Assigning Material and Cost Resources in MS

PROJECT 2010
Posted on November 7, 2011 by Nenad Trajkovski

Hi,
In this post I will explain how to set up, and assign material resources in MS PROJECT 2010.
First I will add three material resources in Resource Sheet:

Now I will add two Tasks:

O.K. Now, I will assign Paint to the Painting the wall task, and Gasoline, and Concrete to the
Pouring the concrete Task:

I put 1000 in the Unit field, because I assume that I will need 1000 liters of paint for painting the
wall. MS PROJECT 2010 has calculated that the cost is $50.000 (1.000 units X $50 per Unit =
$50.000). Remember that this cost remains the same, no matter how long will take you to pain
the wall. I will show it to you. First I will choose the Cost table:

and I will get:

Now I will change duration for task Painting the wall from 3 to 10 days:

I will choose the Cost table again, and I will get:

The Total Cost remains the same.

O.K. Now, I will assign Gasoline and Concrete to the Task Pouring the concrete:

I need 5.000 units (tons, liters or whatever) of Concrete and I need 20 liters (or gallons) of
Gasoline per hour. MS PROJECT 2010 has calculated that the cost for the Concrete is $500.000
(5.000 units X $100 per Unit = $500.000). For the Gasoline I put in the Unit field 20/h and that
means that I will spend 20 liters (or gallons) per hour. MS PROJECT 2010 has calculated that
the cost for the Gasoline is $4.000 (20 liters per hour X $5 per Unit X 5 days X 8 hour per day =
20 X $5 X 5 X 8 = $4.000).
What will happen if I change duration of the task Pouring the concrete from 5 to 10 days? Lets
see.

I will choose the Cost table again and I will get:

The Total cost is now $508.000. Why? MS PROJECT 2010 has calculated that the cost for the
Concrete is $500.000 (5.000 units X $100 / Unit = $500.000), and it does not depend of the Task
duration, since I put in the Unit field 5.000. For the Gasoline I put in the Unit field 20/h and that
means that I will spend 20 liters (or gallons) per hour. MS PROJECT 2010 has calculated that
the cost for the Gasoline is now $8.000 (20 lites per hour X $5 per Unit X 10 days X 8 hour per
day = 20 X $5 X 10 X 8 = $8.000), and the Total cost for this task is $508.000.
So, if you have a Material resource which doesnt depends of the Task duration you should put
the number in the Unit field when you are assigning Material Resource to the Task.
If have a Material resource which does depends of the Task duration you should put the number
in the Unit field and how much do you spend per time (hour, day, week, etc.). This is time
depending Material resource.

Now I will show you how to work with Cost Resources

First I will define resources needed for my task.

John the Trainer is Work resource and his standard rate is $100 per hour.
Airplane ticket is Cost resource and it does not have the defined price yet.
Now I will define task called Training

In the first example I will assign only cost resource to the task.

I assign Airplane ticket to the task and I told the MS project that it costs $1000.

I will now assign John the Trainer to the task.

And I got:

Duration, Start and Finish date are the same, so everything seems O.K
Here is another example. Suppose that I assigned only cost resource (Airplane ticket) to the Task
(as it is shown in 3rd picture above). Now I will mark the task as 100% completed.

Everything looks fine! But, suppose that you forgot to assign John the Trainer to the task AFTER
you marked the task 100% completed. I will assign John now:

Now look what happens:

Duration is now 0 days (milestone???) with unchanged Start and End date?
It seems like a bug. And you will get the same thing if you assign both resources (Airplane
ticket and John the Trainer) to the task and then, after you mark the task as
100% completed, you remove John the Trainer.
What will happen if you do not have cost resource (airplane ticket) assigned with
the task, and you assign Work resource (John the Trainer) with the task AFTER you
mark the task 100% completed? I will assign John now:

and I will get:

So, obviously the problem is with the cost resource type (in our example the Airplane ticket).
What is the solution? If you have to add or remove work resource to the task after it is completed
(25%, 50%, 75%, or 100%) first mark the task as 0% completed, then add or remove the
resource to the task and after that mark task as completed again.
I will show to you what happens if I add Work resource (John the Trainer) with the task AFTER I
marked it as 50% completed and I already have work resource assigned to the Task. I will assign
John now:

and I will get:

Duration is only 50% of expected (1,5 day instead of 3 days) and this is bug.
So, once again, first mark the task as 0% completed, and then add or remove the resource to the
task and after that mark task as completed again.