Completed Task

[Joerg Schrocke]

Hello!

How can I avoid that users track her times again tasks that are completed?

Best regards,

Joerg

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Jeorg --

This is a training and performance issue. If a team member completes work
on a task and submits their actuals to the PM, and later discovers the task
is not really completed after all, you should teach team members to contact
the PM immediately. The PM should decide how to handle this situation, and
decide whether to reopen the task, or to create a new task in the project
plan. Teach your team members what to do, and then hold them accountable
for this behavior. Hope this helps.

 

[Angel]

We run into this issue constantly and although we stress (and stress
and stress) for users to change their remaining work to 0 when they
complete a task and use the "Current Tasks" view on their task page, we
still get lots of time submitted to completed tasks/ plans. This is a
real problem for us at the beginning of each year when we close out our
annual plans and start new ones. I am looking at the possibility of
changing the booking type for resources to 'proposed' when we close out
the annual plans which will make the tasks 'disappear' from time
sheets. What I don't know are the true ramifications of this procedure.


I know this works great for plans that go on hold and will affect
future Resource Availability reports but since we don't use res.
availability much, I don't think it will be a huge issue. I am assuming
that the remaining time will remain out there as proposed "forever,"
correct? It does not change the work submitted/processed as far as I
can tell so our normal reports pulled from the OLAP Cube won't be
affected. Do you see any other reasons why this would not be a good
procedure?

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Angel --

I believe you can use this technique safely. My greater concern, however,
is the fact that you cannot get some of your team members to comply with
your prohibition not to enter time against a completed task. This indicates
that your problem is not a software issue, but is a people issue instead.
You are in good company, my friend. I personally think that people issues
are the greatest problem in implementing Project Server. Hope this helps.

 

[Angel]

Hey Dale,
Thanks for the prompt response and yes, I agree it is mostly a people
issue but with 250 users to keep up with it's sometimes cumbersome for
our team to reject the same tasks week after week because people just
don't pay attention or bother to read our messages about why we've
rejected their tasks. Although our team leads manage the majority of
the projects most of the time, our PMO has found it easier to take over
management of the annual plans at the end of the year because the team
leads sometimes don't pay attention to the updates and we end up with
time in the wrong plans.

I have a couple of additional questions about the effects this has on
Resource Availability that I hope you can help me with as well.

Is Resource Availability based on what is in the Project files and not
what is in a resource's timesheet (the same as the OLAP Cube data)?
I've pretty much assumed that based on the fact that you have to kick
off the cube in order to update the availability but wanted to confirm
that. The reason I ask is although I may close a task or a project
plan, if someone still has remaining work against that task/ project in
their timesheet, I don't want it to show up in Resource Availability as
committed time.

Also, is resource availability based on when work is scheduled? I'm
going to give an example because I'm not sure how to clarify the
question otherwise... If I have a plan that is scheduled to run from
Feb 15 - Mar 15 and I put it on hold today (Feb 24) and change all the
resources to proposed, does the remaining work appear in resource
availability after I run the cube and make sure to click "show
proposed"? Will that time continue to show after March 15 or will it
not appear until I reschedule the work that has been put on hold?

Thanks again.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Angel --

Thanks for sharing your pain! I understand.

When you change a resource to Proposed, the system basically treats all
Remaining Work as tentative. You will not see this work in the View
Resource Availability page in the Project Center UNLESS you select the View
Options tab and select the "Include Proposed Bookings" option. The work
hours WILL appear in the OLAP cube, however, but you can drag the Booking
Type dimension into any view and then deselect the Proposed booking type.
Also, in the Build Team dialog, the Proposed work hours will not show up in
the Available to Work filter unless you select the "Include proposed
bookings..." option.

When a project is put on hold and then is ready to be restarted, refer to
the following FAQ for the process to reschedule uncompleted work:

http://www.projectserverexperts.com/Shared Documents/RescheduleUncompletedWork.htm

Hope this helps.