Why is the Estimated Work field not available in TFS Reports?

The Estimated Work field is used to maintain the estimate for a Task work item in the MSF for CMMI Process Template.  However, if you’re creating your own report, you’ll find that it’s missing from the available data from both the TfsWarehouse (data warehouse) and TfsWarehouse (OLAP cube).  That’s because the process template that defines the field did not specify the field as reportable.  Thus, it never makes its way into the cube.  This means it is very difficult, out of the box, to use TFS to report on variance between estimated work and actual work (the latter which IS stored in the warehouse and cube).  To correct this, be sure to create your own estimated work field which sets the reportable attribute to “measure”.  This will get them into the OLAP cube where they can be used effectively.  (CAUTION: if you are using MS Project, be sure to modify the Project field mappings for your template to map your newly created field instead of the default (and defective) Estimated Work field.