closing project tasks

[bgriffwork]

We've been told by consultants that the best way to close out tasks is:

1. Have the resource set Remaining Work to 0 in PWA.
2. In Project select Tools > Tracking > Update Tasks, and set Remaining
Duration to zero.

This seems to work, but very often afterthe plan is republished, saved,
closed, and re-opened, the % Compllete field will be less than 100%. We
cannot seem to figure out the pattern. Sometimes our steps work, sometimes
they don't.

By the way, our standard is Fixed Duration/non-Effort driven. Any help
would be appreciated.

 

[Al]

1. Please check the task type. (effort or non-effort drive)
2. Are you in managed or non-managed periods?
2a. Managed time periods assumes all hours are entered via Project Web Access
3. How is this task being Updated? (PWA or Project Professional)
4. Try shorting the duration if it is a fix duration tasks
4a. This is true when your % Work Complete = 100% and you have no check mark
in the icon indicator column. Shortening the duration to the true finish date
has solve this for many of the projects I've seen.

If this does not work, please let me know additional details.

 

[Adam Bennett]

Also, if you are in non-managed time periods, you'll want to watch out for
changing the remaining duration frequently as this can change the actuals
applied to the project.

See previous post where I experienced the same issue:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...osoftproject&lang=en&cr=US&sloc=en-us&m=1&p=1

Thanks

 

[Gary L. Chefetz [MVP]]

Bgriffwork:

If you're tracking hours worked by day, you should probably not be using
Fixed Duration task type. In general, I think this is almost always
misapplied. If you're tracking percent complete, then you need to get your
users to set both percent complete to 100% and remaining work to zero.
Depending on your tracking method and requirements, you must also set the
options on the calculation tab of the Tools > Options dialog to agree with
your tracking method and scheduling requirements.

 

[bgriffwork]

In our implementation, the resources cannot adjust percent complete, they can
only adjust remaining work. Our resources do this, which will cause % Work
Complete to be calculated at 100%. Then we instruct our PM's to use Tools >
Tracking... and set Remaining Duraiton to 0. This works causing % Complete
to be set to 100%, but when the plans are closed and re-opened, frequently %
Complete will revert to the previous value.

I've noticed that some plans that have this issue are out of synch. Could
this be a contributor.

Any help is appreciated. This is a big deal for us becuase the plans in
question seem to be "regressing", which really makes managment nervous.
Thanks.

 

[bgriffwork]

Task type is non-Effort driven, and we use Managed time periods. In some
cases, PM's will adjust %Complete in the plans, causing the plans to get out
of synch, but I can't confirm that this happens in all cases. Our "standard"
is for the resources to update through pwa. Rather than shortening duration,
we use the Tools > Tracking... option to set remaining duration to zero -
should we manually shorten duration instead?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Gary L. Chefetz [MVP]]

bgriffwork:

If you're running managed time periods, you're making a commitment to
careful management and preservation of actual work. The Project Server model
assumes that when using managed time periods that you are committed to a
number of management disciplines one of which is not to create out-of-synch
issues and quickly resolve those that do occur. The act of changing
remaining duration on the Project client side while using fixed duration
tasks results in Project recalculating actual work. In a managed time
period environment, any change to actual work in the Project Client will
cause an out-of-synch state to occur. It sounds like you create these
situations, then you synch to protected actuals which rolls back that
Project Client changes, and that your PMs fight with this back and forth. I
can imagine that this game of ping pong with schedule recalcs in Project
might encounter rounding errors along the way making the results seem ever
so random.

You've configured your system such that your project plans are incongruous
with your tracking methods. Project is inclined to manage duration when you
track actual work through Project Web Access. Call it a programming bias.
You should consider planning effort if you're going to track by it,
especially as part of a managed time environment where the tolerance for
this incongruity is nil. Use effort-based planning along with assignment
units to drive duration in your schedule. Another option is to separate time
collection from task tracking. I can't tell you what's best for your
situation without getting to know it in depth, but I hope this gets you
pointed in a better direction.

 

[bgriffwork]

So would you suggest using Fixed Work rather than Fixed Duration?

 

[Gary L. Chefetz [MVP]]

Fixed units would be my inclination, however, I don't know what your
requirements are. Neither your work or your durations seem to be fixed based
on our discussion.