Difficulty Factor - D-Tools Forum

TouchToBegin · 08-08-2007, 04:23 AM

Please tell me if I am handling this correctly.

It would seem to me that a 'difficulty factor' would apply on a job by job basis. In order to apply this to a project, I have to adjust it first in the application setup, then open the project and choose to reset the factors to default, and then go back to app setup and reset to my original settings. Is that the only way to apply this? That really is a difficulty factor.

**Kevin Mikelonis** · 08-08-2007, 05:10 AM

Originally Posted by TouchToBegin

Please tell me if I am handling this correctly.

It would seem to me that a 'difficulty factor' would apply on a job by job basis. In order to apply this to a project, I have to adjust it first in the application setup, then open the project and choose to reset the factors to default, and then go back to app setup and reset to my original settings. Is that the only way to apply this? That really is a difficulty factor.

Difficulty factor is a great way to adjust labor of a phase.

It is done through the project though, by going to D-Tools>Options and selecting the Phases tab.

Changes in a project do not affect the setup tables for phases.

Difficulty factor adjusts the total labor hours for the phase and as a result the total dollars.

CAUTION!

Difficulty factor is not working properly in SI5 at this time. It is affecting the dollars in the phase rather that the hours and thus the dollars.

There are several other issues related to the difficulty factor that are not working properly in SI5 at this time which have been reported to D-Tools nad will hopefully be addressed in this service pack update expected this week.

TouchToBegin · 08-08-2007, 01:27 PM

Thanks. I was certain that I couln't edit that last night in the project Options area. It was late in the evening though...

09-11-2007, 03:04 PM

Was the difficulty factor issue resolved with SP2?

dharmonyav · 09-11-2007, 06:25 PM

Originally Posted by PsiKoTicK

Was the difficulty factor issue resolved with SP2?

I don't see that in the release notes...

09-12-2007, 06:34 PM

I don't either, but it was never documented as an issue anywhere but this single post. I was just trying to verify if it is working correctly, and one of my designers was at Cedia and a tech there showed him a Sales Order with money on it, and a report with hours on it - and they were both correct. So, my best guess is "yes, it's fixed." However, it could be that each report does it's own math calculations, and it's not actually fixed.

Hence, why I was hoping for an official response

RandyB · 09-13-2007, 12:08 AM

Difficulty factor affects the number of hours it takes to install products in a given phase, and is working properly everywhere we know of at this time.

The phase setup screen makes it appear that difficulty factor is multiplied by the rate, which is the reason for the confusion. We are looking at changing this screen to reduce the confusion, but there is no scheduled date for this yet.
Difficulty factor as it applies to Project Hours, Gross Profit, Detail Cost Summary reports, as well as Work Orders, has been tested and is working as of SP1. It also works as related to individual product prices.
If there are any other places where difficulty factor is found to be not working, please let us know and we will investigate and fix.

We apologize for the confusion.

Randy Bownds
Program Manager
D-Tools, Inc.

fryeguy · 04-10-2008, 05:51 PM

I just did some testing on this and found that the reporting results are as they should be. If I double my labor difficulty from 100% to 200% my project hours double as well as the price of the total labor.

The phases tab under project options is certainly misleading.
The bottom line is that when I change my difficulty factor to 200% I am not selling labor at double the price but simply stating that work takes twice as long. Does this winodw need to be so different from the info available in SI4?

avzone · 06-23-2009, 11:30 PM

BUG! BUG! BUG!

When I change the difficulty factor within a project from 100% to 200% and view the project summary within the project, it doubles the labor rate and does not update the labor hours. I thought this was fixed? If so, how should I go about troubleshooting this?

For the record, the hours are correct if I use Reports.

Hemanth · 10-09-2009, 09:04 AM

Graham,

This bug has been fixed in 5.5 SP1.