What will happen to total project cost if activity which is in progress from scheduled project is deleted in primavera?

Question

What will happen to total project cost, if activity which is in progress (2 days complete out of 5), is deleted in primavera?

Answer 1

The Budgeted Total Cost for the project will no longer include the cost for that activity (assuming the deleted activity has an associated budgeted Resource cost or Budgeted Expense cost). Also, there were Actual Costs associated with the 2 days of progress, then the Total Actual Cost of the project would not include those costs as well. Michael - Plan Academy

Answer 2

In the simple case where there is no baseline, then all the costs associated with the activity are removed from the calculations in Primavera. You can see this by adding the At Completion Total Cost to the WBS view, making a note of the values and then deleting the Activity.

If there is a Baseline attached to the project then the costs for the deleted activities remain inside the Baseline but they cannot be seen. This is because Primavera links from the Current Project into the Baseline Project through the Actiivity Id.

This also means the Activity and it's cost stays in the Baseline. If you want to see what I mean just create a Baseline and make it the Project Baseline. Then add the BL Project Total Cost to the WBS view. Take a note of the values. Then make a note of the Activity Id of an Activity with cost on it. Then delete or dissolve that Activity. The BL Project Total Cost and the At Completion Total Cost goes down in value.

Now create a brand new Activity and give it the same Activity Id as the one that has been deleted, but do not add any costs to it. You will see there is no change to the At Completion Total Cost, but the BL Project Total Cost has increased.

So what? Away from the technical capability of P6, it isn't a good idea to just delete Activities from a project, particularly when they have actual costs on them. It is far better to give the activity an Actual Finish date of when it was cancelled and make sure the actual costs are correct.

When there is a Baseline as well (and why shouldn't there be a baseline :-)) the activity in the baseline may need to be changed if the cancelling of the activity is a change to the scope.