Use Effort to Calculate Cost

There is a setting in Inspire Planner that will automatically populate Cost for all Project Tasks based on Effort and the Resource's Hourly Rate.

When this setting is enabled, then Inspire Planner populates the following:

• Project Task Budgeted Cost = SUM of related (Salesforce Task Planned Effort x Salesforce Task Hourly Rate)
• Project Task Actual Cost = SUM of related (Time Spent x Time Entry Hourly Rate)

The Hourly Rate used to calculate Budgeted Cost is the Hourly Rate on the Salesforce Task. The Hourly Rate on the Salesforce Task is populated with the Hourly Rate from the Resource's Project Team record when the task is assigned. If you populate the Resource's Hourly Rate after the Task has already been assigned, then the Hourly Rate on the Salesforce Task would be blank. You will then need to perform a data update on Salesforce Tasks to populate the Hourly Rate. It is recommended that you do this first before you enable the custom setting to "Use Effort to Calculate Cost".

Helpful Tip:  To mass update Salesforce Tasks, you can create a report that pulls Salesforce Tasks where the Inspire Task field is not blank and where Hourly Rate is blank. Export the report as a .CSV file. Then you can edit the file in Excel to contain the missing Hourly Rates. You can then perform a data update with the modified .CSV file using Data Loader.

This help article will walk you through how to enable the "Use Effort to Calculate Cost" setting.

Please note: The following instructions need to be performed by a Salesforce System Administrator. 

Enable "Use Effort to Calculate Cost" Setting

This section will walk you through how to enable the setting to use effort to calculate cost.

1. Click on the Gear Icon at the top right corner and go to Setup.
   
   
    
2. Enter "custom settings" in the Quick Find box and click on Custom Settings.
   
   
    
3. Click on Manage beside Inspire Planner Config.
   
   
    
4. Click on Edit.
   
   
    
5. Check the box for Use Effort to Calculate Cost and click on Save.
   
   

Reconcile Data

Once the setting is enabled, it will start to populate your Cost fields based on Effort and Hourly Rate for new entries. In order for the Cost fields to recalculate and populate for existing data, you will need to reconcile data.

1. Go to the App Launcher and enter "Inspire" in the search box. Then, go to Inspire Planner Settings.
   
   
    
2. In the section labeled "Reconcile Collaborator and Roll-up Data", click on Reconcile Data.