Job Progress Single Dialogs Workspace

Use this workspace to create an overview of the progress of jobs and see whether they are on track in terms of time and cost.

This workspace shows the historic development of the progress of a job budget, compared with actual entries on the job. The Job Progress tab displays information about the current job. The Job Budget Lines sub-tab contains budget lines with information about the activity, task, and employee category that are associated with each planning budget line.

A historic entry is created when you create a progress estimate. This enables you to re-estimate one or more tasks and approve the budget again. The approved estimate is also taken into account in the detailed planning in the Resource Planning module.

The progress estimate is based on the job's planning budget. You select the planning budget for it in the Job Budgets workspace. Use the Planning job parameter type to set the job up to compare the job's progress with an additional budget, the baseline budget.

A baseline budget is typically used for storing the budget on which a contract is based, and is rarely changed. However, if the job changes scope, such as when you are requested to perform new tasks in addition to those already on order, you should also update the baseline budget. If you were only measuring job progress based on the regular planning budget, a deviation between the planned work and the actual work would occur, and it would not be immediately apparent that the extra work was performed due to a scope change. By comparing with the baseline budget as well, the deviation can be explained by the job scope change.

The progress of a job can be measured by the amount of hours spent on the job or by the total cost incurred on the job. The amount of hours is collected from job entries on time activities. The amount of costs is collected from job entries on amount activities and from the cost of entered time activities.

The Progress island in the Job Progress tab contains lines with history entries that display the five most recent progress estimates.

The Job Budget Lines sub-tab displays the quantity of hours or the amount planned for the line, the number of hours completed, the estimated completion requirement of the budget line, and the date on which this information is considered valid. If the budget has been structured hierarchically, group headers display summarized information from their subordinate lines. You cannot enter information directly on group header lines. To further examine each planning budget line, the project manager can use the Task Progress workspace, which shows information on each budget line, as well as any estimates for the requirements for completion as per the entries entered on the job.

The Job Budget Lines sub-tab shows the progress status of the latest estimate shown in the Job Progress tab. If you want to see the updated progress information for each of the job budget lines, enter a date in the Progress island in the Job Progress tab to indicate the date through which you want to measure progress for this job. Maconomy then performs a calculation of the progress estimates as of that date and show the updated progress information in both parts of the workspace

If the job budget currently displayed in this workspace is approved, most fields appear closed. Since re-estimating a job budget in this workspace changes the budget, you can only do that if the budget is not yet approved. If the budget is approved, you can reopen it in this workspace using the Reopen Planning Budget action.

You can choose to re-estimate either the entire job or just one or several of the planning budget lines shown in the Job Budget Lines sub-tab. To re-estimate the entire job, enter a new estimated time or amount to completion along with an estimate date on the last line in the table in the Progress island. Depending on whether you have selected the Get Est. to Compl. from All Resources field in the Time To Completion Estimates island, Maconomy performs a calculation to find the number of planned and completed hours for each job budget line since the last estimate date, as well as any new estimates provided by time sheet users. Maconomy can also find the number of planned and completed hours for each job budget line for all of those employees who have entered an estimated time to completion at a given time on the relevant job.

If you choose to re-estimate only one of the planning budget lines shown in the Job Budget Lines sub-tab, you can enter a new estimate for the selected line. The total estimate of the job is automatically written up/down accordingly. Similarly, the total estimate is reflected in the Quantity field on the planning budget line in the Job Budgets workspace.

Re-Evaluating Budget Lines

When re-estimating a planning budget line, you might also want to re-evaluate it. You can do that in the Task Progress workspace, which corresponds to this workspace, except that the Task Progress workspace displays progress information for the individual planning budget lines, as well as the completion requirements specified by job entries, whereas this workspace displays information at the job level.

In some cases, finding out to which job budget line a job entry refers may be ambiguous if more than one planning budget line exists with the same combination of job, activity, and task. This is the case, for example, if two budget lines exist for job J, both with activity A and task T. In this case, Maconomy picks one of the planning budget lines and suggests that the planned/entered amount of hours should be linked to that line. If there is ambiguity due to duplicate budget lines, modify the fields in the Job Budget Lines sub-tab that contain progress information. Maconomy also indicates any ambiguity for each time sheet line in the sub-tab of the Task Progress workspace.

To avoid ambiguity concerning which planning budget line belongs to which time sheet line, you can ensure that only one planning budget line exists for each activity/task combination by setting the Duplicate lines (time) on planning budget and Duplicate lines (amount) on planning budget job parameter attributes to the value No. This means that only one planning budget line that is related to the same job, activity, and task can be created. This ensures that when historic entries are created, the correct planning budget lines are updated.

As in the Job Budgets workspace, this workspace has three actions for submitting, approving, and reopening job budgets. Any changes made to the status of a planning budget or to the budget lines in the Job Budget Lines sub-tab are also displayed in the Job Budgets workspace. However, when approving a planning budget in this workspace for a budget with a new estimate to completion, a progress history entry is made for all of the assigned budget lines. The current estimate is then moved up from the Job Budget Lines sub-tab to the Job Progress tab as a historic entry. This allows the project manager to view the progress history of a job.

You can print out the progress history information for a range of jobs, together with progress history information for the planning budget lines.