Labor Codes Tab of the Plan Settings Dialog Box
If you want to plan labor for a project by labor code, use the Labor Codes tab on the Plan Settings dialog box to select the labor code levels for which you want to enter planned hours.
After you select the labor code levels, you can then add labor codes to the plan work breakdown structure (WBS) as an additional level below the project WBS. Planning by labor code enables you to plan at a more detailed level than is possible using the project WBS alone.
The option to plan at the labor code level is only available if Vantagepoint is set up to use labor codes. Use of labor codes must be enabled in Key Formats () and at least one code must be set up for each labor code level on the Labor Codes settings form (). If Vantagepoint is not set up to use labor codes, the Plan Settings dialog box does not contain a Labor Codes tab.
If you plan at the labor code level, you can use the Budget Validation options on the Accounting tab of the Projects form to implement automatic validation of time records against the plan based on the labor codes that the employee enters for the time records. For more information, see Accounting Tab of the Projects Form and Budget Validation for Timesheets.
Contents
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Labor Code Level | A checkbox displays for each labor code level. Select the labor code levels that you consider significant for planning purposes. Those are the levels for which you want to select specific level codes when you add a labor code to the plan WBS. Unselected levels are treated as if they contain wildcard characters.
For example, suppose Vantagepoint is set up to use labor codes with three levels: Department, Service, and Staff, but for your project, you only want to enter planned hours for combinations of Department and Service. On this tab, you select the Department and Service checkboxes. Then each time you add a labor code to your plan WBS, you select a specific department code and a specific service code. You do not select a staff code; Vantagepoint assumes that the planned hours apply to any staff codes that are used. When employees enter actual time, they must specify a value for each level of the project WBS and for each labor code level, including the Staff level. However, because the Staff level is treated as a wildcard character for planning, actual hours entered for all staff codes for a branch of the plan WBS are summed into one value for that branch for comparison to its planned hours. Note that if you change the selected levels after you have added resource assignments for labor codes, all labor codes and their resource assignments will be removed from the plan. Vantagepoint displays a warning in this situation and gives you the option to cancel the change. If you set up budget validation for the project at the labor code level using the Budget Validation options on the Accounting tab of the Projects form, you also select labor code levels there that you want the validation process to check. Frequently, the levels selected for planning and the levels selected for budget validation are the same. However, that is not required. For example, you could plan down to the second level of the labor code structure, but only validate time records to verify that planned hours exist for the top level of the labor code. |