Update Totals

The Update Totals feature allows you to total the values from the detail resource records to ensure that the summary data displays correctly at the work package, control account, and project levels for all cost sets.

Cobra uses the project values Budget, Earned Value, Actual Costs, and Forecast for a variety of purposes, including the calculation of performance factors for automatic forecasting. These values are defined by the budget classes specified as Budget, the performance cost class, and the actual cost classes specified as Actual Costs. They are displayed in the Project view.

Note: Your Project view may not use the names Budget and Actual Costs depending upon which earned value notation you configured Cobra to use in the General Tab of the Application Preferences Dialog Box.

Each time you enter the appropriate information through the standard data entry screens, Cobra automatically updates these values. However, it is possible that data entered through an alternative means (for example, during an external updating procedure) may result in one or more of the values no longer being accurate. Cobra provides the Update Totals utility so that you can total Budget, Earned Value, Actual Costs, and Forecast amounts to ensure that the stored summary values are valid.

If you notice a difference from the values on a CAP report and the value in the Project view , use the Update Totals utility to ensure that the values in the Project view correctly represent the values in the tables. In addition, Cobra assumes that budget before the status date will remain constant. Therefore, the cumulative to date budget is only calculated when the calendar is advanced. Thus, if you change budget before the status date, you must use this utility to update the Budget value.

If you use the option to scale Forecast, Cobra will prompt you to recalculate Forecast.

You can also run the Update Totals process through the API and the Cobra Web Service.