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Learning Primavera Contract Manager
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| Is Change Management just for Tracking Change Orders? |
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| Change Management within Contract Manager is used to track the lifecycle of a change. It can be used to track just a few phases of a change or all of them. But, can Change Management be used for just tracking change orders? The answer is no. On a recent consulting assignment for a large government agency in Florida, we implemented a process that allowed users to track the project budget development process using Change Management. This methodology can be used by any organization that needs to track project costs from concept to award.
The process starts with the creation of a budget contract. The contract has zero value and contains line items for different phases of the project. Examples of these phases include:
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Sitework
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Programming
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Design
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Construction
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FF&E
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Close Out
Each of the line items are costed to associated cost codes with zero values. The cost codes identify the breakdown for the phase.
The next step is to initiate a Change Management record from the budget contract. This will create a Change Management record associated with the budget contract with the budget contract reflecting the approved value. The new Change Management record that is created will be given a name such as "Budget Tracking".
The budget will be tracked in the Budget section of this Change Management record. Within the Budget section, the Negotiated phase will capture the budget development process. The reason for this is that the Negotiated phase allows for tracking of multiple rounds of what the system calls negotiations. Each document created in a round will be costed to the cost worksheet and as subsequent rounds are added, the costs from the previous round are removed from the cost worksheet and replaced with the latest round. Documents from each round are saved and can be reported on using custom InfoMaker reports and forms. Another thing to keep in mind is the adding of new document types to the Change Management workflow to capture organizational terminology. See the "Adding New Document Types" article in this newsletter for details.
The Start Negotiated Round button is used to add the initial budget/estimate development tracking record in the Negotiated phase. A title is added to the record indicating its phase in the tracking process. Click the Copy from Contract button in the Line Items section to bring the Line Items defined in the budget contract into the record. Open each Line Item and add a lump sum value for the phase. Values are then added to each cost code breakdown in the Line Item. Click the Save & Edit Next button to move down the list of Line Items and add the corresponding values. When complete, save the record and return to the Change Management record or to the Control Center.
Revision to the budget are added by opening the same Change Management record and returning to the Negotiated phase in the Budget section. Click the Start New Negotiated Round link to add the revised budget. The costing from the previous budget is copied into the record which can be revised as needed. Revise the title for the new record to reflect the new budget/estimate development record. Once a new negotiated round is create, the previous cost values are removed from the cost worksheet and the previous budget record is statused as closed.
The addition of new rounds of negotiation can be used as many times as needed to track the development of a project budget or estimate. Once the budget is finalized and ready for award, an approved budget amount can be entered into the Final phase in the Budget section of the Change Management record. This can be accomplished again by creating a new change order document type following the instructions in the "Adding New Documents Types" article.
The above procedure gives an overview of an actual budget tracking process using Change Management. As demonstrated, Change Management can be utilized for tracking things other than change orders. For those that are familiar with Change Management, this article should be all that is needed to implement a budget/estimate tracking process in Primavera Contract Manager. For those that are not familiar with Change Management, we have 2 self-paced, online courses that teach you the fundamentals of Change Management. They can be found by clicking on the following link:
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Greetings!
Welcome to the June 2007 edition of IP System 3's Learning Primavera Contract Manager Newsletter. This newsletter is for users like you that want to improve their skills in using Primavera Contract Manager.
On a periodic basis, we will cover short, relevant topics in the world of this sometimes complex contract administration software application.
Feel free to forward this newsletter to other Primavera Contract Manager users by using the "Forward email" link at the bottom of the newsletter. A complimentary 10% discount on Primavera Contract Manager online training can be found at the bottom of this newsletter as well. |
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Adding New Document Types... |
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Contract Manager is shipped with several of the most commonly used document types for tracking change orders, proposals, requests, notices and non-conformance notices. There are situations were these standard document types are not enough.
An example of this would be if you are working for or with a government agency that uses another name for a change order. New York City Transit Authority uses the "Additional Work Order" or AWO to track contract changes. If a CM, A/E, or even a GC needs to track an AWO in Contract Manager, a new change order document type can be created. The name can appear in the Change Management workflow, logs and print-outs making it easier to track and more acceptable by the owner.
To add the new document type to Contract Manager, simply right-click on a Project View folder such as the one entitled "All Projects" and select Document Setup from the group context menu. The Document Setup popup window now appears. Next, click the Add Document Type button to display the Select Document Type popup window. In this example click the Change Order radio if not already select and click the OK button. Again, for this example we will enter AWO as the Acronym and Additional Work Order as the Description. Do not change the Form Information unless a custom form is created via InfoMaker. Click the Save & Close button and close the Document Setup window as well.
The new AWO document type is now available for selection as part of the Change Management workflow in Project Settings and as a document selection in the Change Order log. In the "Is Change Management just for Tracking Change Orders" article, new document types for budget tracking were suggested. Examples of new document types for this are budget proposals (BP) for tracking the budget development and budget approvals for tracking the final approved budget.
The document types that are created are available for all projects in that group (database). Follow the above procedure whenever new document types for change orders, noncompliance notices, notices, proposals or requests are needed. This customization allows organizations to integrate their terminology into the Contract Manager application. This gives an organization the ability to generate greater end-user and client buy-in. |
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Upgrading to Release 11? |
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Primavera recently released version 11 of Contract Manager, formerly Expedition. This new release includes major enhancements to what is called the back-end of the program. These enhances include such things as:
- Microsoft SQL database support along with the existing Sybase and Oracle database support
- Improved SDK/API integration that now opens the costing function for all cost records
- InfoMaker upgrade to version 10.5
- The elimination of the PNG, JAVA and ActiveX report/form output function and replacing it a PDF output
The Microsoft SQL database support brings Contract Manager into a mainstream database structure that is utilized now by many software applications. It comes with the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition database that allows up to 8 users. Those that presently use the Sybase version and have more or expect more than 8 users should upgrade to release 11 using the Sybase database.
Those users that have a desire to integrate Contract Manager with their accounting software are now in luck. The SDK/API which is used to integrate Contract Manager with other software applications, now allows for the full costing of cost documents using this integration. Previously only the cost document, such as a purchase order, could be pushed from an accounting system into Contract Manager as undistributed. The purchase order would then be assigned to cost codes manually by the end-user. The upgrade now allows the SDK/API to assign cost codes to cost documents such as a purchase order.
InfoMaker has been upgraded from the 7.x that has been a mainstay of the application for several years to release 10.5. This InfoMaker release is only one point behind the latest version of InfoMaker which is 10.5.1. 10.5 sports a new look and some very useful enhancements such as allowing autosizing of all bands in the Design Painter. The 7.x release only allowed the Detail band to be autosized. This upgrade is much more stable than the 7.x version as well. The 10.5 release is much less likely to crash during report/form creation. This was a major annoyance 7.x because InfoMaker, like MS Excel and MS Word, is a RAM-resident program and will loose any unsaved modifications.
Another enhancement is to the report/form output generation. Contract Manager now only uses a PDF report/form output. This is a major relief to those that have struggled with the PNG, Java and ActiveX reporting issues of the past releases. In testing, the creation of the PDF output is a little slow but that more than makes up for the report/form viewing issues of the past.
One final note is the concern of product support. In the recent Primavera Customer Support newsletter, "Customer Support Connection May 2007", Primavera states:
It is our general practice to discontinue customer support for previous product versions one year after a newer version has been released. Because of the change in platforms from 8.5 to 9.0, we will continue to support 8.5 longer than normal to allow plenty of time to migrate. The Expedition life-cycle timeline is:
- Expedition 9.x support: until September 30, 2007
- Expedition 10.0 support: until September 30, 2007
- Expedition 8.5 support: until March 31, 2008
- Support for Expedition 10.1 and Contract Manager 11.x will extend through 2008.
This means that you need to make sure that you are using or will upgrade to version 10.1 or 11.0 if using 9.x to 10.0. If you would like to stay at release 10.1, there is a service pack 5 available on the Primavera Knowledgebase. For those "do-it-yourselfers", we will be posting several online courses very shortly that will teach you how to both install service packs and upgrade to release 11.0.
The bottom-line, release 11.0 offers many new enhancements that will resolve many user issues. Make sure when upgrading, if you have more than 8 users, upgrade to the Sybase version of release 11.0 and backup (make a copy of) your existing admin and project databases along with any report or form customizations before the upgrade. |
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I hope you found this newsletter useful. By continuing to improve your skills in Primavera Contract Manager, you will make yourself a valuable part of the project team. IP System 3 offers online courses on these and other topics. You can view our online catalog at http://www.ipsys-3.com/catalog.html
Sincerely,
Michael Kehoe PMP, MBA
609-299-1585
IP System 3
IP System 3 is an accredited
Project Management Institute
Global Registered Education Provider |
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Web-base Training End-User Technical Requirements
When playing back courseware, the system requirements include:Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT Workstation, Windows NT Server, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP Professional, Windows 2003/2005 Server, Windows Vista, IE 5.0 and later (including IE 7.0) or Netscape 6.2 and later (including Netscape 7.1), Microsoft® JRE (embedded into Internet Explorer), Sun® JRE v1.4.2_12, Pentium II, 500 Mhz or better (Pentium III or better is recommended), A minimum of 128 MB RAM, Windows Media Player (if audio files are played), Sound card and speakers (if audio files are played), Minimum 28.8 Kb/s connectivity to IP System 3 learning site, For Flash Playback, users must use Flash Player 7 or greater plug-in. | |
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