We are excited to announce the public availability of UMT Project Essentials 2012! Here’s a quick summary of the major new features and improvements:
UMT Project Essentials 2012 New Capabilities
The core functionalities of UMT Project Essentials deal with managing time-phased costs for projects. In the current article we will analyze how you can use the CMSI (the service interface provided by Project Essentials) to perform basic cost management operations programmatically.
The article assumes you are familiar with the fundamental concepts of Project Essentials: cost structures, cost templates, cost centers, granularities etc. We will also take a closer look at some of these concepts and the way value distribution happens from a technical perspective. Most of the examples refer to cost data, but working with benefits data is similar, expect that the concept of cost centers does not apply.
When developing Project Server applications to manipulate data for a project, the starting point for any business logic is usually the ProjectRow entity in the ProjectDataSet. It contains the essential project data such as the identifier, the name, the schedule start and end dates. Project Essential extends this concept with the notion of a financial project instance – a row in the CostInfo.cmInstances table. Each row corresponding to a project in Project Server, and it contains the current cost and benefits settings for the project:
The list above covers just the properties that we will be using in this article. A separate follow up article will provide more information about the cost centers associated to a project, and manipulating actual values once the project reaches the execution stage.
The financial instance cannot be created explicitly through the API – it is the result of an automated process. There are several ways in which an entry gets created for a project in the cmInstances table:
To access the financial instance for a project, you use the ReadProjectInstance(Guid projectUid) of the ProjectIntegration Service.
Note, that if the value of the projectUid parameter does not correspond to a project in Project Server, you will get a NoPermission error. This is the same error you will get if the user that executes the code does not have the OpenProject permission.
Users interact with the cost values for a project by using the web parts provided by Project Essentials. All the operations that the user performs in these web parts can be achieved in a programmatic manner by using the CMSI. Let’s analyze the case of the budget cost values.
Budget Cost Values
Section 1 (blue) contains the cost nodes from the cost structure that are available for the project through the associated cost tree template. To read this data you use the ReadCostTemplate(Guid templateUid, bool includeStructure) method of the ProjectCost service:
The cmCostStructure table has a foreign key relationship with itself, based on which you can derive the parent-child hierarchy of the nodes in the template, and easily display them in a tree view. The root node (Total Cost) has the ParentNodeGUID value set to NULL, and since a single root is allowed, all the other nodes will have a value for the column.
Section 2 (red) contains the granular cost time periods for the project’s financial timeline. You do not need to compute these yourself, they are available through the ReadGranularityPeriodsForProject(Guid projectUid,Guid valueTypeUid, bool isCost) method of the Granularity service:
The method returns an array of TimePeriod objects, each object has the following properties:
TimePeriod.Lenght60 = NumberOfWorkingDaysInPeriod * 24 (HoursInADay) * 60 (MinutesInAnHour) * 60 (SecondsInAMinute) * 60 (SecondDivisions)
Section 2 (green) contains the cost values for the project, distributed in a time-phased manner across the cost nodes in the tree template. The ProjectValues web service provides the ReadFinancialValues(Guid projectUid, Guid versionUid, Guid[] costCenters, Guid[] costNodes, DateTime startDate, DateTime endDate, Guid granularityUid, int nMaxLevel, Guid calendarTypeUid, Guid valueTypeUid, bool isCost) method to read the values for a project.
The method parameters offer considerable flexibility for filtering and aggregating the values, just as the Project Essential web parts allow you to select the Display Calendar, the Display Granularity, the Display Detail Level and the portion of the timeline (Scroll to Year) for which to load the values. You do not need to roll out your own logic for these operations, just adjust the parameter values accordingly when making the method call:
Let’s assume a project with monthly granularity starting on the 1st of May 2012, with a budget cost value of 23,000$ for the first months. May 2012, with Saturdays and Sundays as non-working days, has a total of 23 working. If we set the StartDate parameter to 05/07/2012, the value for the May-12 time period that you get from calling the method is 19,000$, since we have just 19 working days in the partial time period.
To exemplify, we will consider a project starting on the 7th of May 2012, and ending on the 24th of August 2012, having quarterly granularity and a total budget cost value of 80.000$. We ask the ReadFinancialValues method for the full timeline values at a monthly granularity.
The distribution global setting is set to Daily – the quarter value is split to the total number of working days in the quarter (between the start and end dates for the project) to get a daily value, then for each month the daily value is multiplied with the number of working days in that month (again, considering the start and end dates for the project)
| Month period | Period start date | Number of working days | Period value |
| May-12 | 05/07/2012 | 19 | 19 * 1000 = 19,000$ |
| Jun-12 | 06/01/2012 | 21 | 21 * 1000 = 21,000$ |
| Jul-12 | 07/01/2012 | 22 | 22 * 1000 = 22,000$ |
| Aug-12 | 08/01/2012 | 18 | 18 * 1000 = 18,000$ |
|
(05/07/2012 – 08/31/2012) |
80 = 80,000$ -> 1.000$ per working day | ||
The distribution global setting is set to Evenly – the quarter value is split to the total number of working days in the quarter (between the start and end dates for the project) to get a daily value, then for the first and the end months the daily value is multiplied with the number of working days in that month (since they are ‘incomplete’ periods), the resulting values are subtracted from the total and the remainder is equally split between the other months (since they are ‘complete’ periods).
| Month period | Period start date | Number of working days | Period value |
| May-12 | 05/07/2012 | 19 | 19 * 1000 = 19,000$ |
| Jun-12 | 06/01/2012 | 21 | 21,500$ |
| Jul-12 | 07/01/2012 | 22 | 21,500$ |
| Aug-12 | 08/01/2012 | 18 | 18 * 1000 = 18,000$ |
|
(05/07/2012 – 08/31/2012) |
80 = 80,000$ -> 1.000$ per working day
33,000$ / 2 complete periods |
||
To update the financial values, you use the UpdateFinancialValues(ValueInfo valuesDataSet, bool isCost) method:
The method will handle value additions, updates and deletions based on the DateRowState property of each row in the cmFinancialValues table. The recommended pattern is that you read the existing values using the read method and process the response dataset by either changing the Value property of the row for an update, adding a new row to add a value for a node that has no value, or by calling the Delete() method on a value row you wish to remove. The primary key for the cmFinancialValues table is composed from the ProjectGUID, NodeGUID, CenterGUID, StartPeriod, GranularityUnits, ValueTypeGUID, VersionGUID, IsCost properties.
The dataset returned by the read method, contains not just the nodes with ‘true’ values, but also the node with aggregated values. In turn, in the update dataset, there is no constraint to change the values for calculated nodes, but the internal product logic will discard these changes and enforce consistency based on the aggregation rules. For example, in the following structure for a project having the cost detail level set to 3, though in the data set you pass to the update method you have added values for all nodes, some will be discarded:
| Level | Node | UI Editable | Aggregates to ancestors | API Changes Behavior |
| 1 | Total Cost | No (calculated) | No (root) | Discarded |
| 2 | -One Time Costs | No (calculated) | Yes (above detail level) | Discarded |
| 3 | –Expenses | Yes | Yes (at detail level) | Kept |
| 4 | —Labor | Yes | No (below detail level) | Kept |
| 4 | —Training | Yes | No (below detail level) | Kept |
| 3 | –Capital Expenditures | Yes | Yes (at detail level) | Kept |
You cannot update both cost and benefits at the same time; though the dataset allows you to add rows for both, the methods will throw an exception if this is the case. In the changes the dataset, you cannot have values all the values have to the at the cost detail granularity.
There also a sample application included, as a proof-of-concept on how to use the CMSI methods that we’ve detailed.
Sample Application
Here’s the list of fixes and improvements included:
Version history:
Customers and Partners can download CU6 via the online portals on www.umtprojectessentials.com.
Patch A is an out-of-band release that addresses an issue with the Project Essentials release. The following fixes are included:
Patch A is available as a free download on the Customer and Partner Portals at www.umtprojectessentials.com.
Version history:
UMT Project Essentials is a significant release for the UMT family of products built on top of the Microsoft Project Server 2010 infrastructure. UMT Project Essentials is a major rebranding effort which merges the UMT Project Financial Server and UMT Workflow Designer platforms and adds new features and improvements. The setup can be run as a free upgrade for UMT Project Financial Server 2010 SP1 or newer (including CU1, CU2, CU3 or CU4) or as a new installation. UMT Project Essentials will be the baseline for future patches and service packs.
Version history:
Customers and Partners will be able to download all relevant installers and collaterals via the Customer and Partner portals on www.umtprojectessentials.com.
Thank you for participating in and commenting on our Nov. 18 webinar that dealt with project and portfolio financials. I’d like to use this note to respond to two key comments that came up in our survey following the event: the wish to see a presentation of tools, and the wish to see more details. My response to both comments is similar: in this webinar I tried to concentrate more on the principles behind project and portfolio financials rather then the method for collecting and tracking the financial information.
Since this webinar was the first one on the subject of financials I wanted to use it to convey the main ideas. My experience has shown that many managers may understand the connection between portfolio selection and the organization’s strategy, namely that the strategy defines the organization’s directions and leads to prioritization of portfolio projects, however it is not always clear that a portfolio’s financials must be aligned with corporate financials. This alignment defines the organization’s constraints and leads to the optimization of the portfolio.
Even if the project manager does understand how important it is for portfolio financials to mirror the organization’s financials as much as possible, the challenge is to structure each project financials to support the portfolio financials in which it participates.
Per your comments, future webinars will introduce both tools and more details that relate to the project and portfolio financials and will present ideas for planning, tracking, and decision-making based on them. And again, your input is important and greatly appreciated to help make these webinar sessions better and more effective in the future.
For the past several years organizations have been stressing that their project managers should understand the organization’s strategy and then assess how well their projects are aligned with it. But there should be more than just strategic alignment. Strategy and finance go hand in hand. Strategy defines direction while finance acts as the gatekeeper for the resources needed to get there.
Project managers have always understood the importance of finance. It is common knowledge that no project can be approved without financial evaluation. But the way we track project financials depends on the specific project, thus the tracking method is not always structured. Most of the time the project financials are so uniquely tracked, that they cannot be easily incorporated into the organization’s financials and not easily accounted towards the organization’s strategy.
To remedy this, we should add another level of alignment – one which aligns project financials with corporate financials. The two may be fundamentally different but we must find a way to align them or we risk losing important insights.
We are dedicating a live webinar to this subject (synopsis below) on Nov 18, 2011 at 1:00 pm EST. To register, please visit the UMT site (www.umt.com) for details.
Managing the enterprise Project and Portfolio Financials
Project Managers are expected to have complete command of their project costs as financial management became an indispensable tool for managing projects effectively. When planning the project, financials create the framework for scope, identify the level of potential resources, and provide a tie to the enterprise strategy. During execution, financials provide effective control over the use of project resources and offer decision making insights based on project status, risks, and potential future performance. And throughout the lifecycle of the project, financial reporting engages and offers comfort level to sponsors and stakeholders.
The challenge project managers face is how to set the ground for, and communicate using the language of finance in a way that allows aggregation of project costs and benefits to programs and portfolios levels towards effective financial management at the higher levels. In addition project managers must match the project and portfolio finances which are future focused, estimated and inaccurate, crosses fiscal boundaries, with corporate finances which are past focused, demanding structure and accuracy, and set within specific fiscal boundary.
In this webinar session we will review fundamentals and principle of project and portfolio financials and examine the fit with enterprise finance and strategy.
Andrew Lavinsky’s Blog UMT Institute
