question Demand 'tasks'? in SPM forum

Demand 'tasks'?

kellykaufmann — Thu, 04 Jun 2015 20:31:12 GMT

Our core need: To collect estimated costs across multiple teams (our 'field' person will have already checked boxes identifying which teams are impacted) for a Demand, track where we stand on each of those teams completing that activity, have these #s rolled up into an overall estimated cost across teams on the Demand form.

Our long-term desire: To have tasks/surveys (something!) auto-sent out at Screening Demand state to the rep (pre-identified rep which is standard) for each of those teams checked, and on the form are a bunch of cost fields (high/low contractor costs, high/low purchases, high/low internal hours * standard rate, etc) that will have a calculation which will then roll up to the overall estimated cost across teams on the Demand form. Have ability to track progress of each team.

Our temporary compromise: Implementing this full functionality is lower on our list until we climb out of our abyss of higher priority planned configuration changes. So we're hoping perhaps our field person can manually create tasks against this Demand for each impacted team for that Demand. But it seems OOTB, Demand 'tasks' don't exist. Correct? Is this an option? It looks like we could have PTASKS created from the Demand by the field person, and assign the PTASKS to the appropriate teams. But I don't know if I want to get into that habit

Any feedback/suggestions appreciated!

Re: Demand 'tasks'?

ettawilson — Fri, 05 Jun 2015 04:23:01 GMT

Kelly,

I talked about this during my session at Knowledge, Ideation Using Demand Management. We collect the estimated cost across multiple teams. I didn't use the survey/assessment because it doesn't support entering a cost so I used the resource plan. The group responsible for the demand adds the teams to the resource plan and then an e-mail is sent to the teams for the hours required for the demand. As hours are submitted, the resource plan updates the hours and calculates the cost based on the group rate of the team. I used the existing cost fields and added a couple more to total the estimated cost of the demand.

The nice thing about using the resource plan is once the demand is approved and the project is created, the resource plan is moved to the project with the teams that will be working on the project. I also copy the estimated cost from demand to the budget and estimated cost fields on the project. If the estimated cost changes as the project progress the estimated cost is updated from the tasks.

Re: Demand 'tasks'?

kellykaufmann — Fri, 05 Jun 2015 14:34:37 GMT

Thanks Etta Wilson - can you provide some more specifics?

When an email is sent to the teams for the hours for that Demand... I see on slide 15 of your presentation that there is a resource plan + estimated hard costs. Does each team create their own resource plan on the same Demand, and then the system sums all the resource plans hours * a rate to = the total internal labor costs for that Demand? We also plan on creating Resource Plans in Demand soon and having that carry over to Project, so it looks like our processes will match soon for internal labor

But for estimated hard costs...From slide 19...What is your process for several different teams entering estimated hard costs (like licenses, hardware purchases, etc.) and this rolling up to one estimated hard cost field? This is where we may have 5+ teams to provide these estimates & need these to roll up. Right now it's just the estimated expense fields on the Demand form (I think like you have). Currently our cost estimates also carry over to Project.

Re: Demand 'tasks'?

edavidso — Mon, 09 May 2016 13:36:47 GMT

Hi kellykaufmann -

I know this is an old thread but I'm looking to do what you described above. I've been leaning towards creating one resource plan per impacted team. I was also hoping to treat the resource plan estimate request more like a task with an SLA (i.e. provide the updated estimate within 5 days of notification), but I'm not sure how to best manage that yet.

Did you find a successful way to handle these demand "tasks"? Did you end up finding a way to roll the costs up? I'd love to hear how you implemented this idea, if you were able to move forward.

Thanks,

Erin

Re: Demand 'tasks'?

kellykaufmann — Sun, 15 May 2016 02:34:53 GMT

Hi Erin

Bunzl did complete getting cost estimates in Demand for each impacted team. sangita could describe how that was set up technically. Bunzl isn't using Resource Management yet so this is how Bunzl is managing estimates for resources and for hard costs.

As for getting Resource Plans created, check out this Whitepaper on Creating Resource Plans for Project Staffing Requirements in Geneva . Is there a reason why you wanted to create tasks instead of using Resource Plans? Within a Resource Plan you could leverage the auto-generated Planned Cost field for your budgeting of Demands.

Re: Demand 'tasks'?

Sangita Swamina — Mon, 16 May 2016 13:36:53 GMT

Erin,

What we have done is created a new custom table called "Demand Costing" that extends task. Also we have custom fields on demand form for each team that will get impacted. Anytime when a "field" person checks one of these custom field, new demand costing record will get created and email the appropriate team's manager to estimate. Demand costing information does get rolled up back to the demand main form for the costs fields.

Thanks

Sangita

Re: Demand 'tasks'?

kellykaufmann — Mon, 16 May 2016 16:20:01 GMT

Thank you Sangita!

I would also like to point out the cost planning features built into Helsinki, which are described here: Combining PPM and Financial Capability to Provide a suite for Service Strategy . The features in Helsinki cover the functionality that we built at Bunzl.

Re: Demand 'tasks'?

edavidso — Wed, 18 May 2016 12:59:35 GMT

Thanks, Sangita (and Kelly!). This sounds like exactly what I'm trying to do. The only thing I think I would need to add is a way to track an SLA on gathering the estimates from the impacted teams. I need to have the impacted team's manager complete the estimate within 5 days of receiving a request. To Kelly's question earlier, I was thinking tasks might more easily accommodate that need but maybe there's a better approach.

Kelly - I appreciate the links to both the white papers. I will definitely check those out!

Thanks to both of you,

Erin

Re: Demand 'tasks'?

Namita Mishra — Sat, 03 Aug 2019 08:10:49 GMT

Hi Kelly,

This is an old post still I would like to update you that demand tasks will be available (OOTB) in New York release.

These demand tasks are mainly used to assign the task to different resources to get the resource estimate/ cost estimate, review completion etc.

Since these tasks are used to carry the work within the demand (planned for the demand), they won't be transferred to project on creating the project from the demand.

Note: These tasks are not the planned tasks hence they will not be exactly same as project task.

Thanks,

Namita