The Projects component provides deep cost analysis of the project portfolio including the operational and investment expenses.
Common source systems
Some common source systems for Projects are:
- BMC Service Management
- Clarity
- PPM Center
Questions to consider
As you begin researching your Projects data, here are some questions to consider:
- Do you have project codes tied to GL entries?
- Do you use time tracking just for projects or for general use?
- Can you tie time tracking data to specific projects?
- Are you project codes common among the various systems (such as your PPM tool, your time tracking system, and your GL)?
- Can you map your projects to a specific application, business service, or business unit? If not, can you map your projects to IT Resource Towers and Sub-Towers?
- Do you have contacts in mind for requesting the required data?
- Do you anticipate any struggles with acquiring the data?
- How clean is your data?
Required columns
The table below lists the data sets and specific data elements from those data sets that are required. There are many other data elements you may wish to include. Please refer to your Configuration Workbook for more details on all data elements.
Required data sets | Required data elements |
List of Projects Use this data set as the basis of the project information | - Project code
- Project name
- Project manager
- Priority
- Expense type (OpEx or CapEx)
- Spend type (RTB, GTB, TTB)
- Overall status (red, yellow, green)
|
Project Labor from a time tracking system Use this data set to allocate costs to projects based on resources and hours worked | - Project code
- Employee ID or group of employees
- Hours per project
|
In the Priority column, we suggest you use Pri 1, Pri 2, etc. (instead of Priority 1 or Priority 2 or just numbers). The priorities display on reports better with shortened names.
For any status columns, use Green, Yellow, or Red (spelled out and case-sensitive). There are a variety of report components that require those specific values and will not calculate appropriately if other words are used.
Projects Identifier
The project identifier is a combination of the project portfolio, project name, project ID, expense type, project manager, project owner, application ID, service ID, business unit name, and UID metafield.
Columns Required to Link Data Sets
You will also need to consider the ways in which you'll link to the IT Resource Towers Master Data set from other data sets. The table below highlights some specific data elements needed for linking data sets together.
Link to Master Data Set | Required data elements |
Cost Source Master Data | |
Labor Master Data | |
Time Tracking Master Data | |
IT Resource Towers Master Data | - IT Resource Tower
- IT Resource Sub-Tower
|
Applications Master Data | |
All Business Services | - Application ID
- Service ID
- Project_Service Key Metafield
|
Business Units Master Data | - Application ID
- Service ID
- Business Unit Name
- Project_BU Key Metafield
|
The GL (which is mapped to the Cost Source Master Data set) must have a project code associated with the appropriate GL entries for allocating costs to projects.
If you do not have sufficient data for allocating between Cost Source and Other Cost Pools, you should leave those costs in the Cost Source object and not allocate without appropriate mapping.