.5h allocated for 1st day of work when using a 4-day work resource

[Ollie the Otter]

When I assign a 4-day work resource to an 1-day task the graph shows resource
working .5h first day and 9.5h second day - a 5-day work resource works okay.

Some background:
- this is my first MS project assignment
- I inherited this 2000 task project
- Project, Project Information, Calendar = 24 hour
- Tools, Option, Calendar
- Default Start = 7:00am
- Default end = 5:30pm
- Hours per day = 24, week = 168, days per month = 30
- Tools, Change Working Time, I created a 4-day week calendar
- Mon - Thurs
- 7:00am - 12:00pm and 12:30 - 5:30pm
- Task calendar = None

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Ollie,

First, I fould what you write hard to believe. When with the parammetes you
give you enter a "one day task" it will spread over 24 hours, not 10 as you
put it.

This being said, if you go to Tools, Options, View, and you change the date
format to one including time of day (the one on top of the list) you will
probably see that your task starts at 17:00 hrs. It's not obvious to see why
that is. Is it a succesor to an othe rtaks? Is it part of a summary task
starting then?

Give it a look, I do hope you'll find.
HTH

 

[Ollie the Otter]

Hey thanks for the reply.
I believe that the 1-day task is spread over 24 hours (due to the project
calendar being 24 hour) until I assign the resource which when assigned a
10-hour day spreads the task over 10 hours or when assigned a 8-hour day
spreads the task over 8 hours (depending on the resource calendar of the
resource being assigned) - again this is my first time using Projects so I
have a huge learning curve ahead of me.

You were absolutely correct about the task start time, it did state 5:00pm.
Following the successor chain backwards brought me to a task that Must Finish
On at Constraint date with a time of 5:00pm - it appears that it is as simple
as updating this time.

Thank-you!!

 

[Steve House]

You've got several problems here besides the constraint you identified.
With the calendar settings you have listed, when you input that a task has
"5 days" duration, for example, Project interprets that to mean the task
will run for 5x24 WORKING HOURS for the resources assigned, that there will
be one or more people actively working on it such that a total of 120
working hours will elapse between start and end. If it starts Monday at 8am
and the work is being performed Mon thru Fri between 8 to 5, that task will
finish on the Friday three weeks later at 5pm. Is that an accurate
reflection of your reality?

Project records durations in minutes and uses minutes all its calculations.
The "Hours per day" "Hours per week" and "days per month" entries are
conversion factors so that when you type into a task duration of "X days" or
"Y weeks" it can convert those numbers into hours, hence minutes, for
storage.

A working time calendar of 24 hours with the Hours per day also set to 24,
hours per week of 168, and days per month of 30 means that each individual
task in your project will run continuously 24/7 from the time it starts
until it is done. Can this be really true <grin>?

 

[Ollie the Otter]

Steve,
Thanks for the reply - I have been out of the office for several days.
I follow what you are saying but feel I am "stuck" and need to continue
with this 2000+ plus schedule that was handed off to me as I believe if I
start changing things such as 'hours in a day' or 'days in a week' now I will
have a lot of clean up to do.
Most of the taskare sitting with an estimated start and finish date. In
some cases I change the task type to Fixed duration to maintain the
start/finish dates and then assign resources. In other cases, I change the
task type to Fixed work and let the Start/finish dates adjust as needed based

You've got several problems here besides the constraint you identified.
With the calendar settings you have listed, when you input that a task has
"5 days" duration, for example, Project interprets that to mean the task
will run for 5x24 WORKING HOURS for the resources assigned, that there will
be one or more people actively working on it such that a total of 120
working hours will elapse between start and end. If it starts Monday at 8am
and the work is being performed Mon thru Fri between 8 to 5, that task will
finish on the Friday three weeks later at 5pm. Is that an accurate
reflection of your reality?

Project records durations in minutes and uses minutes all its calculations.
The "Hours per day" "Hours per week" and "days per month" entries are
conversion factors so that when you type into a task duration of "X days" or
"Y weeks" it can convert those numbers into hours, hence minutes, for
storage.

A working time calendar of 24 hours with the Hours per day also set to 24,
hours per week of 168, and days per month of 30 means that each individual
task in your project will run continuously 24/7 from the time it starts
until it is done. Can this be really true <grin>?
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

When I assign a 4-day work resource to an 1-day task the graph shows
resource
working .5h first day and 9.5h second day - a 5-day work resource works
okay.

Some background:
- this is my first MS project assignment
- I inherited this 2000 task project
- Project, Project Information, Calendar = 24 hour
- Tools, Option, Calendar
- Default Start = 7:00am
- Default end = 5:30pm
- Hours per day = 24, week = 168, days per month = 30
- Tools, Change Working Time, I created a 4-day week calendar
- Mon - Thurs
- 7:00am - 12:00pm and 12:30 - 5:30pm
- Task calendar = None

 

[Steve House]

Whether it is fixed work or fixed duration, you might see start and finish
dates change when you assign resources. The duration is the number of
working time units - hours - between when the task starts and when it ends
AS DEFINED BY THE GOVERNING WORKING TIME CALENDAR. The governing calendar
is the calendar of the resource(s) assigned to the task. Here's a simple
example of how that can work ... I have a 5-day duration task X currently
scheduled to start Monday the 7th. With the default project calendar (8-12,
1-5 M-F) the task will end Friday the 11th at 1700, 40 hours later. I have
a choice of 1 of 3 resources I can assign to it - Joe Fulltimer who works
0800-1200 and 1300-1700 Mon-Fri, Bill Longday who works 0700-1200 and
1300-1800 Mon-Thur, or Fred Parttimer who works 0800-1200 Mon-Fri. Now if I
assign Joe, there's no change and the task begins Mon at 0800 and ends Fri
1700. But if I assign Bill, the task will still begin Mon at 0800 but will
now end of Thur at 1800. Finally, if I put Fred on it, while it still
begins Mon at 0800, it will now end Fri the 18th at 12 noon. Yet in all
three cases, the work is 40 hours and the duration shows as 5 days in the
Gantt chart table - the start and end dates change for either Bill or Joe
but the duration remains a constant 5 days. Why? The duration stored in
the database is a constant 40 hours while the assigned resource's calendar
determines how many of those duration hours we burn up with the passage of
each ordinary 24 hour calendar day. The duration is always 40 hours, but
the "hours per day" setting of 8 says that every 8 hours worked counts as a
duration "day" without regard to WHEN that 8 hours occurs. We could start
the task Mon 0800 and work on it continuously until Tues 0800, 24 hours
later, if we had three shifts going around the clock and Project would
report that continuous 24 hour period is "3 days" of duration.

HTH

--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Steve,
Thanks for the reply - I have been out of the office for several days.
I follow what you are saying but feel I am "stuck" and need to continue
with this 2000+ plus schedule that was handed off to me as I believe if I
start changing things such as 'hours in a day' or 'days in a week' now I
will
have a lot of clean up to do.
Most of the taskare sitting with an estimated start and finish date. In
some cases I change the task type to Fixed duration to maintain the
start/finish dates and then assign resources. In other cases, I change
the
task type to Fixed work and let the Start/finish dates adjust as needed
based

You've got several problems here besides the constraint you identified.
With the calendar settings you have listed, when you input that a task
has
"5 days" duration, for example, Project interprets that to mean the task
will run for 5x24 WORKING HOURS for the resources assigned, that there
will
be one or more people actively working on it such that a total of 120
working hours will elapse between start and end. If it starts Monday at
8am
and the work is being performed Mon thru Fri between 8 to 5, that task
will
finish on the Friday three weeks later at 5pm. Is that an accurate
reflection of your reality?

Project records durations in minutes and uses minutes all its
calculations.
The "Hours per day" "Hours per week" and "days per month" entries are
conversion factors so that when you type into a task duration of "X days"
or
"Y weeks" it can convert those numbers into hours, hence minutes, for
storage.

A working time calendar of 24 hours with the Hours per day also set to
24,
hours per week of 168, and days per month of 30 means that each
individual
task in your project will run continuously 24/7 from the time it starts
until it is done. Can this be really true <grin>?
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

When I assign a 4-day work resource to an 1-day task the graph shows
resource
working .5h first day and 9.5h second day - a 5-day work resource works
okay.

Some background:
- this is my first MS project assignment
- I inherited this 2000 task project
- Project, Project Information, Calendar = 24 hour
- Tools, Option, Calendar
- Default Start = 7:00am
- Default end = 5:30pm
- Hours per day = 24, week = 168, days per month = 30
- Tools, Change Working Time, I created a 4-day week calendar
- Mon - Thurs
- 7:00am - 12:00pm and 12:30 - 5:30pm
- Task calendar = None