Set Up a Project for Explain Variance

Use the Thresholds tab in the project Form View to set up Explanation of Variance (VAR) properties, indicate where the thresholds are stored, and indicate if and when the Explanation of Variances are created automatically.

See Thresholds and Color Banding Explained for more information.

Explanation of Variances can be created manually or generated automatically when a variance exceeds the thresholds. After the Threshold tab is complete, use the Scheduling tab in Workflow Type Configuration to schedule the automatic creation of Explanation of Variances. For more information, see Automatically Create Explanation of Variances.

To set up a project for explain variance:

1. On the Navigation menu, click Projects » Projects.

2. Click Form View.

3. Select the Thresholds tab.

4. In the Location of Threshold Criteria field, select the code file that contains the thresholds which will be used to compare against variances on the project to determine if variance narratives are required for a particular control account.

   For Cobra users, you can select one of the three control account key fields (CA1- CA3), or one of the nine control account codes (C1 - C9).

5. Select the Automatically Create Explain Variance Workflows option to include the project in the scheduled Explain Variance creation process.

   For a project to be included in the creation process, the current date must match (or be later than) the date reached by adding the project's status date plus the value in the Number of Days After the Status Date ... field.

6. In the Number of Days After the Status Date... field, enter a number from 1 to 31 to add to the period end date and indicate when the Explanation of Variance must be created.

   For example, if the period end date is December 31, 2012 and you enter 10 in the field, then EoV's will be created on January 10, 2013 for control accounts that have metrics that exceeded the thresholds. If January 10 is a non-working day, it will move to the next working day.

7. On the Projects Form toolbar, click Save.

You can still manually create an explanation of variance even without defining thresholds in the source. However, doing so does not highlight or document which variances were exceeded.

For Deltek Cobra users, after an Explanation of Variance has been completed, the Update Source workflow action updates Cobra. The Variance Notes categories on the User-Defined Data Source Fields tab for Area = All Workflows must match the entries specified in the Tools » Configure » Notes » Variance Narrative in Cobra. If the note categories are not the same, the explanations are not saved in Cobra.

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Automatically Create Explanation of Variances

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