Deadline problem(Probably a bug)

[Michele]

I am scheluding a project from an end date.
I have my critical chain made of some certain tasks, a critical chain that
tells me when i have to start the first task of the chain, in other words it
tells me the start date of the whole project.
I create another task, called for example "y", with defaulted constraint
equal to "As late as possible" and without any relations with all the other
tasks.
I associate to the task "y" a deadline date earlier than the end date of the
project and Microsoft Project programs correctly my task "y" calculating its
start backward from the deadlind date.(And after that the task "y" has an
amount of total slack so it's not critical, that is its late start is later
than the start date of the project).
So i have my project correctly scheduled by Microsoft Project, exactly as i
wanted to plan it.
The big problem starts when i associate to task "y" an actual amount of work.
This is the situation:
When i associate to task "y" a percentage of actual work(So without changing
any other parameter of the task(date, constraints, deadline date or anything
else)) Microsoft Project incredibly splits my task "Y" in the next way:
It makes start my task "Y" as scheduled at the beginning but it splits the
task "y" from the start date to the deadline date with 0 percentage of actual
work and it starts counting the percentage of actual work from the deadline
date on, making end the task clearly later than how i programmed at the
beginning.
Beside that it also tells me that my task has a finish date that is later
than my deadline,and this is really incredible because MS project makes all
this incredibly splitting delaying the end of my task all its own and it also
tells me that the task is later than the deadline date!
Two are the possible cases:
1)This is a big bug of Microsoft Project
2)I must have greatly misunderstood some Project behaviour and i would be
very, very gratefull to anyone who will explain where i am wrong, or the
meaning of this point
Really thank u for reading me
Best regards
Michele

 

[Haris Rashid]

hi Michele,

Please try following:
1. Turn off automatic resource levelling: Automatic mode levels resources as
soon as you change a task or resource in such a way as to cause an
overallocation. This is true when Project is set to the Automatic Calculation
mode, which is the default. If Project is set to the Manual Calculation mode,
resources are leveled when you give the Calculate Now command. To set the
calculation mode, click Options on the Tools menu, and then click the
Calculation tab.

2. In the Project Information dialog box (Project-> Project Infromation)
make sure you have selected that MS Project schedules the project from a
Finish Date. By default, projects are scheduled from the start date. When you
schedule from the finish date, all new tasks have a default constraint type
of As Late As Possible.

As you work with your project scheduled from a finish date, you should be
aware of differences in the way Microsoft Office Project 2003 handles some
actions, such as the following:

When you enter tasks in a project scheduled from a finish date, Project
automatically assigns the As Late As Possible (ALAP) constraint. You should
set other constraints only when necessary.
If you drag a Gantt bar to change the finish date of a task, Project
automatically assigns a Finish No Later Than constraint.
If you change your project to schedule from a finish date and it was
previously scheduled from a start date, you will remove all leveling delays
and leveling splits from tasks and assignments.
If you use automatic leveling to reduce resource overallocations in your
project, Project will add leveling delay after a task rather than before a
task.

Kind regards,