Duration formula - please help

[Laureen]

Hello-

We want to exclude closing tasks from our calculated measurement of
duration. For example, our stoplight indicators are red, yellow, and green
based on baselined duration vs. actual duration.

We consider the project to have met the commitment date at the end of our
"executing" phase. But, we want to track closing tasks within the project in
order to properly allocate resources from the enterprise resource pool.

So, I created a custom field for task type to show which phase the task is
in. I want to measure the baseline duration vs the actual duration for all
tasks that exclude task type of closing.

I am not a programmer and I am struggling with this. Any thoughts? Thanks
so much!

 

[ahelp]

I'm not a programmer either, but here's an idea. You would need four custom
fields: one for closing tasks duration (to be entered under Project, Project
Information), one for Baseline Duration minus closing tasks duration, one for
actual duration minus closing tasks duration, and a calculated field (text or
number) for your stoplight, e.g. (Baseline Duration minus closing tasks
duration)/(actual duration minus closing tasks duration). If your closing
tasks are prone to slippage, you may need to split the closing tasks duration
into baseline closing tasks duration and actual closing tasks duration. The
former could be entered when baselining, the latter would need to be updated
manually if the closing tasks duration changed. It's not particularly
elegant, but it should work.