3 Tasks 2 Days Shows Wrong End Date

[Keith]

Hi All,
I have a problem with Project 2003. I have 3 tasks all starting on the same
day. First task is 2.5 hrs, 2nd task is 2.5 hrs, 3rd task is 9.0 hrs.

Hours on the calendar are set to 7.0 per day.
Tasks are set to Fixed Units Effort Driven.

The start and end dates of the first two tasks correctly show as Monday.
This is a total of 5.0 hrs so far.

The start date for task 3 shows correctly as Monday but the end date shows
as Wednesday. The task is entered as 9.0 hours. Two hours should go against
Monday and the remaining 7.0 hours should go against Tuesday. The end date
shows Wednesday and not Tuesday.

When you look at the Resource Usage View, the tasks show correctly. There
are 2 tasks showing 2.5 hours each on Monday and a 3rd task for Monday
showing 2 hours. Tuesday shows 7.0 hours. The 3 tasks are all showing
complete by the end of Tuesday.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks
Keith

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Keith,

Before examining, please show time of day in your start and end dates
Tools, Options, view, date format, select the one at the top of the list.

Then we'll see immediately what happened.

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
+32 495 300 620
For availability check:
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/Calendar.pdf

 

[Dave]

Where are you reading the finish date from? Is it the finish column or
is it from the timescale (in which case are the bar styles set correctly
in Format/Layout)?

How are the tasks linked? Is it FS linking or did you level?

Is calculation set to automatic?

I can't actually reproduce this but perhaps you can give more
information on your settings.

 

[Keith]

Thanks Guys,
I have it working now but not sure why. All tasks have been set to Fixed
Duration. The project is scheduled SF (from the end back). I set all the
tasks to start as late as possible as recommended in the online help. Here
is a snapshot of the tasks all set to start as late as possible:

TaskDuration Start End
Pred
10 2 days 3/27/08 8:30 AM 3/28/08 4:30 PM 11SF
11 2.5 hrs 3/28/08 2:00 PM 3/28/08 4:30 PM 12SF
12 2.5 hrs 3/28/08 2:00 PM 3/28/08 4:30 PM 13SF
13 9.0 hrs 3/27/08 2:30 PM 3/28/08 4:30 PM 14SF

Task 13 is correct
Task 12 should start 3/28/08 11:00 AM and end 3/28/08 2:30 PM
Task 11 should start 3/28/08 8:30 AM and end 3/28/08 11:00 AM
Task 10 should start 3/26/08 8:30 AM and end 3/27/08 4:30 PM

Things look better when I change 10, 11, & 12 to start as early as possible.
This is the result.

Task Duration Start End
Pred
10 2 days 3/25/08 8:30 AM 3/27/08 8:30 AM 11SF
11 2.5 hrs 3/27/08 8:30 AM 3/27/08 11:00 AM 12SF
12 2.5 hrs 3/27/08 11:00 AM 3/27/08 2:30 PM 13SF
13 9.0 hrs 3/27/08 2:30 PM 3/28/08 4:30 PM 14SF

The only task that is wrong now is 10. The start date is OK but the end
should be 3/26/08 4:30 PM.

Any suggestions. Do I need to review each task in such detail and adjust
the start criteria for each task? I have almost 300 in the project!

Thanks
Keith

 

[Dave]

Firstly, I don't actually know what the online help says, but I find it
hard to believe that it recommends starting tasks as late as possible.

Everybody here would recommend making tasks start as early as possible.
If you don't do that, you remove all your slack and time contingency
from the project and it is almost certainly doomed to failure.

Secondly, your schedule is highly unusual if you have all those SF
links. Links are almost invariably FS.

What you are actually saying here is that task 11 (for example) cannot
finish until after task 10 has started (but could start before task 10).

Lets delete all your links.

Now ask yourself can tasks 10,
11, 12 and 13 be done at the same time if you have sufficient resource?
If so, there should be no links between them.

If task 12 cannot start until task 11 is complete and task 13 cannot be
done until task 12 is complete then you should link them FS.

If you link these tasks FS then this works for me with a 7 hour working
day starting at 8:30 and finishing at 16:30.

Hope this helps. It looks as though you need to look at the logic
behind your Gantt chart, particularly with the logic that underlies the
various types of links.