"Assign myself to a task"

[JmpJack]

Maybe I don't understand Project Server well enough, but here is my question:

We have encountered an interesting quirk within MSPS that we have a question
on. Here's the scenario:



1) create a new task in a project professional 2003 (Task type is set
to fixed work)

2) assign resource(s) to the task

3) save and publish the project

4) additional resource uses web access to assign the same task to
him/herself

5) project manager accepts the task in project

6) MSPS assigns the additional resource to the task, then splits the
time AND reduces the amount of work for the task. (the fixed work)

Our issue is with the reduction of the amount of work for a 'Fixed Work'
task. Why is the amount of work reduced? Any explanation of what is
happening?

Thanks

jmp

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

JmpJack --

This is default behavior of the software when the task is an Effort Driven
task. The software splits the Work between the two resources and reduces
the Duration accordingly. Thus, if you have assigned a resource to a 5-day
Duration task at 100% Units and 40 hours of Work, and then later add a
resource at 100% Units, the software will split the Work 50-50 between the
two resources (20 hours of Work to each) and reduce the Duration to 2.5
days. Hope this helps.

 

[JmpJack]

Dale,

Thank you, and I understand what you’re saying and I agree that this
'should' be the default behavior, but it is not. I should mention also that
we (our project management team) as added the work column to our Project Pro
enterprise view. Since most of our projects are of the software development
type, we start our estimates with Fixed Work hours.

I don't have a problem with PWA or Project changing the duration or
splitting the amount of work, the problem I have is that it appears to be
changing the "Fixed Work" hours. (see my original post) Which goes against
project’s formulas? Here is an example of what happened yesterday: I create
a task and establish a "Fixed" number of hours (8 hours) and enter the
resources at 50% allocation, the duration is set automatically of course (16
hours). After creating this task with a "Fixed Work" as the task type,
(again 8 hours of work, duration 2 days). Another resource then....

* assigns himself to the task through PWA, enters nothing in the "work
estimate" box
* Project owner accepts the task and performs an update
* Project Pro opens the project
* When I examin the task that originally had a "Fixed Work" unit of 8 hours,
it now has 12.67 hours
* the original resource is still allocation at 50% but now has 2.67 hours
worth of work on the task.
* the second resource that assigned themselves to the task through PWA, is
allocation at 100% (their resource global default) and has is allocated 8
hours of work.
* Changing the "Fixed Work" from 8 hours to 12.67
* Duration also changes from two days to one. (16 hours to 8 hours)

The only thing I can think of is that the PWA "assign myself to a task"
option, affects actual work hours. Then again, maybe I do just not understand
how 'something' works. Microsoft has done a horrible job in documentation
the Project Server piece of this problem.

Thanks again Dale for your follow-up. Much appreciated.

jmpjack


Assigns

 

[JmpJack]

One correction, sorry.

* the original resource is still allocated at 50% but now has 4.67 hours not
2.67

worth of work on the task. Fat fingers.