Project Distribution

Overview

ResourceFirst allows for effort and cost data to be allocated/distributed by percentage across a variety of fields (e.g., platform, category, sponsor, etc.) for reporting purposes. This distribution can also have a start and end date.

How To

Step 1: To add or modify distribution rules, go to the Distribution page on the Project Workspace of the desired project. [Note: See Project Workspace Overview for how to drill down from a project or assignment page to the Project Workspace.]

You’ll be presented with the following page.

Step 2: On the upper left of the Distribution page, click the dropdown to select which of the five field lists you’d like to use for your distribution rule (as depicted below).

The available field lists are as follows:

• • Sponsor (the project sponsor, defined in Administration under Lists->Sponsors)
  • State (the project’s lifecycle state, such as Initiated, Funded, Active, Canceled, etc. as defined in Administration under Lists->State)
  • Platform (sometimes called Domain, this is fully configurable in Administration under Lists, and can represent whatever categorization you choose)
  • Category (this is another list field that can represent whatever you define in Administration under Lists->Category)
  • Business Driver (a list field that can represent whatever you define as business drivers for your projects, e.g., growth, maintenance, etc., as defined in Administration under Lists->Business Driver)

Step 3: Once you select the field list, click the “+” sign to add a distribution row.

Step 4: Click the dropdown on the newly added row to select which item within that respective list you’d like to add a percentage (with optional start/end date) for. Then repeat for the other items in that field list. Percentages should be entered as decimals (e.g., .40 for 40%). They will then appear as percentages once entered.

[EXAMPLE: In the screenshot below, the “Platform” field list was chosen in the upper left, so on the distribution row, you can select from the list of platforms (as configured in Administration) to add a distribution rule for how to distribute across the various platforms (i.e., percentage and optional start/end date). This can be used for custom reporting* (see Note at the bottom of this article).]

Step 5: Click the Save icon in the upper right to save your changes.

Additional Information

On the upper right of the page toolbar, there are icons for:

• Import Distribution from Project (allows for copying the distribution from another project that uses the same chosen field list for distribution)
• Save (saves your changes)
• Export (exports to a CSV file)

* Note: The distribution percentages defined are stored in the ResourceFirst database, but are not used in any standard views or reports. However, custom QlikView reports can be configured or developed to make use of these distribution percentages. For more on this, see your ResourceFirst administrator or contact responsible for report generation.