Actual Hours, Total Hours, and Sorting by Hours?

[MartyGa]

I've been asked to do up some reporting showing where the bulk of our time as being dedicated. There are a lot of hours fields at the project level, and I thought I understood them, but ran across a difference I dont get. In most projects, ACTUAL HOURS is the same (rounded) as TOTAL HOURS. However, I ran across one project where there is a significant difference (see attached). I cannot understand what this is telling me. Also - I'd like to be able to sort by the total (or is it actual?) hours to show the major time sinks overall, and this month. I cant seem to sort on any of these columns. Any suggestions? thanks. MG

[MartyGa]

strange - found that i can sort manually (click the column) on some of these, but not the Actual Hours this Month. Is this a bug?

[EricLu2]

Hi: There are, generally, three kinds of hours charged to a project: 1) Hours charged to tasks through a timesheet - Task Hours; 2) Hours charged to issues assigned to that project - Issue Hours; 3) Hours charged to tasks that were deleted, causing the hours to accrue to the Project - Project Hours; I’m assuming you have the switch turned off that allows you to charge time to projects directly. If your team only charges time to tasks, the sum of task hours will equal the total hours on the project. If, however, someone charged hours to issues or charged hours to tasks that were deleted, you’ll have a difference between the sum of the actual hours and the project total hours. To find these hours, go to the project, select HOURS from the drop down menu on the right (assuming that is where it is). Create a new filter (I called mine Non-Task Hours. Only show me hours in which the Hour>>Hour Type ID NOT EQUAL Task Time. That shows me all of the hours on the project that aren’t task hours. I’m betting that is where the difference will be found. Let me know if that doesn’t help. Thanks, Eric

[EricLu2]

Hi: Um, after looking at your MS Word document again, and this time really paying attention, I discovered you are asking a different question than the one I answered. Sorry about that. The only possible reason why actual hours are greater than planned hours is because people have charged more hours than planned to that project. It’s really that simple. What I do when that happens is to look at the tasks on the project and compare the planned with the Actual. It doesn’t take long to find the tasks that people really overloaded. Then, you can open the task and look at the hours, and then see who was booking all the extra time to those tasks. Then, you have a conversation to find out why they were booking so much time to the task. I hope that is of more benefit than my previous reply. Thanks, Eric

[MartyGa]

Thanks Eric. I think you answered in your first post. So, Actual Hours is different than Total Hours because one includes "Project Time" and the other doesnt. Wow. I REALLY REALLY REALLY wish SOMEONE at workfront would document the fields available in the reporting area. They're identified in the API explorer, but not documented as to what they actually are.

[MartyGa]

BTW - the fields I referenced are both available on the PROJECT object.

[GregBe1]

Eric, Actually, I believe Marty just has his arrows in the document pointing to the wrong column and he meant to point them to the Actual and Total Hours columns. I believe Actual Hours and Total hours both contain Task, Issue, and project hours. You mention about tasks being deleted that hours are accumulated in Total hours. From what I can see, deleting a task that has hours on it doesn't affect Total or Actual hours. I'll do more testing, but I still can't determine why Total Hours and Actual Hours would be different. In our reports, we focus on Actual hours. That seems to be the number that makes more sense for us.

[EricLu2]

{{Marty}} I have been asking, in vain, for a data dictionary of the database - one that has the business semantic of each attribute. I know we can go to AtApp, get the MS Access database, dump it out, and run it through ERWIN to get an ERD. That doesn’t tell me what the attributes mean, though. I’ve asked WorkFront techs and they tell me internally there is no such artifact. It’s all tribal knowledge. If you are a WorkFront consultant, remote consultant, or tech support, you learn things by asking certain people questions. I will continue to press for such a document, as it is indispensable in efficiently building reports you can trust. ☺

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Huh: Greg, Marty, Eric...why, it's like I'm back at the Rhumbar! Eric, as you said, anyone who cares to is welcome to download an RI diagram or sample MS Access file from our "http://store.atappstore.com/product/workfront-snapshot/#1">Workfront Snapshot site to help learn the most common objects and relationships. Nate B (hmm...where is the "tag" button...?), to Eric's tribal knowledge point, I have a suggestion for you to consider for the benefit of the helpful, knowledgeable, flattery-might-get-you-somewhere members of this community: Would it be possible to set up a copy of the "http://developer.workfront.com/api-docs/api-explorer/">Workfront API Explorer with extra columns against each Workfront Table and Field row for "Definition","Required for insert (Y/N)", "Gotchas", and "Upload Sceenshots"... but as a "https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki">Wiki so that together, we can gather and create the very documentation so many of us crave? Regards, Doug

[EricLu2]

{{Doug}} Yet another excellent idea. One of the things I’d like to see in the data dictionary is a list of valid values, where the list of values is constrained. Let’s see if WorkFront legal gets nervous about users documenting what Legal might consider intellectual property. Oracle and other companies don’t publish what we are looking for because it comprises an essential and proprietary element of the product design that gives them a differentiable advantage in the marketplace. To reveal this intellectual property would reveal trade secrets to its competition. Let’s see if Nate hears some of those words in the next day or two. I hope not. Nate, if you can get that Wiki set up, you should give yourself the Eagle Scout Good Karma Badge. Let us know what it takes to make it happen. Thanks! Eric

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Wait: there's an Eagle Scout Good Karma Badge ?? Maybe I should set up the wiki on AtAppStore... Regards, Doug

[NateBa]

Doug and Eric, This is a really interesting idea. Let me go through the proper channels and see if I can make this happen. Will update you as soon as I have some good info for you. Feel free to elaborate on how a tool like this would help you in the day-to-day. Anything that would help me plead your case, or explain why this is important would be helpful so I can be an informed advocate. In Reply to Doug Den Hoed:

Huh: Greg, Marty, Eric...why, it's like I'm back at the Rhumbar! Eric, as you said, anyone who cares to is welcome to download an RI diagram or sample MS Access file from our Workfront Snapshot site to help learn the most common objects and relationships. Nate B (hmm...where is the "tag" button...?), to Eric's tribal knowledge point, I have a suggestion for you to consider for the benefit of the helpful, knowledgeable, flattery-might-get-you-somewhere members of this community: Would it be possible to set up a copy of the Workfront API Explorer with extra columns against each Workfront Table and Field row for "Definition","Required for insert (Y/N)", "Gotchas", and "Upload Sceenshots"... but as a Wiki so that together, we can gather and create the very documentation so many of us crave? Regards, Doug

-Nate Bagley --- Workfront Community Manager - Work Smart, Work Happy Message me directly at:

[GregBe1]

Sorry about that - there must have been a timing issue as never received an email of Marty's responses but I now see them in the thread.

[GregBe1]

Hold on. Sorry, but my testing doesn't show this. I tested a project that initially had their Total Hours and Actual Hours the same. I went to the time sheet and added 40 hours as PROJECT hours. When I go back and look at the report, both Actual Hours and Total hours increased by 40. Is there another setting somewhere that would cause these hours to differ?

[EricLu2]

Hi - Like Greg, I started looking at WorkFront data. Here is what I think so far: 1) Total Hours generally is the same as Actual Hours; 2) Total Hours is an integer, generally rounded up from the actual hours; 3) Actual Hours appears as a text field that has the real number with the word “Hour” or “Hours” suffixed to the number of actual hours; 4) The Actual Hours always equals the number of hours I see in the Hours screen, and the hours I see charged to the project in reports; 5) Total Hours occasionally is different from Actual Hours. It’s not much, usually between 5 and 10 hours different. I can’t figure out why. There aren’t Project Hours impacting the difference; I have 1347 projects. Here is every instance where the total hours and actual hours are different. This is the distribution. The zero total hours and a big negative actual hours is particularly curious. Total Hours Actual Diff 23 37 14 384 394.5 11 814 825 11 548 556 8 106 112.5 7 7380 7384.35 4 4 6.5 3 1725 1728 3 2048 2051 3 73 74.5 2 455 457.25 2 21 22 1 5122 5123 1 25 26 1 165 164.5 -1 235 234.25 -1 397 396 -1 777 776.25 -1 10 9 -1 11 10 -1 65 63.5 -1 93 91.5 -1 413 412 -1 1356 1354.9 -1 2042 2040.5 -1 2909 2907.5 -1 25 23 -2 65 63.75 -2 802 800 -2 1213 1211.5 -2 1585 1583 -2 29 27 -2 41 38.5 -2 112 110 -2 300 297.5 -2 363 361.25 -2 396 394.25 -2 579 577 -2 4220 4217.75 -2 13020 13017.5 -2 262 260 -2 3205 3202.75 -3 490 487.25 -3 47 43.5 -3 82 79 -3 339 336 -3 681 677.75 -3 7 3 -4 5875 5871 -4 202 197.5 -5 3719 3714.25 -5 294 288.5 -6 5707 5701.48 -6 256 250.5 -6 664 657.5 -6 711 704.75 -6 862 856 -6 6299 6293 -6 2538 2531.1 -7 45 37.5 -7 299 291 -8 8312 8304.05 -8 1 -7 -8 313 305 -8 877 869 -8 1077 1069.25 -8 4818 4810.25 -8 1476 1466.95 -9 472 461.75 -10 824 813.75 -10 406 394.5 -11 765 754 -11 2893 2881.5 -11 14176 14164.75 -12 529 516.33 -13 1226 1212.85 -13 892 877.27 -14 186 169 -17 4285 4268 -17 482 463.5 -19 4409 4387.2 -22 62 39 -23 7220 7196 -24 8672 8647.25 -25 6220 6193.5 -26 550 519 -31 10334 10277.25 -57 279 219 -60 1028 959.68 -68 10943 10807.25 -136 225 83.25 -142 105 -46.5 -151 807 623 -184 0 -202.5 -203 2393 2109.5 -284 I’ve reached the point where I’m going to open a ticket with WorkFront tech support and have the boffins in Utah sort this out. I use both Total Hours and Actual Hours interchangeably in my reports and realize now I shouldn’t, until I know why they are different. I’ll let everyone know what I learn. Eric

[EricLu2]

Wow. I just went in and looked at how this system represented that table of numbers I pasted in my previous email. Egads, thats a mess. Sorry about that. Next time, I'll paste in a picture, not the actual numbers. I got off the phone with WorkFront Tech Support. Good on Hiram Perkins today. He calmly went through a list of issues and did a great job. This thread was one of the issues I raised. Here is what I learned: 1) It appears that Total Hours is always right; 2) It appears that Actual Hours is only right when you recalculate the Finances on a project; 3) For a number of projects where Total Hours was not equal to Actual Hours, I opened the project, recalculated the Finances, and then found the Actual Hours was changed to be the same as the Total Hours. Every recalculation eliminated the discrepancy. Hiram suggested I also take a peek at this help article: https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/217299747-Recalculating-Finances So there it is. I need to recalculate the finances on a bunch of projects. There is a system setting that causes WorkFront to recalculate the timelines automatically (every night, when you add a task, etc). There is no system setting to automatically recalculate the Finances, which updates the Actual Hours. That solves the mystery from my perspective....

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Thanks Eric; as for Recalc Finances ...there's an AtApp for that. Regards, Doug

[GregBe1]

Ah, very good Eric! And I also recalculated all my projects that were off, and everyone synced up and were all changed to the Total hours. Mystery solved!

[JasonMa]

See, I usually don't get sucked in by mysteries like this but I created a report to compare them and a vast majority of our projects have a 2 to -2 hour difference, easily accounted for by rounding. But, there was an 8, an 11, a 20, and even some in the 50s. Oddly, except for the 8 and 11, the projects that had the other large differences were "admin" projects used to track operational, non-project time. As such, they rarely get scrutinized as hard and so not something that would raise a flag. I went through the 11 hour difference project with a fine tooth comb. No explanation. There were 5.1 hours charged at the project level, 2 hours charged to issues, and no hours charged to a parent or milestone task. All that is to say...I have no idea.

[JasonMa]

Hadn't refreshed the thread while I was running numbers, so just saw the explanation. Good to know. This raises another question...why don't these recalculate on a regular basis? Some of the projects with large differences are several years old.

[EricLu2]

Ahhh, that is a timely question. I don’t know why WorkFront has features focused on recalculating the Timeline, and yet the technology appears to be devoid of any such capabilities for the financials. Pity. I’ll leave it to the WorkFront Product Management team to venture an explanation. ☺