The Classes tab in Projects shows Class information for the current project. Here you can see what classes are used by the project and important details such as whether class uses a special rate or date set or whether it is part of the approved budget or forecast. The classes tab also allows you to view the rate file used even after the workflow has started.
This information is particularly valuable for managing changes to budgets and forecasts as it allows the PCA to verify that the classes used to store the change prior to approval are using the correct rate and date set. It is also used to validate if the classes have been correctly created as unapproved class types rather than being part of the approved budget or forecast.
All tabs of the Projects Form View share the same toolbar.
There are four types of cost records:
Budget — These are entered through the planning process.
Earned value — These are the result of earned value calculations.
Actuals — These are entered when actual costs are updated.
Forecast — These are either generated by the forecasting facilities or entered manually.
For each of these types, it is possible to define different classes to track specific types of information. For example, a change request can be entered into a newly created class to distinguish it from the approved budget.
Each type of class allows you to define different characteristics, depending on its context. For example, budget and forecast classes allow you to specify the set of rates to be used for calculating the derived costs. Budget classes indicate if the costs are to be tracked by the Project Audit Log (or Program Log).
When entering a budget change request, the costs are stored in an unapproved budget class so the Project Audit Log is unaffected. When the change is approved, the budget is reclassed into an approved budget class automatically. It is at this time (during the workflow approval) the Project Audit Log is updated, and you can see the change in a IPMR CPR Format 3 or a Change Management report in Cobra.
When you create a workflow that indicates Include Change Details on Form, a new class is created when the workflow is created. This class is named the system generated Change Number, for example, BCR00001.
Classes are grouped together into Cost Sets such as BCWS, BCWP, ACWP, and EAC for reporting purposes. For example, the EAC cost set is comprised of the Forecast (ETC) class and the Actual class. In addition to the standard cost sets, you can create your own cost sets for reporting purposes.
When you create a workflow that indicates Change Details on Form, a new cost set (that contains only the new class) is created when the workflow is created. This cost set is also named the system generated Change Number, for example, BCR00001.
To run a report that
shows the existing budget and the unapproved budget, you can select
from one of the many Cost Analysis reports that allow you to select
Cost Sets. For example, the Earned Value Curve or the Time Phased
Report.
If you want to produce a report that shows the approved budget and all unapproved budgets (created by many different workflows) you could select many cost sets or create a new cost set that contains classes for all unapproved cost sets.
Since the correct rates are defined by the class, most people keep a number of approved budget classes that represent the budget changes that were approved by fiscal year. Each of the classes would indicate the rate file containing the rates for the specific year. When you have many different approved budget classes, they are all included in the BCWS cost set for reporting of budget.
The Classes grid allows you to add, change and delete classes for the project.
Field |
Description |
Classes
|
Select one of the following options from this drop-down list:
|
Field |
Description |
Class |
This is the Id or name of the class and must be unique for the project. |
Description |
Use this column to provide a longer description of what type of data the class contains. |
Type |
The class type indicates the type of cost data that is stored in the class. It can include Budget, Forecast, Unapproved Budget, and Unapproved Forecast. For Cobra users, the word “Unapproved” is added to the class type when the class is not included in totals. I.e., when the Include Total checkbox in Cobra is not checked. When the class type is neither budget nor forecast , the Type field is blank. |
The rate field displays
the rate file used by the class. If the rate field is left blank,
the default rate file for the project is used. For Cobra, you
can change the rate file using the In order for a rate file to display in the lookup, you must be a member of the SYSADMIN group, or have access to the rate file. |
|
Level |
The level field indicates the level (Work Package or Control Account) at which costs are stored for the class. |
Date Set |
This field indicates which dates on the Control Account or Work Package record (Early, Late or Default) are used to indicate the date span of the data contained within the class. The default for budget classes is Baseline and for forecast classes is Forecast. Use early or late dates for unapproved classes to avoid changes to the approved (default) dates during the approval process. You can change the date set. How? |
Change a rate file or date set
icon to
display the