Can someone give me some background of Baan Project in Baan Vc version. We are planning on installing it but have little experience with the module. If someone has implemented it, please let me know. What are the advantages, drawbacks, tip and trips, stability, ...

A handbook or any other documentation would also be very helpful.

Thanks,

Jeroen

I too would be interested in any Baan Project documentation/experience people may have.

Are you referring to Big or Small project?

We use the configurator extensively at Teknion

Paul

I'm referring Big Project

Sorry, can't help you then.

Paul

I'm referring to "big projects"

What would you like to know? I have done some implementations, specially in the utilities and constrcution world. Project is a good tool to manage the costs of projects, communication with subcontracters and so on.

Planning is not the best part of the module.

Hi,

You can go to BAAN Support and get documentation on functions and features on BAAN Project. Another resource is the local BAAN sales office.

There are some major differences between b40 and b50.
BAAN V_c does not have an estimation tool which can be used for bidding on projects. However, with today's latest technologies it is easy to do the estimations in an outside package (even Excel) and load that into BAAN to create the project.
The good thing I like about BAAN V_c is that the integration between BAAN Project and BAAN Manufacturing (PCS projects/ "small" projects") works very well. You can create this on the fly. In BAAN IV this requires many steps.
The other good thing about BAAN V Project is the ability to do Time Phased Budgeting, determine Earned Value methods and do Key Performance Indicator reporting.
The planning piece is not bad and has a straight integration with MS Project supported by BAAN.
Other than that BAAN Project can be used very well to manage the project from a cost capturing perspective, do the invoicing and monitoring of budgets and actual costs.

Based on my 7 years of BAAN Project experience I have seen BAAN Project being used in many different industries and find it a very robust application in BAAN.

If you need more info just send me an e-mail at evdborg@hotmail.com.

Regards,

Edwin

I have 2 years of Baan Big Projects in a Building systems Manufacturing company, implemented Big Project starting from scratch, even with outside world interfaces. I hope I can answer your questions.

Please let me know if you have any specific questions.

Hi,

If You are looking for the documentation of Project Module, then as Edwin mentioned BaaN is the best Place to get. The exercise given by BaaN is good enough to take you thru all the modules in BaaN TP Project.

If You are looking for advantages on implemeting BaaN Projects, then here are few points in addition to others.
....
1) BaaN Activity Planning has a facility of Backwad Planning, this has really benifited the User in realizing the delay in Project completion and also the TIME AND COST TO RECOVER THE PROJECT FROM FURTHER DELAY.

2) BaaN's Activty Planning is not just the dates info , Each Activity carries a Budget, Hence each Activity of BaaN has the info of Start & end Date along the Resource details and the Budget.

3) BaaN Project Monitoring Module helps in Controling the Project in many ways, the important ones are Control by Activty, Control by Element ( BOQ), Control by Cost Component, Control by Element and Activity and so...on.

4) There are also key figures like Allowed Costs ( Earned Value ) and analysis with the Budget, Allowed Costs and Revenue.

If UR looking anything specifc Pl do mention.

Kind Regards
Sridhar Joshi

Just stating the obvious, Baan Project Module is the most stable module I have come across (Fewest cases, bugs, fatal errors etc).

Reporting is totally useless - you have to create your own.

The biggest issue to manage that we have come across is the treatment of Foreign currency contracts on long term projects (greater than one year). Which I advise you fully test to understand. FIXED HARD helps, but extensions bypass this functionality.

The downside of big projects is that you cannot deliver to a customer, and the process of booking stores items to the Project is so convoluted and wasteful it's embarrassing (but not to baan).

- Have been using since sept 99 inititially on Vb now on Vc.

Thank you all for the info's. It has helped a lot trying to understand the benefits and limitations of TP.

Things that still concern me are
- the WW traceability of international projects and subprojects.
- the responsibilities functionality is limited and the approval process seems to be pretty weak
- restricted level of project structure breackdown (only 1 level of sub projects is allowed)

I have to say that it looks like as if the module is stable and offers lots of functionality especially on the budgetting and invoicing side as well as the integration with MS Project. Although I have never seen this last feature work.

Hi,

"- the responsibilities functionality is limited and the approval process seems to be pretty weak"

Regarding the Responsibilities, BaaN Project has been built such that Every Key Member of the Project has his Control over the Project, Leading to a Multi Dimensional Control over the Project.

Like
1 ) Project can be Controlled by Activity Planner ( Schedule, Budget, Cost & Revenue )
2) Project can be Controlled by Element ( Parts of Project ) ( Budget, Cost & Revenue )
3) Project can be Controlled at a higher level then Activty and Element. This means Project monitoring at Group of Activty or Element level.
4) Project Control at the Project Level ( TOP MOST).

Each of the above Controls are specific for a Role in Project Management.


- restricted level of project structure breackdown (only 1 level of sub projects is allowed)

Yes there is only Sub Project Level. If a need arises for Multi level, It can be mapped in the Element Structure.
I wish to know what is the objective of defining a Multi Level Project. If U can provide me so, I can give U a better reply on this.


- the WW traceability of international projects and subprojects.
Please be detail on the above point

Kind Regards
Sridhar Joshi

I have implemented Baan Projects for a number of companies and now do customer support. While IVc is fairly stable and reliable, I would not say the same for Baan 5c.

In particular the link with MSP (using Open World technology) continues to cause problems, both technical and functional. We found that when Baan abandoned their own planning board functionality and started using external scheduling packages, some functionality was lost and customisations were required. The main issue is that you can no longer store activity relationships in Baan, which causes problems in using library/template projects (as a project type they went out of the window anyway when the estimating module was abandoned).

The planningboard in b40 was pretty bad. Also the fact there was a limited capability of creating activity relationships.
In BAAN V_c that is a lot better and in case those relationships have to be graphically scheduled you are better off using Open Plan Enterprise as your planningboard.

Although Open Plan is sometimes regarded as being expensive I think it is still reasonably priced.
It all depends on the business requirements.

Regards,

Edwin

I agree that the planning board in Baan IV was difficult to use, but at least the system then had decent functionality for:
- resource planning across multiple projects (which perhaps in theory you could do in MSP but in real life it does not work well)
- copying clusters of activities with their relationships and budget lines between projects.

Open Plan may be good at some things, but my understanding is that it does not allow individual budget lines (labour lines) to be exported from Baan to schedule them as subtasks, somthing which MSP does allow. Please correct me if I'm wrong here though.

That I don't know regarding Open Plan.

It sounds like you have worked with the different planningboard solutions in relation to both BAAN IV and BAAN V so perhaps you can create a new post and list all the pros and cons of these solutions. This will give all the members who are interested, a good overview of what is out there and how it all works with BAAN Project (for b40 and b50).

Regards,

Edwin

Thanks for all the info on Big Project. We are a relatively small construction industry sub-contrator. I have a couple of questions so far:

1. Often after winning a contract we know the overall value of the contract, but we will be given an instruction by the client to proceed with the project to a certain (invoicable) value, with further instructions for the remaining contract value at a later date. What's the best way to store this in Baan Project?

2. Is there any equivalent/work around for the "holdback" functionality in Baan V when using Baan IV? Can you have a holdback on an extension?

3. Can anyone provide an example MS project file that been generated using the integration with Baan V?

regarding splitting the project into separate invoicable chunks, the most obvious solutions are a) use a main project and separate sub projects for the bits of work that are released or b) use extensions within one project. When using extensions, you may have some difficulty in stopping cost (labour/materials) being booked against part of the project that are not yet active. You'd have to play around with it after you worked out exactly what the requirements are.

regarding holdback, I don't think that is supported in Baan IV

regarding MSP, I could send you a sample project file, but it very much looks like any other MSP project, except for the large number of calendars (one for each trade group) that are generated in MSP by the integration. However, when you install the integration you get some new views in MSP to show some Baan related data and you won't be able to see any of that when I send you a sample. Also, I can only get a sample from the integration with Baan V.