I am a hardware engineer. My project engineer starts by handing me a Microsoft Project file so I can fill in the details of how long each task is going to take and how much cost will the labor and materials will be.
I prefer importing the project file into Smartsheet so I can easily arrange the trench work and subsequently mange day-to-day activities with Smartsheet. But before we get going with the project, I want to give my PE back his project completely filled with my details of Tasks, Subtasks, schedules and costs.
So I export my Smartsheet to Microsoft Project XML as is the only option from Smartsheet. No problems so far. Then I go into Microsoft Project and import the file as an XML and wala! there is the project file done.
The problem is that Microsoft Project does not show some columns I created. For example, let's say that it takes 2 weeks to get a part I must order. So the duration for this entry is 2w. However, I do not work 8 hrs per day during those 2 weeks on the part - I might work 15 min each day tracking the part for 2 weeks. So I have a column called Duration for the Gantt Chart and I created another column I called Effort where I put 0.25h, then multiply times 2 weeks times the labor rate to obtain the total cost of labor to obatin the part. I see the column called Effort in the XML file but Microsoft Project will not show it on the import. My question is why? What am I doing wrong?
