Hello, in IT Planning, we are running into a question, regarding adding a comparison between plans on the Contracts Tab. 

When viewing the 'Summary', 'Labor', and 'Other' tabs, we are able to find the "Add Comparison..." option, by right clicking on the annual total column (please see attached screenshot).  However, this option is not available in the "Contracts" tab (please see attached screenshot). 

Does anyone know if this is by design or if we are missing something?

We would find value in easily identifying and reviewing the deltas between our Budget and Forecast.  Any thoughts or insights would be appreciated.  Thanks!

Hi Samir,

You are not missing anything. There is no comparison feature in the assets or contracts tabs. Please submit an idea if it is something you are looking for. As an alternative way to compare those line items you can use the summary tab and group by important attributes to see line items together. I.E group on vendor to see your contracts by vendor with actuals and budget.

Please let me know if you have any more questions,

Lauren Griessel

Thank you Lauren! 

I will be sure to submit an idea, but just to better understand, is there any logic or reasoning behind why it's not available in assets or contracts today?  

Thanks again 

HI Samir,

I am not sure what the reason is behind why it is not in there today but just thinking of things from a high level I am not sure how the system would know to tie those actuals and budget line items together in those tabs. There is no unique identifier per contract or asset OOTB so I am not sure how the system would match the exact lines.

Thanks,

Lauren Griessel

Thank you for the feedback @Lauren Griessel  We understand that tying the contracts to the actuals is a challenge which we may have to address within CT.  We are actually hoping to compare plans within ITP. 

We just finalized our first budget within ITP for FY19.  Finance has created a Jan2019 forecast based on the FY19 budget to capture changes as they occur in 4Q2018:  contract extensions (actual amount/term), new contracts and contracts which were missed during the transition to ITP. 

ITS Finance is asking for a detail of the delta between the two plans, we have only been able to get to a CC or Account level % and amount variance.  We would like to be able to take it down a level to see the line item differences between the two plans within ITP vs exporting to CT or Excel for additional analysis.

Hi Lauren, per your comment on the lack of a unique identifier...

While not out of the box, I wonder if there is a way to leverage a custom dimension, specifically for this purpose.  In fact, during our initial configuration, Peggy and I created a custom dimension to house our company's internal Contract ID.  As this is a unique identifier, this could, theoretically, be a good way to tie and compare line items across plans.

Thanks.

HI Samir,

You are correct you can manually create one/add one to plans so you can compare plans YoY at a more granular level but the issue comes in with actuals. If that unique identifier does not exist in the actuals someone will have to manually map actuals line items to that unique ID so forecasting could be done at that level. This can be a lot of added work for an admin.

Thanks,

Lauren Griessel

Thanks for the help!  I have submitted an Idea here: https://tbmcouncil.jiveon.com/ideas/1708