Resource Assignments Page of the Integration Wizard — MS Project

Use this page to define how budgeted and forecast resources and their respective spreads are imported into the Cobra project from the schedule.

This page displays only if you select Resource Assignments on the Action Selection page of the Integration Wizard. Only classes for which you have view and update access are listed.

Budget

This group box is enabled only if you select the Load budget resource assignments option on the Date Selection page of the Integration Wizard.

Field Description
Default budget class Click and select the budget class to import the budget into. Use this option in conjunction with the other class options on this page.
Load all budget into default class Select this option to import all resource assignments into the same class in Cobra.

If you select a control account-level class, only the resources of activities mapped to the control account are imported.

If there is a work package mapped on the Schedule Mapping Page of the Integration Wizard and a value is found in the associated schedule field in an activity, resources assigned to the activity are not imported into a control account-level budget class.

Load budget class from field Select this option to inform Cobra that a schedule field is assigned a class value. When you select this option, the lookup is enabled.

Click to select a code field, user character field, text field, or cost class for the assignment in the schedule.

The schedule field selected can be used to load Control Account and Work Package classes at the same time.

This lookup is not displayed for import files since the field selection determines where the classes are loaded from.

Load only these budget classes This field is enabled if you select the Load budget class from field option and select a value for it. Selecting a value in this field informs Cobra to filter the class being imported to include only the selected classes. If this field is blank, all classes found in the selected schedule field are imported.

Click to select from the values in the selected schedule field from which the classes will be imported.

During the import, Cobra imports assignment records only if they match the selected classes. If the class value being loaded from the schedule is empty, Cobra uses the default class.

Forecast

This group box is enabled only if you select the Load forecast resource assignments option on the Date Selection page of the Integration Wizard.

Field Description
Default forecast class Select the forecast class to import the forecast into. Use this option in conjunction with the other class options on this page.

You can load data into both the budget and forecast in one import. This is useful when new work is being added to the project. And this time, the forecast and the budget are the same.

If the import contains forecast data for a period before the status date, those records are ignored (not loaded) and there is no warning in the process log.

Click to select a forecast class in the Cobra project or template. This forecast class is used if no schedule class is defined, or if it is blank.

If the class is not found, the field will be set to blank.

Load all forecast into the default class Select this option to import all forecast resource assignments into the same class in Cobra.

If you select a control account-level class, only the resources of activities mapped to the control account are imported.

If there is a work package mapped on the Schedule Mapping Page of the Integration Wizard and a value is found in the associated schedule field for an activity, resources assigned to the activity are not imported into a control account-level budget class.

Load forecast class from field Select this option to inform Cobra that a schedule field has been defined with the class value.

The corresponding field is enabled when you select this option. Click to select a code field, user character field, or cost class for the assignment in the schedule.

The schedule field selected can be used to load Control Account and Work Package classes at the same time.

This lookup is not displayed for import files since the field selection determines where the classes are loaded from.

Load only these forecast classes This field is enabled only if you select the Load forecast class from file option and select a value for it. Selecting a value in this field informs Cobra to filter the class being imported to only the selected classes. If this field is blank, all classes found in the selected schedule field are imported.

Click to select from the values in the selected schedule field from which the classes will be imported.

During the import, Cobra imports assignment records only if they match the selected classes. If the class value being loaded from the schedule is empty, Cobra uses the default class.

Replace existing forecast This option displays when you import into an existing project. When this option is selected, Cobra performs the following actions:
  • Deletes all records in the existing forecast classes and replaces them with imported values.
  • Loads the forecast start and finish dates as the schedule forecast dates.
  • Loads forecast only into the future periods. If the forecast data in the file is in the past, Cobra ignores the records before the status date and only loads the spread from the status date forward.
Add to existing forecast This option displays when you import into an existing project. Select this option to inform Cobra to add any imported values to those that already exist in the corresponding classes in Cobra.
  • If the records being loaded have a class designation that matches a class in Cobra, the forecast values are added to the data in Cobra versus overwriting the existing forecast.
  • If the forecast data being loaded falls outside of the existing forecast dates, the forecast dates are adjusted to encompass all the existing Cobra resources and those being loaded.
  • If the forecast being loaded has a resource that does not exist in Cobra, the resource is added based on the spread from the schedule.
  • If the forecast being loaded has a resource that does exist in Cobra, the resource value is added to the existing resource.
  • The forecast is only loaded into future periods. If the forecast data in the file is in the past, Cobra ignores the records before the status date and loads the spread from the status date forward.
Field Description
Calculate apportionment Select this option to enable the Define Calculation button.
Define Calculation

Click this button to display the Calculation Range and the Classes pages of the Calculate Apportionment wizard. Selecting this option informs Cobra to perform the apportionment calculation after the import process is complete.

After importing the project into Cobra, the apportionment calculation runs and adds any apportioned resources to the project based on the defined apportionment mapping.

This button is enabled only if apportionment mappings are defined for the selected Cobra project.

Click Next on the Classes page to return to the Resource Assignment page of the Wizard.

Time-phased data is expanded in the Microsoft Project database If this option is selected, Cobra reads the daily time-phased spread from Microsoft Project, uses it when spreading budget, and spreads the daily time-phased values across the Cobra fiscal calendar periods. If the calendar periods match between Cobra and Microsoft Project calendars, the time-phased spreads between two products are the same. If this option is cleared, Cobra spreads the Total values across all periods using the Respread process.