Calendar duration

[Silene]

When I set any duration on my Gant it always shows a extra day, e.g. 3 days
it means starts on 5/9/10 and finishes on 5/11/10 but on my Gants it shows
5/12/10, it happens with 1 day also. I don't know how to fix that. Now I got
a Gant from a Client and I have to show the same dates and obviously it
doesn't work.
Please, help!

Silene

 

[Rob Schneider]

Probably because there is a mis-match of calendars and working time?
Could be that the "time" of the task are pushing them to the next day?
Display the times in the date/time columns with Menu:
Tools/Options/View, Date format, and pick something with Time.

You could be inadvertently starting a 3 day task at 10:00 am which means
that three days will be one day later than a task that you think starts
at the start of the working day.


--rms

www.rmschneider.com

 

[Rod Gill]

9th may is a Sunday, so if your calendar has that as non working, the task
can't start until the 10th and the finish date moves out until the required
number of working days has been done.

--

Rod Gill
Microsoft MVP for Project - http://www.project-systems.co.nz

Author of the only book on Project VBA, see: http://www.projectvbabook.com

Probably because there is a mis-match of calendars and working time? Could
be that the "time" of the task are pushing them to the next day? Display
the times in the date/time columns with Menu: Tools/Options/View, Date
format, and pick something with Time.

You could be inadvertently starting a 3 day task at 10:00 am which means
that three days will be one day later than a task that you think starts at
the start of the working day.


--rms

www.rmschneider.com






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[Silene]

You are right! Even though my calendar is a 9 hour working day, it shows 1
day(duration) as 24 hours. If I have a half day work (duration), the next
day starts at 13:00! How do I fix these problems?
Also in the Options/calendar the working day is from 8:00 till 17:00 but my
resource calendar is from 7:30-12:00 and 12:30-17:00. Is this a problem?

Thanks for the help,

Silene

 

[Steve House]

The Calendar Options page default start and default end fields DO NOT set
the start and end of the working day. All date fields in Project are
actually date/time fields. When you manually type a start date, such as
when entering the Project Start date or when entering a Start No Earlier
constraint, and do not supply the time, Project must assume a time to apply.
These fields designate the time Project assumes. Durations are always
stored and computed in minuites. When you enter a duration such as "3 days"
Project must convert your entry to minutes - the Hours per Day, Hours per
Week, and Days per Month fields on that page set the conversion factors it
uses. You set your working day times in the calendar on
Tools/ChangeWorkingTime in the menu. The Calendar Options page fields
should be consistent with the calendar you designate as the Project Calendar
but making settings on the Options page does not setup the calendar.

 

[Silene]

I understand, I think I fixed the calendar so I see one day as 7:30 till
17:00 but the question is: can I cancel the time or I have to set manually
the time of "broken days"? It seems a lot of work!!

Txs again
Silene

 

[Rob Schneider]

Silene,

I guess it depends on how they are "broken". If you have input the
start/end dates directly then that by definition puts that date/time
information as input and puts a constraint on the task. If you let
Project compute the schedule (by using logical predecessors/successors
and task durations/work) then you just have to adjust the plan to get
the dates you are looking for.


--rms

www.rmschneider.com

 

[Steve House]

No, you can't "cancel the time" - it is always a part of the date field even
if you choose not to display it. And you should NOT ever be manually
entering dates and/or times unless you expressly need to set a constraint.
Why is it a problem for you? If you have a task that requires 10 hours of
work and starts at 1 in the afternoon, with the resource going home at 5pm,
doesn't it follow logically that is should continue over into the next day?
If the task is able to start at 1, shouldn't it go ahead and do so? Why
have your resource sitting aound for the afternoon twiddling his thumbs - go
ahead, have him get as much work done on the task as he can before he goes
home on first day and then finish it up when he comes back on the next
workday. It's a rare task that actually has to be worked starting at the
precise start of the day and takes an exact integer multiple of the workday
to complete.

 

[Silene]

Txs Rob and Steve.
I still couldn't fix my calendar to show 1 day duration as 1 day work (from
8 till 17:00). At the moment it shows 24 hours but both my calendars finish
the day at 17:00! Also the start day shows 7:30, sometimes 8:00, sometimes
9:00 !! even though they are not linked to any other task, only have a
constraint which day to start.

Please, help I am completely LOST.

Txs

 

[Rob Schneider]

The calendar is not controlling the task duration. The "duration" field
in the task defines that. Enlarge display of dates to also include time
so that you can see what's happening.


--rms

www.rmschneider.com

 

[Steve House]

DO NOT set a constraint as to the day they are to start unless you actually
HAVE to have the constraint. The only time I like to see constraints is in
cases of, say, a part is backordered from a supplier and won't arrive until
a certain date, meaning the task that uses it can't start until that date
even though everything else in the project might be ready for it to go
earlier than that.

When you set a constraint by manually typing the date and do not explicitly
type the time, Project will use the Default Start field on the Calendar
Option page to supply it. If you use the little picklist calendar in the
Gantt chart Start field to pick the constraint date, Project uses the start
of the workday as defined in the working time calendar (Tools,
ChangeWorkingTime) to determine the time element.

You should not be telling Project the dates you think tasks should start or
dates you want them to start. Projects job is to tell you the dates you
ought to schedule in order to have the shortest duration project. You don't
tell it the dates you want - it tells you the dates you can get.

Your project working time calendar should reflect the normal working hours
of a typical resource in your project. If your team works 730am to 5 pm
then that's what your hours of work in "Tools/ChangeWorkingTime" should
reflect. But don't forget to back out lunch - no work takes place during
lunchtime - If they get 30 minutes for lunch then 0730-1700 is a 9 hour
workday, not 9.5 hours. Failure to enter it as 0730-1200 and 1230-1700 or
whatever the actual times are would mean your man-hour calculations are
going to be off 30 minutes per resource per day, a signifigant error on any
but the most trivial projects. Once you have your working time set for the
Project calendar, go to the Tools/Options/Calendar settings and bring
Default Start and Default End plus the Hours per Day and Hours per Week
settings into conformity with it. Then go to Project Start Date and verify
that it shows the start time of the workday as the start time of the
project. Then and only then should you begin entering tasks. DO NOT try to
enter start dates for individual tasks - your initial task list will show
all the tasks starting on the project start date and that's perfectly fine -
if you didn't have some tasks physically dependent on others (gotta put up
the walls before adding the roof) and if you had an infinite number of
resources you really would do all the tasks at once and get it done. The
only things that causes tasks to be in sequence instead of running in
parallel is a) some tasks require the deliverables from prior tasks to be
completed before they can start, and b) some tasks will have to wait until
the resources that can do them are free. After you put in the dependency
links and assign/level resources, Project will give you a schedule showing
you the dates when you ought to plan to do the tasks in question. Before you
get those pieces of the puzzle in place don't even think about the dates
where tasks will be scheduled - such date considerations are premature. As
I said before, you don't tell Project the schedule, it tells you.

 

[Silene]

I am glad to have all your information, it tells me I am trying to do just
so. But I do have a lot of constraint because I have a few projects that use
the same resource and the priority keeps changing, so e.g.: a task that was
suppose to be done last week in 1 day by 1 resource will be done maybe only
the week after, if I keep increasing the duration I have to decrease the %
of work the resource is going to do, right? and I don't like to do this
mathematics.
About the working hours, I've done it all. Now, I can see on my master
project that the day starts at 7:30 and finishes at 5 but on the project
start date still shows 8:00!??
The minus on MS project is that all the changes in the calendars shows only
from the day was mofidied and doesn't update the projects that is already
running!!

Anyway, many thanks for all the answers, you've been a great help!

Silene

 

[Steve House]

Task scheduling driven by resource availability is not a valid reason to use
constraint's, IMHO. Imagine Joe needs to do both Task X and Task Y, each of
which is expected to take 5 days. Both tasks are originally scheduled for
next week, starting Monday. Task X has a higher priority. By your method
you'd apply a Start No Earlier than constraint on Y to move it into the
following week. So far, so good. But imagine now that a new resource,
Mary, comes into the picture who is also capable of doing task Y. You pull
Joe off Y and replace him with Mary. With the constraint pusahing its start
out to a week from Monday it will still remain unecessarily delayed by a
week. But if you had done it the correct way, using Task Priority settings
(Task Information form, General page) coupled with resource leveling to
resolove Joe's original overallocation, as soon as you take Joe off of Y,
replace him with Mary, and re-level, Task Y moves back up a week and you get
it done a week earlier than before.

In the situation where a resource was shceduled for a one day task last week
and didn't do it, you don't change the duration in the first place.
Duration is the amount of working time minutes between when work first takes
place on the task and the last moment when work is still going on. In your
example of a one-day task that was supposed to happen last week but didn't,
its duration hasn't been changed by the delay - its still a one-day task.
Use the Tracking tools Reschedule Unfinished Work to move it forward to the
earliest date you think it will be able to start. The does, in fact, set a
SNET constraint on the resume date but it also splits in progress tasks,
letting the worked portion stay on the dates it really did get some progress
done and moving the unworked portion forward to the resume date without
screwing up durations, completion percentages, work estimates, etc.

As far as the Project Start Date not changing, that is driven by the Default
Start setting on Tools, Options, Calendar and is initially set to whatever
the default was when you first created the project file from scratch (unless
you actually designate a time, of course) and it doesn't update if you
change the Default Start later on. Default changes are almost never
retroactive. Simply re-enter the field using the start of the workday as
the start time on your project kick-off date to update it.

 

[Silene]

Thanks again Steve, you gave a few valuable tips that I will try on.