Charge accommodation in weekend for task that does not work in wee

[Akram Najjar]

An earlier post came close to answering but did not. (7/39/3009)
Situation: an engineer works on a task for 8 days. This means sometimes
there is one interim weekend and sometimes there may be two, depending on the
starting day of the week.

Problem: This task has to be charged 8+2 or 8+4 hotel nights.

I tried creating a material or a cost Task and could not do it. They don't
have calendars. By creating a special calendar to include weekends as working
days, the engineer gets charge 16 hours for the weekend which is not the
case. Also, by creating a Hammock task across the 8 days, material got
charged on working days. If I tried elapsed time (with or without the
Hammock) everything goes crazy.

I am left with entering the nights by hand which is silly. I want it to
automatically find out whether it is 2 or 4 nights extra. I also want Project
to find out what happens when the Duration is changed so these figures
change: no weekends or 3 weekends, etc.

Any suggestion (outside VBA)?

Thanks

 

[Akram Najjar]

Dear Treveor
Thanks for your response. I had already tried using duration linked material
(2/day) as Hotel Nights but then it takes them as working days. I used 2
Nights but then I had to estimate beforehand which defeats the purpose of my
question.

What is needed is a way to get MS Project to extract from the working period
(say Mon 3 to Fri 14) that there are 2 weekend days. If the Task is then
pushed to Fri 7, it will find there are 4 nights.

Suggestion (still working on it): customize a field that counts weekend
days. Easy. But how to add those to a resource's assignment?

Estimating is not an option as the Task might even be extended (or
shortened) and the estimate would be wrong.

I am looking for an automatic way for MS Project to identify the number of
weekend days and then that can be used to add to the Hotel Nights charged
with the Engineer's task (which will get N = number of working days).

Thanks
Akram

 

[Paul Billings]

Dear Treveor
Thanks for your response. I had already tried using duration linked material
(2/day) as Hotel Nights but then it takes them as working days. I used 2
Nights but then I had to estimate beforehand which defeats the purpose ofmy
question.

What is needed is a way to get MS Project to extract from the working period
(say Mon 3 to Fri 14) that there are 2 weekend days. If the Task is then
pushed to Fri 7, it will find there are 4 nights.

Suggestion (still working on it): customize a field that counts weekend
days. Easy. But how to add those to a resource's assignment?

Estimating is not an option as the Task might even be extended (or
shortened) and the estimate would be wrong.

I am looking for an automatic way for MS Project to identify the number of
weekend days and then that can be used to add to the Hotel Nights charged
with the Engineer's task (which will get N = number of working days).

Thanks
Akram

I often use a material resource for rental cars, hotel, etc. with a
"units" value of 1/d. It's quite unfortunate that Project will not
accept 1/ed (for elapsed day). Nor can you change the calendar for a
material resource. As such, I typically do as Trevor suggested and
"correct" after the fact. I don't have a whole lot of expenses of
this nature, so my Earned Value isn't thrown off a whole lot.

However, if you don't like that, and you don't want to manually
adjust, then you will have to resort to a macro. The macro assigns N
to the unit field of the hotel resource assignment, where N=Finish-
Start+1. You might want to put a custom flag or group on these types
of resources, then structure the macro to loop through all assignments
for all tasks, and make this unit assignment if appropriate. It
doesn't handle the case when someone could return home the last day if
they finish early enough, but it will be pessimistic which is good as
far as costs go. Then there's partial days to consider, etc. But
that's the general approach.

You really have to look at how much effort it takes to automate this
vs. how much is gained. Most projects are not that precise where it
would make a ton of difference. YMMV.

Paul

 

[Akram Najjar]

Dear Paul

Many thanks. Today in an MS Project workshop with Ericsson engineers who
insisted on a solution, we brainstormed and came up with this solution:

1) Create TASK A with 8 days duration

2) Create ENGINEER as a work resource

3) Here is the trick: create HOTELNIGHTS as a Work Resource and not as a
Material resource

4) Create a calendar where there are no off days: all days are default
working days and assign it to the Resource: HotelNights. (Keep the ENGINEER
working under the Standard Calendar)

5) Assign Engineer and HotelNights to Task A

All goes well until you realize that HotelNights follow the working days of
the engineer and you get 8 nights which include weekends.

SO we restart with the famous HAMMOCK task. If you have not come across it,
here it is:

Follow steps 1 to 5 above but don't assign HotelNights to the Task A

6) Create a task and call it HAMMOCK

7) Copy the start date of Task A and Paste Link it (Paste Special) into
Start date of HAMMOCK.

8) Copy the finish date of task A and Paste Link it into the Finish date of
HAMMOCK

This task will have an elastic duration and will expand and contract as the
duration of Task A. If Task A changes duration, HAMMOCK will follow.

9) Now Assign HOTELNIGHTS to HAMMOCK and you will get ALL the calendar
nights charged.

Might be too much work if you have many tasks like this. BUT you can create
a macro to create a Hammock Task just below any of your tasks.

Take care and many thanks
Akram

 

[Paul Billings]

Dear Paul

Many thanks. Today in an MS Project workshop with Ericsson engineers who
insisted on a solution, we brainstormed and came up with this solution:

1) Create TASK A with 8 days duration

2) Create ENGINEER as a work resource

3) Here is the trick: create HOTELNIGHTS as a Work Resource and not as a
Material resource

4) Create a calendar where there are no off days: all days are default
working days and assign it to the Resource: HotelNights. (Keep the ENGINEER
working under the Standard Calendar)

5) Assign Engineer and HotelNights to Task A

All goes well until you realize that HotelNights follow the working days of
the engineer and you get 8 nights which include weekends.

SO we restart with the famous HAMMOCK task. If you have not come across it,
here it is:

Follow steps 1 to 5 above but don't assign HotelNights to the Task A

6) Create a task and call it HAMMOCK

7) Copy the start date of Task A and Paste Link it (Paste Special) into
Start date of HAMMOCK.

8) Copy the finish date of task A and Paste Link it into the Finish date of
HAMMOCK

This task will have an elastic duration and will expand and contract as the
duration of Task A. If Task A changes duration, HAMMOCK will follow.

9) Now Assign HOTELNIGHTS to HAMMOCK and you will get ALL the calendar
nights charged.

Might be too much work if you have many tasks like this. BUT you can create
a macro to create a Hammock Task just below any of your tasks.

Take care and many thanks
Akram

Akrram,

That approach seems workable (using a hammock task + work resource).
The only drawbacks are the visibility on the IMS and the one-time
requirement to compute an "hourly" rate for the hotel. I would
suggest creating a filter to hide this sort of task if the IMS goes to
the customer. Nice solution!

Paul

 

[Akram Najjar]

Dear Paul

I missed stating that the standard rate of the HotelNights resource (work)
should by day.

Secondly, I am not familiar with the acronym IMS, Integrated Master Schedule??
If the Task is not to be shown to the Client, it can be filtered out. For
example, a customized Task field can be called Hammock Task, etc, etc.

Thanks

 

[Paul Billings]

Dear Paul

I missed stating that the standard rate of the HotelNights resource (work)
should by day.

Secondly, I am not familiar with the acronym IMS, Integrated Master Schedule??
If the Task is not to be shown to the Client, it can be filtered out. For
example, a customized Task field can be called Hammock Task, etc, etc.

Thanks

Yes, IMS == Integrated Master Schedule