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Types of hours used in Birdview – definitions & differences

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Overview

As a project management platform, Birdview employs a variety of types of work hours that differ in purpose and uses. For example, one type of hours is that which pertains to the hours and minutes logged as time entries in Weekly Timesheets, i.e. time recorded in Birdview's time log as spent on some work as part of an activity, also known as actual hours.

 

Note

Time cannot be entered against a project per se, only against its activities. 

 

The need for another type of work hours arises when you need to plan your project in terms of how much time and, accordingly, the money you are going to spend to complete it. This type of hours is called estimated hours as they represent an estimate of the total effort needed to accomplish the project's objectives. 

Types of hours 

Type of hours Definition Facts/Comments
Estimated hours (EH)
  1. The estimated total amount of time required to complete a project or activity.
  2. Personal EH: The estimated amount of time assigned to an assignee as a share of the activity's total EH (used in the Schedule hours editor, see last bullet point in the next column). 
  • The main purpose of EH is to give a ballpark figure of labor-related expenditure, often based on the performance of similar projects/activities in the past. 
  • Non-zero EH value is indicated on the progress bar in the project/activity details.
  • The EH value, both total and personal, is not used in billing metrics.
  • Parent activity's EH = ∑Child activity EH.
  • Project's EH = ∑Activity EH.
  • Parent's own EH is added to the sum of child activities' EH.
  • For differences between EH and hours left (HL), see below.
  • To learn key benefits from using estimated hours, see here.
  • To learn more about scheduling activity hours, see here. 
Actual hours (AH)
  1. The total of time entries logged against a project or activity.
  2. Personal AH: Time logged by or for an assignee as part of an activity.
  • The total AH value is indicated on the progress bar in project/activity details.
  • Total AH is a compound value consisting of assignees (resources)' logged hours, billable or not.
  • Personal AH are used in billing metrics in combination with appropriate rates (depending on the billing type), e.g. Actual labor billing.
  • There is a special view "Actual hours and hours left" in Planning, Workload tabs.
Hours left (HL)
  1. The total of remaining hours for the completion of the project/activity.
  2. Personal HL: Hours remaining for an assignee to complete his or her personal assignment. 
  • By default, HL = EH at the start of the project/activity. As soon as some work hours are logged, total HL are adjusted accordingly.
  • Personal HL are used in billing metrics, in particular for estimates of remaining work (ETC), e.g. ETC labor cost, ETC billing. 
  • Personal HL can be adjusted when entering a time log.
  • For how starting an activity affects the HL value (prestart HL), see here.    
  • The Schedule hours editor for an activity allows personal HL of the assignees to be edited. To learn more about scheduling activity hours, see here. 
  • For hours left tracking, see here.
Scheduled hours (SH) Scheduled hours are hours scheduled out of available hours left for an assignee on a particular date.     
  • By using scheduled hours, project manager can automatically or manually (available in Birdview PM Enterprise and Birdview PSA) distribute the hours left over the remaining leg of the project.
  • For manual and automatic hour scheduling, see here.
  • Scheduled hours can be viewed on the Planning and Workload tabs of the Resources screen.
  • To show whether the scheduled hours for a date exceeds or below that date's personal schedule, color coding is used in the Workload tab.    
Allocated hours Hours associated with an allocation, soft or hard, in the Planning tab. Allocated hours are based on the company schedule, public holidays, and weekends falling on the period of the allocation.   
  • Allocated hours are used exclusively in the Planning tab.
  • Allocated hours are used by resource manager or project manager on the planning stage to create allocations for named or unnamed resources assigned to the project.
  • Total allocated hours can be used as a basis for setting the total EH of the activity or project being planned.
  • For the rules and examples of allocated hours calculation, see here.

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