Network Activities

Exercise Objectives

After completing this exercise, you will be able to:

• Perform cost planning using activities

Business Example

The turbine project you created includes a network and various activities. The benefit of the network quantity structure is that activities are costed when you save your data.

This type of cost planning has important advantages over manual cost planning because:

• It can be copied to other projects and stored in standard networks.

• It is easy to shift in time if, for example, you need to postpone project work packages.

• Scheduling, capacity requirements planning, and procurement are triggered by activities (integration of planning).

You want to use activities to plan costs for your turbine project.

Task:

You have already planned costs for your turbine project, T-100##, using the quantity structure of the activities created.

This quantity structure was costed automatically when you saved your data.

1. Call up the Project Builder.

2. Change project T-100## by double-clicking the appropriate row in the worklist.

Worklist section: Last projects processed.

3. Expand the entire project structure.

4. Display the detail screen of internally processed activity 1000.

Note the fields that have a direct effect on costing: Work center, Work, Activity type, Control key, and Distribution capacity requirements.

Does the duration of each activity also have an effect on cost planning?

Call up the cost report for the activity from the detail screen.

Return to the Project Builder.

5. Display the detail screen of externally processed activity 1300.

The external processing data screen contains data that is important for costing the external processing activity, including the Purchasing info record, Price, Activity quantity, Cost element, Control key, and the Reservation/purchase requisition indicator.

Call up the cost report for this activity as well.

Return to the Project Builder.

6. Display the detail screen of general cost activity 0200.

Note the fields that have a direct effect on costing: Amount, Distribution costs, and Cost element.

Create a unit cost plan for the activity.

Note that the Amount and Cost element fields are disabled once you save the unit cost plan. Unit cost plan values are not displayed in the cost report until the activities are re-costed.

7. Perform valuation using a costing variant.

Branch to the header of your first network and look at the control tab data.

What costing variants are assigned in the network header?

8. Save your project.

The networks are automatically costed when you save your data.

Solution 4: Network Activities

Task:

You have already planned costs for your turbine project, T-100##, using the quantity structure of the activities created.

This quantity structure was costed automatically when you saved your data.

1. Call up the Project Builder.

a) From the Project System menu, choose Project System → Project → Project Builder (transaction code CJ20N).

2. Change project T-100## by double-clicking the appropriate row in the worklist.

Worklist section: Last projects processed.

a) Double-click GR## Turbine Project.

3. Expand the entire project structure.

a) Choose Expand all.

Note: You will only have to expand the entire structure if you did not change your user Hierarchy Level setting to a number greater than 2.

4. Display the detail screen of internally processed activity 1000.

Note the fields that have a direct effect on costing: Work center, Work, Activity type, Control key, and Distribution capacity requirements.

Does the duration of each activity also have an effect on cost planning?

Call up the cost report for the activity from the detail screen.

Return to the Project Builder.

a) To display the detail screen for activity 1000, position the cursor on activity 1000 in the structure.

Note the work center, plant, work, and activity type.

Field Name Values

Work Center 2000

Plant 1300

Work 400 hr

Activity type 1421

b) Yes, the duration has an affect on cost planning because the duration is used to schedule the activity. This defines the accounting periods for the planned cost based on the schedule dates.

c) To call up the cost report from the activity detail screen, position the cursor on the activity number in the detail screen.

Right-click on Report planned/actual.

Note that the Production Labor activity cost and the overhead costs related to this internal activity are displayed in the report.

d) Return to the Project Builder.

e) Choose Back.

5. Display the detail screen of externally processed activity 1300.

The external processing data screen contains data that is important for costing the external processing activity, including the Purchasing info record, Price, Activity quantity, Cost element, Control key, and the Reservation/purchase requisition indicator.

Call up the cost report for this activity as well.

Return to the Project Builder.

a) Select activity 1300 in the structure.

b) Position the cursor on activity 1300 in the detail screen.

Right-click on Report planned/actual.

c) Note that the External Procurement Cost and the overhead cost related to this external activity are displayed in the report.

d) Return to the Project Builder.

e) Choose Back.

6. Display the detail screen of general cost activity 0200.

Note the fields that have a direct effect on costing: Amount, Distribution costs, and Cost element.

Create a unit cost plan for the activity.

Note that the Amount and Cost element fields are disabled once you save the unit cost plan. Unit cost plan values are not displayed in the cost report until the activities are re-costed.

a) Position the cursor on activity 0200 in the structure.

Create a unit cost plan by copying data from an existing unit cost plan (referencing a base planning object).

b) Choose Unit Costing (to the right of the amount field).

c) In the dialog box that appears, enter the following data:

Field Name Values

Costing variant PS05

Base Object 1300

d) Choose Continue (enter).

e) Save the unit costing (temporary save).

f) Choose Save.

7. Perform valuation using a costing variant.

Branch to the header of your first network and look at the control tab data.

What costing variants are assigned in the network header?

a) Position the cursor on the first network in the structure tree.

Call up the control data for the network header by choosing the Control tab page.

Hint: In the Costing field group, you can see the costing variant for planned (PS02) and actual (PS03) network costing and the indicator to calculate planned costs.

8. Save your project.

The networks are automatically costed when you save your data.

a) Choose Save.

b) Confirm the messages in the dialog boxes.

c) Choose Back.

Lesson Summary

You should now be able to:

• Explain the concept of cost planning in projects with network activities

• Explain the concept of network header account assignment and activity account assignment

• Describe how costs are calculated for network activities

• Explain the difference between synchronous and asynchronous costing