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Can you post time against at the Project level instead of the Task level?

  • 1.  Can you post time against at the Project level instead of the Task level?

    Posted Aug 26, 2016 10:29 AM

    I feel like I have seen this done before, but cannot find any way to enable it. I realize you can post time at the Investment level for NPIOs. However for Projects, we have use cases where it would be a much better outcome for us to allow team members to post time against the Project itself, rather than to an individual WBS Task.

     

    Is this possible? How would one enable it?

     

    Thank you



  • 2.  Re: Can you post time against at the Project level instead of the Task level?

    Posted Aug 26, 2016 10:56 AM

    "I feel like I have seen this done before, but cannot find any way to enable it." - Are you talking about the Effort Task on projects ? (under Administration > Project Management > Settings)

     

    NJ



  • 3.  Re: Can you post time against at the Project level instead of the Task level?

    Posted Aug 26, 2016 11:05 AM

    There needs to be an assignment (resource on a task) to book time ; but the application will usually auto-add an "Effort" task against the project when you set it up for time recording.



  • 4.  Re: Can you post time against at the Project level instead of the Task level?

    Posted Aug 26, 2016 11:50 AM

    You can also create effort task afterwords and have that while you have normal tasks. The effort task  has ID  ~rmw.

    See

    http://www.ca.com/us/support/ca-support-online/product-content/knowledgebase-articles/tec1053847.aspx 

    for details.



  • 5.  Re: Can you post time against at the Project level instead of the Task level?

    Posted Aug 30, 2016 02:00 PM

    Thanks for the replies. I'm actually looking for a way to post time directly against the Investment itself - NOT against a specific task/assignment. (Similar to how you can post time at the Investment level for an IDEA or OTHER WORK item)

     

    Fairly certain I've seen this done somehow in CA PPM - but maybe it was just a pleasant dream



  • 6.  Re: Can you post time against at the Project level instead of the Task level?

    Posted Aug 30, 2016 02:18 PM

    That depends....

    Firstly you can only post time against tasks, not against projects nor NPIO's

    If the effort task is created it will get automatically the project name.

    The same way with Other work: there is a task with the same name as the other work instance. However, apparently because there is only one task there is no Tasks tab, but you can verify with a query to the prtask table.

     

    Edit

    If the effort task is created by the system/automatically  it will get automatically the project name.



  • 7.  Re: Can you post time against at the Project level instead of the Task level?
    Best Answer

    Posted Aug 30, 2016 04:51 PM

    There are two ways to create the effort task - TEC1053847 describes one way, for when one has accidentally removed the 'effort' task, re-ID'd it, etc.

     

    The other way is to start allocating staff to your project before creating tasks on the WBS.  If you allocate resources first, CA PPM will assume a task must exist and create the effort task for you, giving it the ID "~rmw" - this, years ago, was known as a 'fast plan' and CA PPM will take care of assigning your staff to this ~rwm task for you.  As long as you avoid creating other tasks, you are effectively booking actuals to the project since the one task is basically equivalent to the project.

     

    You can create additional tasks, and book to these - however, the forecasted work is still coming off the ~rmw task - its just the way it works.  Remove the tilde or the entire ID and you're back to a 'power plan,' using the full WBS for planning and actuals.

     

    Otherwise, as others have mentioned - don't use projects, use something else - use a Product, Asset, Other Work to book time to - no tasks, no milestones, just one line entry ever possible on one's timesheet - easy, peasy.

     

    When CA PPM creates the ~rmw task for you, depending on the vintage of CA PPM, you may see different results - older versions just create an "Effort" task, while newer versions create a task using the name of the project as the task name.  So, maybe, seeing a task name that is equal to the project name is what you remember seeing - thinking that one was then booking to the project?



  • 8.  Re: Can you post time against at the Project level instead of the Task level?

    Posted Sep 01, 2016 07:42 AM

    Thank you all. I must sheepishly admit that I had no idea that's what "Effort Task" was intended for. Seems an odd implementation of this feature, but I'll go with it - seems like it will accomplish what we need - We'll just need to set up a different template to be used for these type of projects. urmas - We do routinely post time against NPIOs by simply adding the investment to the timesheet via "Add Other Work"; no Tasks required.

     

    Thank you



  • 9.  Re: Can you post time against at the Project level instead of the Task level?

    Posted Sep 01, 2016 07:49 AM

    It is the effort task you a posting time with NPIO's. There are no other tasks you could choose so the effort task is picked for you automatically.



  • 10.  Re: Can you post time against at the Project level instead of the Task level?

    Posted Sep 01, 2016 07:51 AM

    I though I had posted a reply for this.

    The other way only works if you have your project management setting Allow Creation of Effort task ticked.

    If you have not, then it is not created automatically.



  • 11.  Re: Can you post time against at the Project level instead of the Task level?

    Posted Sep 01, 2016 08:02 AM
      |   view attached

    Got it – I think I understand now. Thanks!

     

    Matthew Palicki, PMP, CSM

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