Costpoint Online Help

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Import Project Budgets

Use this interface to transfer project budget, project budget revisions, forecast, and ETC revenue data into Costpoint from a comma-delimited ASCII file produced by Project Planner (or from any budgeting tool that can produce a comma-delimited file with the required information).

The file produced may vary in format from client to client; therefore, you can define the physical structure and the information content contained within the input (source) file. This definition allows for the various types of data and the multiple levels of detail within the Costpoint budgeting system. The only exception is project budget revisions, which have a predefined file structure.

The application supports the following:

  • Period values by "Forecast or Budget" for:
  • Direct Labor Costs
  • Direct Non-Labor Costs
  • Direct Labor Costs and Indirect Costs
  • Direct Non-Labor Costs and Indirect Costs
  • Manual Fees
  • Total values by "Forecast or Budget" for:
  • Direct Labor Costs
  • Direct Non-Labor Costs
  • Direct Labor Costs and Indirect Costs
  • Direct Non-Labor Costs and Indirect Costs
  • Manual Fees
  • ETC revenue amounts
  • Project Budget Revisions

Since the content and format of the file varies by client, you can map your input file columns (source) to Costpoint table/columns (target). The target columns presented depend on the budgeting option in effect and the content of the input file that you defined. Note that we currently support standard project budgets only. You cannot re-map target columns for project budget revisions; instead, the process uses the pre-defined mapping to process these files.

There may be situations where the input file does not contain all of the data required based on the budgeting option in effect and the type of budget data in the file. Therefore, you can define the source location of data at mapping time, and you can have different data sources. The primary source of data is the input file, but you can also use default values for columns that are defined at mapping and/or to indicate columns whose values are entered at import time. 

There may also be extra lines in the input file, such as subtotal and total rows, that do not represent detailed budget information and must not be imported into the Costpoint database. You can include or exclude rows by defining a column number and a data value for that column. You can define multiple inclusion or exclusion rules for an input file definition.

In certain situations, the input file may contain columns that represent the same type of information (such as dollars) for different accounting periods where the starting accounting period represented by the first column of this type, and the number of times this column occurs within the input file, can vary from upload to upload. In this situation, the application prompts you for a starting fiscal year and period and compute the remaining periods based on the definition of the column.

The column definition contains the following information:

  • Whether or not it is a repeating column.
  • The interval between columns (currently, always "1").
  • The number of times the column occurs within the input file.

You can run the import process in interactive or process server mode. The application captures any required runtime input and stores the results as an item in the function parameters catalog for later use by the process server.

Run this process after creating source file definitions and mapping on the Configure Interface Settings and Configure Project Planner Mapping Definitions screens, and after project budget files are created and are ready to be imported.

Note: There are two ways to work with input files in Costpoint
  • You can access the input file from the network by using Alternate File Locations.
  • You can upload the input file to the Costpoint database; in which case, no further access to network folders is necessary.

If you decide to use the first option, click in the Location field to select an alternate file location. If you choose the second option, leave the Location field blank and use the File Upload Manager to upload the input file to the Costpoint database.