Linked communications

Communications can be linked in AVEVA Contract Risk Management for two primary purposes:

• To signify that they are somehow related; a group of related communications comprise a story that can be used to track historical information about a particular issue.

  A communication related to another in a story can be marked as its formal reply, to satisfy a response required obligation. See Respond to a communication for more information.

• To create a financial association that signifies they belong to the same financial business process; this ensures that financial commitment and expenditure is correctly reported in contract financial health and Project/Dept financial forecasts. A financial association is also known as a process chain link.

  In a process chain link, the communications are designated as the predecessor and successor. The link can be created from either communication (except for communications which record progress or expenditure calculated from progress).

  

The communication register shows which communications have been linked:

• A icon in the Stories column indicates that the communication is part of a story.

• The Financially Associated With column lists the communications which are successors in a process chain to the communication. Note that this is visible only in views configured to display it.

Stories

Communications can belong to multiple stories.

A story is a group of related communications, for example a Minutes of Meeting communication and the various instructions and requests which arose from the meeting.

A communication's stories are displayed on the Stories tab of the Communication page.

Process chains

When a process chain link is made between communications, the values are copied from the predecessor to the successor communication if the successor is in Draft:

• For communications not configured as expenditure, the financial impact value copied to the successor can be edited, if for example, a Variation Order is created which has a value less than the value of the associated Variation Request received from the contractor.

• For communications configured as expenditure, the expenditure values, including any line items, can be edited and deleted, and additional expenditure values and line items can be added to the successor.

• When progress communications are linked to a successor expenditure communication, the expenditure values are calculated for the successor based on the progress claimed for in the predecessor communications. These values cannot be edited. See Contract FAQs: How are the claimed values of line items in expenditure communications calculated from the associated progress communications? for more information about how calculations are done.

When the state of the successor communication is changed, for example from Draft to Approved, the communication reporting category of the predecessor communication is also updated, if appropriate. (See Communication reporting categories for more information.)

Communications that are linked in a process chain are displayed in the Process Chain section of the Communication Details page.

Note If the communications being linked have different currencies, the financial impact values copied or calculated from the predecessor are converted to the base currency of the successor, using the currency rates specified in the Contract Configuration.

Example

Prerequisites, based on the reporting categories of the communication templates from which the communications were created:

• The financial impact value associated with a VR is treated as Potential Change.

• The financial impact value associated with a VO is treated as Approved Commitment.

See Communication reporting categories for more information.

Process:

1. A Variation Request (VR) has a financial value of $40,000.

2. A Variation Order (VO) is created and a link to the VR is added. The VO and VR are added to a new story, and a financial association is created.

3. The $40,000 is copied from the VR to the VO. However, the financial value of the VO is edited because the agreed cost is actually $35,000.

4. The VO is sent.

   The communication reporting category of the VR is changed to Not Applicable because the VO is the next step of the business process, and the formal commitment to contractor will be based on the value of the VO, not the related VR. By doing so, the potential change value of the VR ($40,000) is removed from the contract's financial health and the approved commitment of the VO ($35,000) is added to the contract's financial health.