Most of the other Project Management tools approach “cost management” as something relegated to complex projects with thousands of subtasks, resources and bucks; for this reason this approach is often cumbersome and requires trained personnel. A different possible approach, chosen by most of the light on-line tools, is to ignore completely the matter.

Actually, using Teamwork, we can try to have a lighter approach to project cost management following few rules and getting all the benefits without the pain.

In this article we would like to show how to use Teamwork for project cost management.

First of all an “official” definition of the cost of a project from the PMBOK:

“The resources necessary to complete scheduled activities.”

Practically you should estimate and track costs for hours spent by resources, not only working on tasks, but also working on project management activities (do not underestimate PM work). Then you should consider fixed costs like third part services, machinery, other costs not directly connected to your resources and resource diary costs like travel and stay expenses. Teamwork lets you track all these kind of costs.

We can identify two distinct phases: Planning and Managing.

Planning

Overview:

In the first phase you need to formulate a prediction about resources’ effort, schedule, fixed costs.

An interesting consideration is exemplified by what is known as “project triangle”: it shows how the same project can be managed differently according to the aspects you are focusing on. Everyone would like to stay exactly in the middle .

A perfect estimate needs a complete analysis of the problem which may require as much time as making it, so we have to stop somewhere and try to guess. There are many different kind of approaches, but generally we suggest to start decomposing the project in subtasks that should be easier to estimate.

Teamwork lets you decompose a project in many subtask’ levels, so you can decide the granularity of your analysis. When should I stop? There is no a magic spell, but a 20 days subtask should be a good compromise.

(from wikipedia)

Teamwork example:

In our test case we are a company organizing a refresher course on security for customer’ teams. The example is very simple (almost stupid), actually we would like to show you how to build a nuclear submarine, but we gave up .

Here is the project Gantt

Even in this simple example, there are two different types of estimation. The “setup” task is uncertain as we do not exactly know the effort needed to find a partner and a location, while the “execution” part is determined by fixed costs.

Let’s focus on “setup”: resource management in Teamwork starts by assigning resources to task.

Here we have assigned Laura and we have estimated 16 hours to perform her task and a personal budget of 200 for expenses; in the meanwhile we have completed assignments for the setup phase, adding other resources.

Notice that “budget” for expenses is distinct from work estimation and that you can specify an hourly cost directly on the assignment, so that it could vary in different tasks (even for the same resource).

The execution phase is more straightforward, and we decided to assign a budget of 6000 for location and catering and 5000 for teacher.

Here is our estimation for the project:

Teamwork shows the total planned costs for our task: the first box shows planned costs in terms of estimated work hours for our resources. The second box, instead, shows the course’s fixed cost estimated.

We set a budget of 13000 on the root because this is a very simple example. This ends the planning phase.

Notice that “budget” can be used with two meanings: as the maximum cost set for this project, or as the price your company “sells” this project. The latter case usually fits small company’s needs.

Reporting & Monitoring

Overview:

This phase is usually the Cinderella of project management. In the past we focused more on planning, building huge Gantt charts that we hang on the wall behind the PM’s shoulders, than on keeping track of project executions.

This choice was not made exclusively by bad management, but also because there weren’t tools for collecting data where this information was produced; at the time the only PM tool was Microsoft Project .

Only a tool widely used by the whole team allows gathering consistent and up-to-date data; data rises from front-line people in the team.

Teamwork is built to help collecting data bottom-up.

Teamwork example:

Let’s get back to our example.

Project started and Laura picked up the phone looking for a good location for the course.

She visited one of them and at the end of the day she recorded her work

And expenses (eventually adding her scanned receipts):

In the meanwhile Silvia had some trouble finding a teacher with the given budget. She spent 22 hours finding him and the best price she got was 5500.

Teamwork notification system, alerted the Project Manager about Silvia’s overflow.

At the end of the course the cost situation is summed up as follows:

In this case we were lucky as overflows are still in the margin forecasted. In case of budget overflow Teamwork’s will alert subscribed users (usually PMs) about the sad event.

Of course this is a very simple example but it should give you an idea of all Teamwork cost management functionalities, which can be applied also to more complex projects.

If you have questions, suggestions or doubts about Teamwork cost management approach let us know on adding a comment.

http://www.twproject.com/download.page

No database or “jar” (library) changes.

Changes

- Fixed a bug on the upgrading procedure from version 4.

- Fixed the possibility for users to change options of other users.

- Fixed bug on task/file storage associations. Those were not editable.

- Added a new check on public page to hide it when task is in status closed.

We just released Teamwork 5.2 (build 59000) here:

http://www.twproject.com/download.page

This release comprises a wide set of improvements, ranging from custom fields in several new sections to cost management, to improved planning integrations. We’ve also done several user interface improvements and bug fixes.

This is a free upgrade for all users of version 5. Database schema will be updated, it’s the first schema update since version 5.0: columns will be added for budget on assignments, and four custom fields on costs and worklogs; the schema update is done automatically by the application on first start after update (database user for the app must have alter schema rights).

Together with the web application update, we also released a wider spectrum of installers, better supporting 64-bit servers. Also the installation procedure has been improved, in particular for Oracle and PostgreSQL databases and Linux servers.

Major feature updates

Custom fields expanded. Now custom fields can be created not only on tasks and issues, but also on assignments, worklogs and costs.

Moreover the types of possible custom fields have been extended, with fields based on internal and external database querying, and fixed values case. So now custom fields are so powerful that they even support external database querying for filling up values!

It is all documented in-place (where you add and define fields) in the web application, just access it through the admin page. N.B. This requires some “development awareness”.

You can now add custom fields on costs and assignments, but one of the coolest features is adding custom fields on worklogs: say you want to make it possible at worklog insertion to insert additional info, e.g. location and “pair partner” (say that your quality policy requires work in pairs). Just define the two custom fields in the admin section, and you’ll get an expanded worklog insertion form in the worklog week page:

The new custom fields types are available also for tasks / issues.

Advanced: customize Excel exports, custom forms on worklog week.

Teamwork now allows enabling / disabling of powerful customized parts, in such a way that also customers with customized parts can update Teamwork without danger of losing any customization. There are several such features that can be enabled / disabled concerning planning and worklog insertion (see the user guide “Custom Features”).

An example of such features that can be enabled is splitting assignments: any given assignment can now be split between resources. This allows for the following scenario: you can assign the task to “virtual” resources, filling up planned work for an entire group. When production starts, .

The custom fields language also allows customization of Excel exports through a scripting language; again this is a quite advanced feature, and see the user guide “Customize Excel exports”.

There are even more customizations possible, injecting entire forms on worklog week and creating custom permissions for specific portlets, but these are advanced topics which we can discuss if needed in the support pages.

More cross-linking. Costs, expenses, planning and load are teamwork functionalities that are interconnected. We added several cross links in order to make it easier to jump preserving references from one section to the other.

- The assignment expenses screen is more reachable and now has also a specific search function. Moreover we added the “budget” field on the assignment that is computed against assignment expenses.

- Plan view shows estimated load and work done.

Japanese translation. We are very happy to announce that the user interface is now available also in Japanese.

We will present Teamwork also in Japanese on the site.

Administrator page redesigned. We redesigned the administration page as a list in a clearer form, with also the links to the new customizations entry points.

64-bit installers and more. We now release Teamwork also with 64-bit compatible installers.

Teamwork relies on Tomcat by default, of course if you have your own configuration, simply use 64bit Java to maximize performance.

Minor improvements

- Operator load now can be zoomed in / out by 1, 2,3 weeks or full month

- Task and issues have now a compact view option (issues already had it, but now it is even more compact).

- Change of person on assignment does now remove subscription on the previous one.

- External calendars on Teamwork agenda are now shown in a different style. Moreover agenda events that are created externally are not editable from teamwork – you can only remove yourself.

- Gantt improved: starts focused on today.

- Improved layout compatibility for task with very long names.

- Issues’ text area grows as you type longer text.

- Operator load in case of failed tasks does not consider them in load calculation for the future.

– Plan can be filtered showing only active assignments.

- “Plan by resource” can now be filtered by a workgroup!

- LDAP now updates names and surnames on repeated imports.

- Now team events imported from an external calendar (like Outlook) cannot be changed in time in Teamwork – as we always said, this must be done at the source of the group event.

- New subscription on assignment: “overtime”, when worklog exceeds estimated.

Bug fixes

- In case of e-mail download activation and invalid e-mail re-sent to server address, the invalid e-mail notification process could loop, stressing the e-mail server.

- The home menu is always visible even when not on home.

- Agenda editor: problems on chrome when scrolling hours combo.

- Portlet “issues created by me” issues not displayed correctly.

- Workload approval and worklog analysis: refined security on search.

- LDAP import exchanged names and surnames in import for OpenLDAP and Apache Directory.

- When changing assignee it didn’t update hourly cost if resource is new.

- Again possible to pass from “failed” to “active” task status.

- Some fixes on internationalization settings.

http://www.twproject.com/download.page

Contains a new view, task trees, and a subtle but important extension in functionality for “staff” selection.

This is a free upgrade for all users of version 5. There are no changes in the database structure with respect to version 5.

Task trees

Thanks to user feedback and direct experience in bootcamps, we added a tree view of tasks which is simpler to read and allows basic data editing. It has limited functionality with respect to the Gantt editor but it can be practical in many cases.

Staff & department management

We revised both the inner logic and the user interface of the resource department / group / staff theme. The modeling problem that we’ve frequently met recently for Teamwork used in large organizations is complex cases of delegation handling.

Now if you are manager of a department you can assign all those in the department (inclusive of sub departments) as now they are on your staff – without setting area-global permissions.

This makes it easier to model delegation in structures where a certain kind of project managers create work for other departments, without overriding that department resources assignments.

It can be useful in cases where you have a planning department distinct from the set of project managers that handle resource’s assignments. So the planning manager can assign tasks to a project manager that has no global company rights, but manages her own staff, i.e. the entire department she’s heading.

We also improved the use interface by removing the “staff” checkbox which made you filter resources by staff, having your staff members always as first rows in bold in combos.

Little improvements

- Gantt editor is now in full screen (relative to the browser).

- Date change and status changed request for feedbacks are active only on tasks not just created.

- See in the resource assignment part all assignments on open tasks, also those out of date scope.

Bug fixes

- Mobile module: got “undefined” when saving agenda events.

- When creating a new document file / folder selection from file storage did not work.

- Made “my open issues” and “my open severe issues” predefined filters behave similarly in task selection.

- Gantt editor: task descriptions inserted from that page were not saved.

- Fixed default language pick at startup and on options.

http://www.twproject.com/download.page

No database or “jar” (library) changes.

Changes

- A new parameter is available in task, issue and assignment custom fields: adding “required” at the end of the comma separated parameter value makes it a mandatory field.

- More robust upgrade procedure from Teamwork 4 to 5 on MySQL.

- Fixed a bug when uploading zip files, in some cases the files got copied to the Tomcat root for an indexing bug.

http://www.twproject.com/download.page

Mainly small bug fixes, and some improvements in the jQuery Gantt editor.

No changes in the database structure.

Bugs fixed

- “When you click on an operator for Load Detail screen, it always goes to the top left corner which can be off the screen.”
- “The Custom filters on the Resource screen does not work and has strange behaviour. The filters should appear on the right hand panel and should not be doubled up. Also they bring incorrect results back when run.”
- “Plan view detail is going off the screen bordered area”

- Gantt editor: an ugly bug when using the editor with a western time-zone: GMT-n (e.g: USA, Canada, South America etc.).
- Gantt editor: an invalid message call when a circular reference was created that force js execution to stop
- Gantt editor: no detection for avoiding a parent depending on its descendant
- Gantt editor: if project loading fails for invalid/incomplete data, you loose the control of the  application
- Gantt editor: you can restrict parent changing duration even if not allowed by constraints: e.g.: a larger child

Improvements

- Your personal to-dos are invisible to all others including administrators
- Gantt editor: dependencies now supports lags: you can specify a dependency in the form of “7:3″ that means the task will start after three days task “7″ is completed

- Gantt editor: better snap-to-grid moving tasks
- Gantt editor: better feedback if project loading fails

Teamwork version 5 includes it as main project tree editor.

We just released a patch for Teamwork 5, version 5.0.1 (build 53500). Download it here.

This patch contains mainly bug fixes:

- installations with “non empty context path”, that is, where Teamwork is not running as root application had problems

- fixed a bug in setting English or American default settings.

- read SVN logs  now works also in https

- fixed an occasional bug when creating resources on SQL Server

Moreover the update contains a better portlet “project summary extended”.

http://www.twproject.com/download.page

In the same page you can generate a 15 day evaluation license. (inclusive of the mobile version)

Teamwork’s costs have not changed, all details:

http://www.twproject.com/licensing.page

The base cost is 90 Euro per non-expiring license, and the upgrade cost is 35 Euro (44$) per user.

See the introductory video and download the user guide here:

http://www.twproject.com/documentation.page

Teamwork hosting is now built entirely on Amazon dedicated servers E3 service – more information here.

Upgrading from Teamwork 4

The multi-platform installer includes an upgrader from version 4 which updates the web app and your data, but it cannot update Java’s JDK (see FAQ), you must do that by hand or do a new installation; Teamwork 5 needs Java JDK version 6 (or 7). In order to try version 5, the best way is to do a fresh installation.

If you own version 4, you’ll need to purchase an upgrade license for version 5, unless you bought Teamwork 4 after 1st of June 2012 (our invoice date is the purchase date) – in the latter case it is a free upgrade.

What’s new

Teamwork version 5 has a new user interface and several new functionalities. The work model is mostly unchanged from version 4.
Main new features:

- Introduced Gantt-like editor
Also supports dependencies between any two tasks, not just between brother tasks.

- Introduced issue planner /organizer:

- Assignment enriched with assignment specific costs (expenses)

- Statistics graphs improved and extended

A line graph on the task editor which shows total worklogs / issues done.

More

- Heuristics on project progress / state
- Date and number formats relative to user profile (on top of user interface language, which was always customizable)
- Denormalization to achieve speed
- Speed improved in general
- Conceptual simplification of planning and estimation and more fine grained tools
- Shorter click paths with layers
- Amazon S3 file storages
- Custom reports on all Teamwork sections
- Agenda and meeting completely redesigned
- Workgroups visibility / association with images
- Technical: libraries updated to Hibernate 4.
- Flow management has been extended:
o for example worklog estimated in the time assignment can be set. Also added attributes to workflow descriptions that allow setting duration of tasks and estimations of assignments.
o clone tasks can clone also the assignment for the business process
o when writing flows you can automate assignments by “instantiator” and project manager:
The classes to check are
com.twproject.task.process.InstantiatorSwimlaneAssignmentHandler
com.twproject.task.process.ScaleToBossAssignmentHandler

We also released Teamwork Gantt, a free online tool for creating Gantts, you find it here:
http://gantt.twproject.com/

Of course Gantts created online can be imported in Teamwork 5 – just go to projects and select “import from Teamwork Gantt”.

N.B. Complete Teamwork sources (under NDA) are available for free to all customers as always.