Can Project calculate finish date for me?

[LP]

Here's what I want to do:

1. I want to enter a task, lets call it "Create homepage" so I put that in
the task column

2. I know that creating the homepage takes 24 hours of work - so i put it in
the work column (is that wrong? should it be in duration?)

3. I assign a resource, lets call him John, to this task.

4. I set John's working hours as 5 hrs a day Mon-Fri (that's all that John
works for me, the rest of his time doesn't belong to me).

5. I set the task type as "Fixed work" - is that right? I know how long it
takes and I have no other restraints.

6. I set the date to start as today (Wednesday)

7. Can MS Project just tell me when John will be finished?? 5 hours a day
for a 24 hour hour project starting Wednesday means it should set Finish date
as next Tuesday. And the duration as 4 and a bit days.

Project doesn't seem to be able to do that? It just seems to overallocate
the resource and then give an error if I try to level it.

This seems really basic but I've read all the books and help files and found
nothing.

 

[John]

Here's what I want to do:

1. I want to enter a task, lets call it "Create homepage" so I put that in
the task column

2. I know that creating the homepage takes 24 hours of work - so i put it in
the work column (is that wrong? should it be in duration?)

3. I assign a resource, lets call him John, to this task.

4. I set John's working hours as 5 hrs a day Mon-Fri (that's all that John
works for me, the rest of his time doesn't belong to me).

5. I set the task type as "Fixed work" - is that right? I know how long it
takes and I have no other restraints.

6. I set the date to start as today (Wednesday)

7. Can MS Project just tell me when John will be finished?? 5 hours a day
for a 24 hour hour project starting Wednesday means it should set Finish date
as next Tuesday. And the duration as 4 and a bit days.

Project doesn't seem to be able to do that? It just seems to overallocate
the resource and then give an error if I try to level it.

This seems really basic but I've read all the books and help files and found
nothing.

LP,
Well everything in your process looks OK and if done correctly, Project
will give you a finish date of next Tuesday. I suspect you may not have
set up John's working hours correctly.

For your step 4 you need to do the following.
a. On the Resource Sheet, select John and then hit the resource
information icon (or, Project/Resource Information)
b. Select the Working time tab
c. Select the column headers for M through F, (assuming a standard 5 day
workweek).
d. Set the From and To times to be whatever start and stop times John
uses for each day when he works for you. I can vary each day but the
important thing is that the total must be 5 hours per day.
e. Close the Resource Information dialog and go to
Tools/Options/Calendar tab
f. Set the Hours per day to 5. That will cause the duration field to
calculate properly
g. Now assign John to the task (unit level of "1") and you should see
the duration as 4.8 days with a start of 3/28/07 and a finish of 4/3/07.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP