Set the Project Up in BST

Project setup and the work plan

Module 4 ends with an executed agreement, a fee built from the Project Budgeting Spreadsheet, and a project opened in the firm’s systems. Module 5 begins with a work plan built from that fee. Between the two sits a step the course has named in five places and taught in none, the step where the project becomes a record in BST.

The record matters because every number the program teaches afterward is read off it. Module 2 reads Revenue beside Effort and finds the Variance between them. Module 3 reads Unbilled Days and Receivable Days. Module 9 reads schedule and cost variance each accounting cycle. All three assume a project that was set up correctly, and none of them says how.

How does a project become a record in BST?

A project is not created from a blank form. It is copied from a template that carries the phase structure, the task codes, and the billing setup already standard for that kind of work, and it is then submitted for review before it goes live.

The course states the mechanism in a single clause, drawn from the responsibility matrix: create the project in BST11 using Copy Project from the market-segment template, then submit it for Project Accountant review. The session works that clause into a procedure a project manager can repeat.

Two decisions sit inside it. The first is which market-segment template the project belongs to, because the template sets the phase structure the fee will be loaded against. The second is when to submit for review, because hours charged before the record is approved land somewhere, and moving them later is accounting work rather than project work.

1. Confirm the executed agreement and the final fee. The fee that loads into BST is the fee in the signed agreement, not the fee in the last proposal.
2. Select the market-segment template. The template carries the phase structure. Choosing it is a scoping decision rather than a clerical one.
3. Copy Project from that template. The new record inherits the phases, the task structure, and the billing terms.
4. Set the project identity. Number, name, project manager, principal in charge, currency type, and status.
5. Submit for Project Accountant review. The record is not finished until it has been reviewed.
6. Confirm the project appears under the correct Project Manager restriction. A project filed under the wrong manager is invisible on the dashboard that manager opens.

What does loading the budget actually mean?

Loading a budget means distributing the net fee across the phases the project will actually run, in the proportions the work will actually consume, and staffing each phase at the rates the fee supports.

Consider the Oakhaven fee. The total design fee is $2.8M, of which $1.4M is consultant work and $1,400,000 is what Grace earns with its own people. That net figure is what loads against phases. Loading the gross fee produces a project that appears to have twice the money it has.

The phase split follows the shape of the work rather than an even division. Construction Documents carries the largest share because it carries the most hours.

Staffing follows the same logic. The Planning Studio in Module 5 makes the point in cost terms: 120 Principal hours at $310 per hour is $37,200, close to 17 percent of an entire phase cost budget. A phase staffed above the rate the fee supports reads healthy on hours and unhealthy on margin.

Why does Variance read as nothing on hourly work?

Hourly and time and materials work runs on the identical scorecard as fixed fee work, with one difference that changes everything the scorecard reports. Fixed fee work carries a budget by definition. Hourly work does not, and nothing supplies one automatically.

The planned value of hourly work is entered as an Effort Projection, and it is entered before the work starts. Without it, Budget Effort reads zero, and a Variance measured against zero carries no meaning. The course is explicit that this is a missing input rather than a limit of the tool. No one enters it unless a project manager builds it.

The consequence compounds quietly. A project manager running hourly work opens the scorecard every month, reads a Variance column that has never been able to say anything, and concludes the project is fine. The Competent Coordinator checks the budget, confirms the schedule is on track, and moves on.

Which screen answers which question?

BST presents a project through more than one view, and the views answer different questions. Reaching for the wrong one is the most common reason a project manager reports that the system does not show what they need.

The Project and Resource Management dashboard carries three tabs. My Projects Review and My Projects Trends and Status are the project view, the place a project manager reads one project in detail. My Portfolio Alerts is the firm view, every Grace project ranked by risk, and it is the tab a principal opens first.

Above those tabs sits the Restrictions bar, which decides what the screen is even looking at. It filters on Project Status, Project Manager, Currency Type, and Project. A dashboard that appears empty is more often a dashboard filtered to the wrong manager than a dashboard with no data.

What does a correctly set up project look like?

A project manager can confirm a setup in under two minutes by reading five columns. The check runs once at setup and again the first time real hours land, because the second reading is the one that catches a structure that looked right and was not.

1. Budget Effort carries a number. On hourly work this means the Effort Projection exists.
2. The number equals the net fee, not the gross fee. Consultant value does not belong in the Grace budget line.
3. Phases appear separately and sum to the total. A single undifferentiated line hides the phase that will fail first.
4. The project appears under the correct Project Manager restriction. Otherwise the dashboard the manager opens will not show it.
5. Effort Percent Complete and Revenue Percent Complete both move once hours are charged. A percentage frozen at zero after real hours means the work is charging somewhere else.

Summary

The setup work is small and it is decisive. Copy the project from the market-segment template that matches the work, load the net fee across real phases, staff each phase to the rate that phase supports, and on hourly work enter the Effort Projection before the first hour is charged. Then submit for Project Accountant review and confirm the record afterward.

Module 5 opens next and builds the work plan against the structure this session created. A work plan built on a project that was never phased produces a schedule no one can measure.

Come prepared

1. Pick one live project and bring its project number.
2. Open its scorecard and note whether Budget Effort carries a number.
3. Note which market-segment template the project was created from, or note that the answer is not available.
4. Bring one question about a column whose meaning is not obvious.