finish dates do not calculate properly with part-time calendar

[chambersdon]

I'm having trouble getting my finish date to calculate properly.
I have a small part time project that I am working on 2 hours a day (10
hour a week). I used the calendar tab user Tools/Options to set 'Hours
per day' to 2 and the 'Hours per week' to 40.

The problem is that my finsih dates are not calculated properly when I
enter a duration.

For example, I have a task starting on 05/17/2006 with a duration of 12
days. Project gives me a finish date of 05/19/2006. This gives me a 3
day task but it will really take 16 days.

This is a task that will take 24 hours. Since I am only working 2
hours a day it will take 12 days to finish the task so I should have a
finish date of 06/02/2006. But I think that when I enter 12 days
Project calcualtes this at 2 hours per day, for a total of 24 hours.
Then it still uses the 8 hour day to calculate the finish date for a 3
days task (24 hours in 3 days).

How can I get the finish dates to calculate properly?

 

[davegb]

I'm having trouble getting my finish date to calculate properly.
I have a small part time project that I am working on 2 hours a day (10
hour a week). I used the calendar tab user Tools/Options to set 'Hours
per day' to 2 and the 'Hours per week' to 40.

Are your hrs/wk set to 10 or 40? Your description indicates both. It
should be set to 10.

The problem is that my finsih dates are not calculated properly when I
enter a duration.

For example, I have a task starting on 05/17/2006 with a duration of 12
days. Project gives me a finish date of 05/19/2006. This gives me a 3
day task but it will really take 16 days.

This is a task that will take 24 hours. Since I am only working 2
hours a day it will take 12 days to finish the task so I should have a
finish date of 06/02/2006. But I think that when I enter 12 days
Project calcualtes this at 2 hours per day, for a total of 24 hours.
Then it still uses the 8 hour day to calculate the finish date for a 3
days task (24 hours in 3 days).

How can I get the finish dates to calculate properly?

Remove all resources. Make the task Fixed Work. Set the work to 24 hrs.
Assign yourself to the task. This should give you 12 d duration.
Hope this helps in your world.

 

[chambersdon]

Sorry, that was a typo. The hours per week is set to 10.
It seems that when calcualting the 'Finish Date' it still uses 8 hours
a day.

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

Duration is always stored and computed in hours (actuallu in 1/10 minutes if
you want to be exact). The "Hours per day" and "Hours per week" entries are
the conversion factors that project uses so that when you say a task will
take "3 days" it knows that that duration is supposed to be 3*X hours. But
these fields are ONLY conversion factors and don't effect HOW Project
schedules the work. That's the function of the working time calendar.
Imagine your working time calendar is the default standard calendar, 8am-5pm
M-F. The celandar is saying the out of the 24 hour day, the minutes between
8 and 5 (less lunch) count to burn up duration. But you have set "Hours
per day" to be 2, your example. You enter a task with a duration of 10 days
and it starts Monday 8am. 10 days means the task is 20 hours in length.
The calendar says starting at 8am on Monday, we will have burned up 20 hours
of duation on Wednesday at 12 noon. Soooo, the 10 day task will be shown
starting Mon at 8 and ending Wed at 12.

I would suggest you set everything to the default, 8 hours per day, 40 hours
per week, standard calendar. Enter the task as a 3 day (ie 24 hour)duration
task and assign yourself to it 100%. Now two hours a day are 25% of your
workday so edit your assignment from 100% down to 25%. You'll see the end
date of the task move out to the correct day and the duration change to read
12 days (12 days @ 25% units = 24 man-hours of work).