Fixed Units Date Calculation with regards to Timesheets

[Andy Novak]

Sorry folks. Didn't mean to be so negative. The challenge is
regarding "lowering the boom" on the team members is that we are
unfortunately in a higher-ed organization. In higher-ed (University
environment), there are not too many "mandates" to be found. Much
everything is done by concensus. Make sense? So, our culture doesn't
support a great deal of rigor when it comes to things outside of
"doing the work".

Now..I think I've found something close to what might work here and
let me run this by you nice folks.

Switching to entering % complete + remaining hours on the timesheet
might be a bit more managable with our people. Besides, we really
aren't driven by hours worked here, but rather DATES. Since hours is
the only way to enter remaining time (in order to reposition the end
date), that's all we've got.

For that reason, I have chosen "Fixed Units" (Non-effort-driven) for
our default task type. We don't want dates to shift because there
are three people assigned vs. 5 people vs. 1 person, etc. As far as
we're concerned, the resources are simply for informational purposes
only so that everyone knows which tasks they are involved with
(especially for the Resource Usage report).


I've been experimenting with progress updates manually in the Task
Usage view prior to seeing what this does through timesheet entry. In
the calcuation options section, I have selected "Move start of
remaining parts before status date forward to status date". I've done
this because if I go in today and enter 50% complete for a task that
was due to start and end last week, I want the tool to bring the
estimated finish date forward. Its OK for the tool to assume the task
started as scheduled as long as the end date is moved forward. I have
NOT chosen "and move end of remaining parts forward to status date"
because if I mark that task scheduled last week as 100%, I don't want
the tool to bring the finish date forward because future task
schedules will be shifted forward. In other words, its OK to assume
the task finished as scheduled if marked 100% complete after the fact.

Having said that, here's an issue I've run into that I would
appreciate insight on. This works beautifully when I have only one
resource assigned. For example, let's say I have Task One, 2 day
duration, with Resource One assigned. That will equate to 16 hours
work, with a start date of 2/16/04 and a finish date of 2/17/04.
Fair enough?

OK, if I enter 50% complete, the tool assumes the task actually
started on 2/16/04 and moves the finish date up to today's date (the
status date of 2/23/04). At this point, the remaining duration is 8
hours. Now, if I override the remaining duration and enter 16 hours,
the finish date will become tomorrow (2/24/04). However, if I had
marked the task 100% complete instead, the start date is 2/16/04, and
the end date still sits on the original which is 2/17/04. This is
all cool.

Now, if I have Resource One, and Resource Two assigned to this task,
the total work will be 32 hours (16 each) and the dates and duration
will be the same 2/16/04 and 2/17/04 and 2 days.

The strange thing is, once I mark Resource One at 50% complete,
although all I described above happens as planned, the START date for
Resource Two is changed to a day after the new end date for Resource
One BEFORE I am able to enter 50% complete for Resource Two. In other
words, I was expecting to enter 50% for both resource and then see
2/16/04 and 2/23/04 for BOTH with 8 hours remaining each. In the end,
the entire schedule is shifted yet another day.

I'm puzzled why this works this way after thinking I found the right
combination for the way we track things here. And, how can I acheive
what my vision is for date calculation? Once I solve this, I'll move
on to experimenting with timesheets relative to % Complete and Hours
Remaining.

Thanks much!
Andy Novak
University of North Texas

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Andy --

A simpler approach in using the % Work Complete methodology would be to ask
your people to submit an Actual Start date when they actually begin the
work, along with an estimated % Work Complete for the first week. While
they are performing their work each week, they should submit only an
estimated % Work Complete. When they actually finish the task, they should
submit only an Actual Finish date to you. That might make your life easier.
To do this, you would need to "push" the Actual Start and Actual Finish
fields to each user's timesheet in PWA by doing the following:

1. Open the project(s) in question
2. Click Tools - Customize - Published Fields
3. Copy these two fields to the right and select the option so that the
resource an edit them
4. Click OK
5. Click Collaborate - Publish - Republish Assignments
6. Click OK

You will then need to teach each user to move the Actual Start and Actual
Finish fields into view in their timesheet. For companies who use the %
Work Complete methodology, we recommend that the timesheet be set up to
display the fields in the following order:

Task Name
Actual Start
% Work Complete
Remaining Work
Actual Finish

This puts all four of the critical fields into view at the beginning of the
timesheet. Hope this helps.