Getting an accurate Completion Ratio (Folio)

[Keith Mangold]

I am currently evalulating Folio for our organization. We have contracts with our customers where it is a fixed bid for a fix amount of hours. For example, 40 hours @ $180 = $7,200.

I have setup a lump sum budget for the $7,200. The Financial data mostly looks OK, except the EAC and ETC, which are way out of whack I think due to the Completion Ratio. We have spent about 11 hours already, which is about 25% of the project.

If I understand the documentation corectly, Completion Ratio uses issues that are marked as resolved. We have been, however, using just a couple different issues to log/track our time on a project. One issue for example is "General Implementation" and is where 9 of the hours are logged against. I wouldn't resolve the issue because the project is complete.

With all that, my question comes to (I think), do we need to setup 1 issue for every task we do in order to have the ratios, EAC and ETC be accurate? And every time we complete that task, mark it as resolved?

Thanks for your help! I see a ton of potential help this add-on can provide. I am really looking forward to combining multiple portfolios and seeing everything, in addion to an item I see in your current sprint for forecasting revenue (something our parent company is HUGE on).

[Kitologic Inc. · Accepted solution]

Hi Keith,

You are almost right for the completion ratio. It actually use the the "Earned Issues" definition defined in the "Earning Rule" tab of the folio's configuration. This one is targeting "resolved" issues by default but can be changed to any statuses.

To answer your question, Yes in order to have an accurate completion ratio, EAC and ETC you will need to setup one issue for every task IF you base your earned value field on original estimates. (you can see it as the more issues you have the more accurate the completion ratio will be)

You could always use the "Issue Count" as the earned value field. This one will consider every task with the same effort but at least your completion ratio will be a bit more accurate then what you have right now.

Let me know if this helps Keith,

Cheers,
JC

[Keith Mangold]

Fantastic!

Going to Issue Count did make the Completion Ratio more accurate. But now I am going to evalulate us putting in the more detail and split out the individual tasks as suggested (more of just a process change on our side to not make an an administrative burden on each team member).

Using the original estimate, I will need to break up all the tasks into logical values that equal the original 40 hours of work, correct?

[Kitologic Inc.]

Yes correct, this will give you more accurate ratios and indexes since the tasks will have a more accurate weight.

[Kitologic Inc.]

I also wanted to add that in the next release (FOLIO 5.0) we will be bringing the notion of "Planned Revenue" that will allow you to have the same metrics and forecast for the revenues as for the costs. This will enable you to have a "client view" (revenues of your firm) vs an "internal view" (costs incurred by your firm) with some additional metrics on profitability.

Cheers,
JC

[Keith Mangold]

Absolutely can't wait to see this and how it works. I currently have to get all the contracted projects, estimate when they are going to be done throughout the year, estimate how many hours will be completed in each month and generate an excel report showing it. I have to review this every other week to keep our quarterly/year expectations up to date. Pain in the butt! :-)