General Task Setup Question

[Roman Benko]

I am new to Project and noticed that when I downloaded some of the sample
templates from here, the last task of every major section had a task titled
"section completed" with a duration of zero days. For example, if a major
section is titled "Analysis and Design", the last task of that section is
titled "Analyis and Design Completed" and has a duration of zero days.

Can someone explain the purpose of this? Isn't a section considered
complete if all of the tasks in it are marked as 100% complete? I am tempted
to omit this task, but am worried that it will come back to haunt me later.

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Roman Benko]

John

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my question. Your answer makes
sense and now I have a better understanding. I appreciate your help.

 

[John]

I am new to Project and noticed that when I downloaded some of the sample
templates from here, the last task of every major section had a task titled
"section completed" with a duration of zero days. For example, if a major
section is titled "Analysis and Design", the last task of that section is
titled "Analyis and Design Completed" and has a duration of zero days.

Can someone explain the purpose of this? Isn't a section considered
complete if all of the tasks in it are marked as 100% complete? I am tempted
to omit this task, but am worried that it will come back to haunt me later.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Roman,
I'm not familiar with the makeup of the templates but it's pretty easy
to figure out the intent. Yes it is true that a Summary Line (i.e.
section) is complete if all its subtasks are 100% complete. However some
people like to also show a completion milestone for each major group of
tasks. The last task you see is simply that completion milestone. That
is why it has a duration of 0 days.

Although having completion milestones is a personal preference they can
be useful for various things. For example, a completion milestone can be
used to show a quick summary of the overall project (i.e. filter on
milestones). Another common use for milestones is for setting a Deadline
Date (Deadline field/column) to track schedule performance to the
deadline.

Deleting the completion milestones from your plan will not hurt anything
and it is doubtful it will haunt you. Besides, you can always add them
back in if you think they might be useful.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

 

[Sarah]

I sometimes use those "section complete" milestones if another task
depends on the entire section being complete. That way, I can link all
of the section's tasks to the final milestone, then link that milestone
to the successor task, instead of having to link every task in the
section to the successor task. Again, personal preference, but
sometimes completion milestones can make for a cleaner plan.
Sarah
kikos@(removethis)nationwide.com

 

[Roman Benko]

Sarah:

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my question. Based on the feedback
I've received, I can now see the benefit of doing this. I appreciate you
getting back to me.