Cobra 8.3 Help System

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Align Time-phased Dates

The Align Time-phased Dates utility is designed to adjust time-phased resource record dates to make sure they match the dates in the modified fiscal calendar.

Cobra stores time-phased resource information for a project in the time-phased table. Generally, each record in the time-phased table corresponds with a period in the fiscal calendar. When the periods in the fiscal calendar are adjusted, the link between the periods in the fiscal calendar and the time-phased resources in the time-phased table can become invalid. This prevents Cobra from performing the correct summarization.

Cobra adjusts time-phased resource record dates to make sure they match the dates in the modified fiscal calendar by comparing the fiscal calendar containing the original dates used by the project and the current fiscal calendar assigned to the project containing the modified dates to establish which dates need to be changed, and updates the time-phased resources accordingly.

New Period Dates Later than Old Period Dates

The following principles apply to new period dates which have been moved to date later than the old period date:

Budget Data

If adjusting the time-phased date would result in the record falling after the control account/work package end date, the values in the time-phased record are added to the control account/work package end date record and the old record is deleted.

Forecast Data

If adjusting the time-phased date would result in the record falling after the control account/work package estimate end date, the values in the time-phased record are added to the forecast end date record and the old time-phased record is deleted. The process checks which estimate dates are used by the forecast data to establish the end date (schedule, early or late).

Actuals and Earned Value Data

Actuals and earned value records always fall on the period date, so period dates are adjusted based on the new dates.

Frozen Forecast Data

Frozen forecasts are not altered.

New Period Dates Earlier than Old Period Dates

When a new period is made earlier than the original period, the results can be an undesirable change to the data spread. Consider the following example:

Original setup with Sep 30 and Oct 30 periods and WP ends on Oct 29 with 100 hours for Sep and Oct periods.

The time-phased spread is as follows:
Sep 30 Oct 29
100 hrs 100 hrs

New setup with Sep 30 and Oct 28 periods and WP still ends on Oct 29.

When you view the time-phased table or run a report, Oct 28 displays a zero-value period.

Sep 30 Oct 28 Oct 29
100 hrs 0 hrs 100 hrs
The process resolves this problem by changing the date on the last record to match the new period date. When viewing time-phased data, the original spread will be maintained and a zero-value period is added to the end of the spread, as follows:
Sep 30 Oct 28 Oct 29
100 hrs 100 hrs 0 hrs

The following additional principles also apply:

Budget Data

The process compares the last period's date against the control account or work package scheduled finish date and makes the above adjustment as necessary.

Actuals and Earned Value

Actuals and earned value data are not affected by this issue because these records always fall on period dates.

Frozen Forecasts

No changes are made to frozen forecast data.