We are excited to introduce Actuals in Meisterplan. Actuals will enable you to compare your project plans with the actual performance of your portfolio directly within Meisterplan. Understanding this comparison can be crucial to the success of your projects.

In this article, you will learn about the feature set of the Beta release and how to compare Planned Allocations with the Actual Time Worked on your projects to quickly determine when a project is off track and adapt your plan as early as possible to ensure you deliver the best outcomes.

• How Actuals - Time Worked Can Help You
• How to Participate in the Beta
• How to Get Started
• Including Actual Time Worked in the Project Details
• Importing Actual Time Worked
• Viewing Actual Time Worked
• What Will Be Added in the Future
• Meisterplan Terms of Service Conditions for Beta Features

How Actuals - Time Worked Can Help You

With this first Beta version, you can see at a glance if a project is on track and take action if it isn’t. Regularly import the Actual Time Worked for each project so you can compare the data with the allocations in Meisterplan to stay up to date.

This is just the beginning!
We’re busy building powerful additions to Actuals that will give you even more insights. Find out more in the What Will be Added in the Future section.

How to Participate in the Beta

The Actuals - Time Worked has started as a Closed Beta. This is an early version which is being continuously improved and only available on request. The latest updates may not yet be listed here. The use of the Actuals is subject to these terms. 

If you are interested in testing this feature, please send a ticket from within Meisterplan by clicking the Help menu in the header and selecting Contact Support. This ensures we activate the Actuals in the right system.

If you have questions about or feedback on the current Beta version, please contact us as described above.

How to Get Started

When the Actuals feature has been activated for your Meisterplan system, you will find an additional right in the user groups under Detailed Project and Program Rights:

By default, this right is set to No Access for all user groups so that no user can see the Actual Time Worked. To view or import Actual Time Worked, you need to have another option enabled.
For details on how to configure user rights, see the Manage User Groups article.

Actual Time Worked is not scenario-specific but global, that means it can be viewed or imported in every scenario that contains the respective project.

Including Actual Time Worked in the Project Details

To see if a project is on track and how close the Actual Time Worked is to the planned allocations, configure your project settings to include the Allocation Tracker in the project’s details.

Required User Rights

To configure the Allocation Tracker in the project's details, you need to have the following rights:

• Manage Project Fields, General Settings and Project Settings

For more details on how to configure user rights, see the Manage User Groups article.

Configuring the Allocation Tracker in the Project Details

First, click Manage in the left Sidebar and select Project Settings. Then, click Add Section and select Allocation Tracker.

See Actual Time Worked for the Project Team
In the future, you will be able to include key figures in the project team section, too. Find out more in the What Will be Added in the Future section.

Importing Actual Time Worked

To see the comparison between the Planned Allocations and the Actual Time Worked per project, you need to import your Actual Time Worked first. You will need a spreadsheet with the Actual Time Worked entries from your time-tracking tool. Learn how this spreadsheet should look here.

Required User Rights

To import Actual Time Worked in Meisterplan, you need to have the following rights:

• Under Project and Program Rights, you need to have either the Projects with Logged-In User as Project Manager or the All Projects and Programs option enabled
• Under Access Actual Time Worked, you need to have the Read and Edit via Import option enabled
• Under Integration Rights, you need to have the Import and Export Data right enabled
• To import Actual Time Worked while you are in the Plan of Record, you need to have the Edit Plan of Record right to access the respective projects.To import Actual Time Worked while you are in a scenario, you need to have edit rights for this scenario to access the respective projects.

For more details on how to configure user rights, see the Manage User Groups article.

Get Data from Your Time-Tracking Tool

Export a spreadsheet (any format will work) from your time-tracking tool containing the Actual Time Worked, the name of the role or resource, the project for which the time was tracked and the date. Learn below how to prepare your data for import.

You can import Actual Time Worked data for different projects and/or different resources at the same time .

Prepare Your Spreadsheet

To successfully import the Actual Time Worked data, prepare the spreadsheet from your time-tracking tool to contain one line per entry and a column for each of these details:

• Project Name: name of an existing project in Meisterplan
• Resource or Role: email address or name of an existing resource or role in Meisterplan, does not have to be allocated to the project
• Booking Date: date to which the Actual Time Worked entry from your time-tracking tool refers; there must not be two entries for the same project and the same resource with the same booking date; see below more details on the booking date
• Actual Time Worked (hours): number of hours incurred for this project and resource or role in your time-tracking tool for the booking date

You can download our sample list and use it as a template for importing your Actual Time Worked related data.

DOWNLOAD SAMPLE LIST

For information on how to format dates and numbers in your spreadsheet, see this article.

What’s the Booking Date?

The booking date is the date to which a Actual Time Worked entry in your time-tracking tool refers. Some tools track time worked per day, some per months, some allow custom dates.
You can import Actual Time Worked in single entries for each day, or summed up over the course of several weeks, or even a mixture of both. The hours imported in Meisterplan will be summed up per project to compare them to the planned allocation hours.

Example: From February 1^st to 10^th, the time-tracking tool exported 8 hours of work per day for Isabel Hunt and the Professional Services project. For Jack Williams who worked on the same project, monthly entries are exported.

How to Update Existing Booking Dates

If you have already imported 40 hours in Meisterplan for January 31^st and now import 45 hours for the same date, the older entry will be overwritten. In order to delete an entry, simply import 0 hours of Actual Time Worked for this booking date. You can import many entries for the same project and the same resource or role, but their booking dates in your spreadsheet must not be identical.

We recommend importing no more than 10,000 entries at once.

Import and Validation

Once you have prepared your data, click Import and Export in the Portfolio Designer, and select Quick Import:

In the import overview, select Actual Time Worked and click Start, then follow the steps described.

Importing new and updating existing Actual Time Worked entries is only possible if the project and resource names in your spreadsheet exactly match the names of the projects and resources or roles in Meisterplan. See this article for more details.

Viewing Actual Time Worked

Once you have successfully imported your data and configured the Allocation Tracker as described above, you will be able to view the Actual Time Worked in a project’s details.

Required User Rights

To view the Actual Time Worked in a project’s details, you need to have the following rights:

• Under Access Actual Time Worked, you need to have at least the Read Only option enabled

For more details on how to configure user rights, see the Manage User Groups article.

Actual Time Worked in a Project‘s Details

Open a project’s details to view the Plan vs. Actual in the Allocation Tracker:

To ensure that the bars in the Allocation Tracker are displayed correctly, we recommend importing at least 15 minutes of Actual Time Worked per project.

Key Figures in the Allocation Tracker

The Allocation Tracker currently displays the following figures:

• Planned Allocations until [last booking date]: sum of allocations in Meisterplan for this project until and including the date mentioned
• Actual Time Worked until [last booking date]: sum of imported Actual Time Worked for this project until and including the date mentioned
• Deviation of Actual Time Worked from Planned Allocations: comparison between Actual Time Worked and Planned Allocations, with a positive number indicating that the Actual Time Worked is higher than the Planned Allocations

Get More Key Figures
In the future, you will be able to see more key information in the Allocations Tracker. Find out more in the What Will be Added in the Future section.

What Will Be Added in the Future

The following features and extensions will also be added (not necessarily in this order):

• See the Actual Time Worked for the Project Team:
  • When you configure the Project Team Section for a project’s details, you will see there all key figures in the Allocation Tracker section, displayed per resource or role.
• Gain more insights with additional figures in the Allocation Tracker (in hours or days):
  • Estimate at Completion (EAC): sum of Actual Time Worked and remaining allocations as planned in Meisterplan
  • Remaining Allocations: planned allocations in Meisterplan from the specified date on
  • Deviation of EAC from Total Planned Allocations
  • Allocation Time Budget
• Add the figures to the Project List as columns to compare and export them
• Export Actual Time Worked and Remaining Allocations via the Reporting API to add them to external reports
• Further iterations of the feature may include comparing financial spend against budgets, performance against key milestones and reports on your budget and performance.

Meisterplan Terms of Service Conditions for Beta Features

The use of Beta Features is subject to the Meisterplan Software as a Service Terms and Conditions of the itdesign GmbH, Friedrichstr. 12, DE-72072 Tuebingen, Germany (hereinafter referred to as “Provider”) and the following different terms, which take priority. By using the beta features, you agree to the Meisterplan Beta Conditions on behalf of the company for which you work.

1. You understand that beta features within the generally available Meisterplan cloud application are still under development, may not be functional or may be incomplete, and are more likely to contain bugs than the generally available Meisterplan cloud application. Please note that the use of beta features may have an impact on performance when using the Meisterplan cloud application.
2. The provider does not guarantee that beta features will ever be made generally available.
3. The provider does not assume any obligations or liabilities with respect to the beta features, including any warranty and compensation obligations to the extent permitted by applicable law.