Comments on: Earned Value Analysis with Microsoft Project

By: J Eduardo Nunes

J Eduardo Nunes — Thu, 30 Dec 2021 12:00:53 +0000

The EVM is simple and shows the status of the project promptly.

By: aconex oracle

aconex oracle — Wed, 06 Jan 2021 11:45:49 +0000

Perhaps the biggest benefit to implementing EVM is that it is a single system that can track the project in terms of work, time and money; Project managers do not have to learn multiple systems.

By: Martin Gösse

Martin Gösse — Thu, 03 Dec 2020 11:19:32 +0000

In reply to Rajeev.

Dear Rajeev,

please excuse the delayed answer to your comment. The reason for the delay was that a few of my colleagues and I investigated the issue you described in your comment. We are also using MS Project 2016 (16.0.5017.100).

The first part of the answer is, no, you do not have to change anything in the MS Project settings to use EVM. The only decision you have to make is, to select which progress method should be used for EVM: % Complete or Physical % Complete.

The second part of the answer concerns the cost and material resources in EVM. When using EVM the result of our investigation was that cost resources and material resource are getting counted in EVM. The only issue we had was that the PV of a cost resource was not computed, the value was always 0€. Thus, the consolidation of the PV from tasks up to the project summary task, was also incorrectly calculated. The cost of the assigned cost resource was not added. The table below shows EVM for a simple project. Basic data are:
• Task 1: Work resource assigned
• Task 2: Cost resource assigned
• Task 3: 3 units of a material resource assigned (1 unit of material = 333€)
• Status date of the project is set to the middle of the project duration
• Thus, the expected progress is 50% if all things went as planned
• Progress of all tasks is 40%
• Actual cost of task 1 is 4000€ (8000€*0.4=3200€)
• Actual cost of Task 2 is 800€
• Actual cost of Task 3 is 399€ (999€*0.4=399€)
• I did not update the project! This is because I want to avoid the impact of updating on Task 1 where the work resource has been assigned; for manual calculation using 40% is easier than 36%
• Baseline cost of the project is 10233€
• With 50%, the PV of the project is 5116€
• In MS Project, the PV is 4499€. The difference is 617€.
• This is exactly the PV of the cost resource assigned to Task 2 (1234€*0.5=617€)

(I split the table in three, as it is too wide to display in one piece.)

• Nevertheless, all other values are computed correctly!
• EV of the project is 10233€*0,4=4093
• EV of all tasks is also correct
• And on Task 2 where the cost resource is assigned:
o EV=999€*0,4= 399€, correct
o CV=493€-800€= -306, correct
o SV=123€ without showing the PV in MS Project!
o SV = EV-PV -> PV=EV-SV -> (493€ – (-123€))= 616€
• MS Project calculates EVM correctly, but the PV of cost resources is not shown in the sufficient column.

Best regards
Martin

By: Rajeev

Rajeev — Fri, 23 Oct 2020 10:12:46 +0000

In my MS project 2016 EVM method is visible when work resources are assigned.Cost of cost & material resources are not getting counted in any EVM calculation.Is it default or should i have to change any setting????

By: James Nowotarski

James Nowotarski — Thu, 28 Mar 2019 14:55:20 +0000

In reply to Mostafa AbdelRazik. They are mathematically the same. The first (longer) formula just breaks down EAC into ACWP + Estimate to Complete.

By: Bettina von Staden

Bettina von Staden — Thu, 15 Nov 2018 10:45:53 +0000

In reply to Mostafa AbdelRazik.

Mostafa AbdelRazik, you can find this formula in the Microsoft online help: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/eac-task-field-c239ab92-01e6-4186-bc0a-a745eaaf23a7

This calculation makes sense, as it provides a realistic extrapolation based on the results already obtained.

By: Mostafa AbdelRazik

Mostafa AbdelRazik — Tue, 06 Nov 2018 16:08:37 +0000

Where did you get that the used formula by project is: EAC = ACWP + (BAC – BCWP) / CPI?

Which version is this? I have always known project to calculate EAC = BAC/CPI

By: Daryl

Daryl — Sun, 11 Jun 2017 02:54:04 +0000

Our organization uses MS Project Server 2013 along with timesheets. We’ve pretty much found that due to problems in the way Project loads timesheet data that EV is pretty much unusable. Here’s an example to illustrate why.
Task A finishes Monday at 4:50PM. Task B starts on Monday at 4:51PM and it has 10 minutes of 24 hours of work planned for Monday. When the real work occurs, the resource starts Task B earlier than planned and completes 8 hours of Task B work on Monday. Unfortunately, Project takes the 8 hours of work applied on Monday and actually loads it as having occurred in the last 10 minutes of Monday. Yes, all 8 hours are loaded into the 10 minute Monday duration. As a result, EV calculations thinks Task B has only completed 10 minutes, not 8 hours and the EV calculation is way off.
We’re working with Microsoft to see if this can be fixed, but based on feedback, it appears it won’t be. So be aware that the EV calculations may not be very accurate.