Importing Cost from Primavera P6

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Importing Cost from Primavera P6

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P6 can only create a "cost" curve when costs are attached to resources. It cannot create a cost curve from expenditures. From an accounting standpoint placing the costs in expenditures makes sense since costs are associated with an activity and are a "non-renewable," "one-time" expenditure. Unlike a laborer who moves from one activity to another once an activity is complete, the cost does not once the dollar is spent it is gone, and does not move to another activity. Therefore the mapping from Primavera to RP is correct.

Unfortunately, in the US most specifications require a cost curve be produced from Primavera to demonstrate that the project is cost loaded correctly. Because of this we associate our costs as resources, either through adding dollars per unit to a labor, equipment or material, or the more common choice is to create a "dummy" resource, make the budgeted cost per unit equal to one, and place the total cost in the "total budgeted cost" column. This way we force a "cost curve" out of Primavera.

If we apply costs to both the resource and the expenditure, Primavera will double the value. So this technique does not work. This is why having Risky Project be able to handle costs as resources would be of great benefit. Without this, we need a work around.

The work around I used was the following:

1. Export from Primavera to Excel and choose both Activities and Expenditures from the check boxes.

2. Modify the export so that at minimal the Activity ID columns and the budgeted cost in both the Activity Columns and the Expenditure Columns are exported out. In the expenditure column export I also ensure that the "budgeted units" and "price per units" are also included. I only export out the minimum columns required. For example "Activity ID," "Resource Name," and "Total Budgeted Cost." I do not export out the "Activity Name" and
dates unless required. Because of the cutting and pasting importing more columns means a greater chance of disassociating names and ID's or activity codes. It is best to keep it simple.

3. If moving the costs from the resources to the expenditures, a filter and a sort order may also be assigned at this time to ensure only the activities whose cost you want to move is exported out with the file, and the sort. This saves tweaking the file in Excel after the export

4. Once the columns are chosen, click through the rest of the export, and save to a file name that you can remember.

5. Open the file in Excel.

6. Task tab highlight all of the Activity ID's, copy and paste these into the Activity ID column on the expenditure tab, which should be blank with only column headings. Next copy and paste the total budgeted cost into the price per units column on the expenditure tab. You only want to copy over those activities with the resources that you want to have become expenditures. Bringing over the others will corrupt the data. Finally, type a "1" into the budgeted units column and copy and paste to the end of the data.

7. Save and reimport back into Primavera.

8. Double check your expenditures, as a total cost against the total cost derived from the resources.

9. Delete the resource costs, or they will be double counted.

10. Open the expenditure view in Primavera, and from the custom column dialog add "accrual type." Choose front, middle or end, and use the fill
cell to set multiple activities at once or pick and choose. It's up to you.

11. Export out of Primavera using the MS Project xml 2007.

12. Import the xml into Risk Project, choose update both schedule and risks. It is important to leave the xml file name the same. This way the xml understands what has been changed between imports. If this is the initial import then this will bring the costs over the way you want them. If this is a re-import it will fix any issues that were had from the initial import.

It is easier to make the corrections in Primavera in mass and then re-import them into Risky Project. Remember if on the Primavera export into MS Project xml the Primavera Activity ID is associated with a MS Project text field, the Primavera Activity ID becomes associated with the activities in Risky Project. By displaying this column when copying and pasting into excel, you can associate the Risky Project Data back to Primavera.
Intaver Support Team
Intaver Institute Inc.
Home of Project Risk Management and Project Risk Analysis software RiskyProject
www.intaver.com
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