xRPM Total Required Capacity does not update after task/phase is completed

[Former Member]

Hello SAP Gurus,

In xRPM, under "Portfolio Management" there are tasks and roles. "Roles" shows Total Required Capacity for a Particular role, for example 200.00 hrs. Now this particular role might be assigned to multiple tasks. Now if there is a task 1 related to that role which requires 20.00 hrs to complete and when the task is completed the Total required capacity (Demand) should be 180.00 hrs, but the screen still shows 200.00 as Total required capacity and 200.00 hrs staffed.

Does anyone have encountered similar problem? What could be the reason for this and possible solutions? Does xRPM update this demand data on task level?

Thanks and awaiting for your help.

[former_member201206]

Hi Nikita,

The role demand is the demand of the role itself. It will not be changed, if tasks are assigned to this role or assigned task is completed.

The information you expects may be realized in cProject 5.0, as there are some developments at the staffing view.

Kind regards,

Zhenbo

[Former Member]

Thanks a million, Zhenbo. Your answer is very helpful.

I was in the impression that like Microsoft Project, xRPM 4.5 is also able to do bottom up demand calculation. I don't understand why its not doing that. Can you please elaborate on how and on what level the total require capacity is captured and updated.

Thanks again.

[Former Member]

Nikita, I agree that this functionality would have been great to have. Once a task is completed it would be great to have the demand from that task released.

However, I believe the rationale for this design is because the role required capacity is a user entered value and not a calculated value (an "easy" button is provided to transfer the currently assigned task demand). This allows a project manager / resource manager to "book" time for staffing at an early stage inthe project without having to plan out the project structure in detail. For example, if I have a project with 5 stages spanning 1 year, at the start of the project I may only plan stage 1 and 2 in detail, but I know from past projects that I will require 40hrs/week of a "packaging engineer" time for the duration of the project, and once I get around to doing the detailed plan the requried capacity can be fine tuned. This allows me to "reserve" the packaging engineer so that he/she would not be allocated to another project.

That is my take on the reason for the current design. However, I do agree that it would be awsome if this was configurable (perhaps by role type) and hopefully similar functionality is available in PPM 5.0.

Regards,

Lashan