalculate the At Completion duration and Remaining dates based on the Planned duration and dates, and recalculate At Completion units based on the Planned units on activities and assignments. If an activity does not have actual costs, the Planned Cost, At Completion Cost, and Estimate to Complete are equal.
Resource Assignments
When updating Actual Units or Cost
Add Actual to Remaining: Choose to calculate a new At Complete as the sum of the actual and remaining units or costs.
At Complete = Actual (units or costs) + Remaining (units or costs)
When working with a cost-plus contract, use this option to determine the true At Complete. Actual units and costs are normally calculated using this option.
Subtract Actual from At Completion: Choose to calculate the remaining units or costs as the difference between the At Complete and Actual units or costs.
Remaining (units or costs) = At complete (units or costs) - Actual (units or costs)
When working with a fixed-price contract that must be accomplished within a fixed budget, use this option. This approach tracks the amount remaining before you exceed the budget.
Recalculate Actual Units and Cost when duration % complete changes: Mark to estimate actual units and costs as
Actual (units or costs) = budgeted or planned (units or costs) * Duration % Complete
If an activity does not have any resource assignments, Actual units or costs are calculated using the activity's budgeted or planned units or costs.
P6 Professional performs these calculations whenever you update the Duration % complete.
Values you specify override the module's calculated values. If you do not mark the checkbox, the module does not estimate actuals and the actual fields remain blank unless you specify values.
Notes
- To calculate costs using this option, you must mark Calculate costs from units on the Details tab of Resource Details.
- Choosing this option will recalculate actual units and costs only for fixed duration activities (Fixed Duration & Units/Time, Fixed Duration & Units).
- This setting enables P6 Professional to calculate only the actual units or costs when Duration % complete is updated. Duration % complete will not be calculated if you update the actual units or costs.
- If a curve is assigned to a resource assignment, the resource assignment's Actual (units or costs) = % of the curve area (based on the Duration % Complete) * Budgeted or Planned (units or costs). The assignment's Actual (units or costs) will roll up to the activity.
- When connected to a P6 Professional database: To enable this option, the user must have the project privilege Edit Project Details except Costs/Financials. Choose Admin, Security Profiles to check the project privilege.
When connected to a P6 EPPM database: You must have the appropriate project privilege as defined in P6 to enable this option.
Update units when costs change on resource assignments: Mark this checkbox for P6 Professional to recalculate units when costs are updated for the assignment. Cost changes, such as modifying the remaining cost for activities, cause P6 Professional to recalculate units.
Link actual to date and actual this period units and costs: Mark this checkbox for P6 Professional to recalculate actual or actual this period units and costs when one of these values is updated. P6 Professional marks this option by default. This option must be marked if you plan to store period performance or edit past period actuals for a project.