To use elements

You can use elements and/or activities in your project, depending on the type of project budget and control you want to use.

Elements versus activities

  • Elements are static whereas activities are dynamic in the sense that they can be used in a plan. Elements cannot be scheduled.
  • Elements can be used as a framework whereas if the control is on an Activity Budget (see the Projects (tppdm6100m000) session) the linked activities are used to monitor the project.

An element structure has three benefits:

  • You can define quantities on the relations between elements. For example, the project is a house which needs four doors. The elements House and Door have a relationship with the quantity four. This means that each activity on the budget line is mentioned four times.
  • You can define an element with multiple parents. This saves time when you must budget repetitive work (scope). For example, the project is a street with four houses. All these houses need doors, so the house element is present multiple times and the door has a frequency factor of four. This method saves budget lines. Each activity is only mentioned once as a budget line with the same frequency.
  • An element structure can have multiple tops. This is especially useful for an estimating structure. This way flexibility is supported.

In an element budget, elements (see the Creating a project topic) are used for the main structure with which you build your budget. In the element structure, you can link the cost objects that are necessary for your project budget to the element budget lines. In other words, you can break down a project into elements. Additionally, when you use an activity budget in project control, you can define one or more activities to an element. If you only use one activity per element, you can define this relation on element relations. If you want to use more than one relation, you must define the activity on the element budget line.

To enter elements in the project First create the top element, which is the top of the tree structure. All the other elements in a project structure must be linked to this top either directly or indirectly and are called child. Use the Elements (tpptc1100m000) session to create an element and to specify parameters relating to a budget line quantity, progress recording, cost control and, if applicable, extensions, settlements, and invoice amounts.

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