Having MSP adjust units when I enter act. finish + act. work?

[Hannu Koivisto]

Greetings,

I'm experimenting with MSP's tracking features and faced a problem
I haven't been able to find a solution for (I've been reading a
book about MSP, online help, 30 pages of Google results from this
group, <http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm> and some articles in
web).

Suppose I have a task whose baseline start was estimated/scheduled
to be 2006-09-19, finish 2006-09-26 and only 7.5h of actual work,
resulting to 17% units given the used calendar. Task is of type
Fixed Units mainly because that works the best for me while I
fiddle with the initial plan.

I now know that the task was started and finished as scheduled but
14.5h of actual work was done. I haven't entered any
tracking/actual information this far. I select Task Sheet view and
Tracking table, which seems to contain all the information I need
to enter.

If I set actual start and actual finish dates, MSP calculates
actual work to be 1 day (7.5h), which is expected. But now I need
to correct that and I cannot figure out how. If I try to modify
actual work to be 14.5h, MSP adjusts the actual finish date later.
I have tried to disable automatic calculation via Tools -> Options
-> Calculation, change task type, enter real actual hours and %
comp. to 100% before setting actual finish date but no matter what
I do, MSP insists on keeping the units intact and updating either
actual finish or actual work when I update the other.

That is, if I have set actual start and actual finish, I would like
it to update actual units according to actual work. How would I
accomplish that?

 

[St Dilbert]

Try DEselecting "Updating task status updates resource status"; this
option can be found in the claculation tab of the Tools/options
dialogue.

 

[Hannu Koivisto]

Try DEselecting "Updating task status updates resource status"; this
option can be found in the claculation tab of the Tools/options
dialogue.

Sorry, I forgot to mention that I tried that as well (and I tried
it again, now) but it didn't have any effect on this.

 

[St Dilbert]

Annoying behavior isn't it? MSP keeps insisting on having better ACTUAL
data than yourself ;-)... There was a lengthy thread about this "In
favor of separating work and duration in tracking" just a few days ago
- you probably read it already.

I'm apparently using a very similar update process as yours, my actuals
data is processed by a macro that does a lot of math, converting and
updating for me; I tried to extract what you're looking for. If you
follow these steps:

1. Calculation is manual and option "Updating task status updates
resource status" is OFF.
2. store current task type (e.g. fixed units & effort driven) in local
variable (i.e. memorize or write down)
2. set task type to "fixed duration" for updating
3. If task actual start=N/A, set actual start now
4. set actual work and remaining work
5. set actual duration and remaining duration
6. calculate (F9)
7. restore original task type

I did a quick test and this sequence works in my installation - I hope
in yours too; I don't have a "vanilla" at hand and I've become so used
to my little helper macros that I have a hard time discerning whether I
can still reproduce standard MSP 2003 behavior.
(I'm shivering at the thought of what will happen to my customizations
with upgrade to 2007...)

 

[JulieS]

Hi Hannu,

I believe the difficulty you are having is that when you increase Actual
Work to 14.5 hours, Project assumes the original unit assignment of 17%
hold true.

I haven't tried St. Dilbert's method but I do have a suggestion that you
may find works for your situation.

Display the Task Usage View and add Actual Work to the timescaled
portion.(Format > Detail Style) Zoom out of the view until you see the
level of detail you need. (You may zoom out for example to see the 7.5
hours of work on the task for the month of September.) Add the Actual
Work of 14.5 hours. Project will increase the assignment units and
place the 14.5 hours within the original 6 days duration.

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie
Project MVP

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for the FAQs and additional information
about Microsoft Project

 

[St Dilbert]

I need to add more: above sequence works for your example when duration
is as planned and you have different work. If you have a change in
duration you need to update in task type "fixed work".

To sum it up: MSP is very reluctant to recalculate units.
MSP will only recalculate units if

a) task type is "fixed duration" and you change work

or

b) task type is "fixed work" and you change duration

So if your favorite task type is "fixed units" and you have changes in
both duration and work between plan and actual (isn't there always?)
then your in for a lot of task switching.

Annoying behavior isn't it? MSP keeps insisting on having better ACTUAL
data than yourself ;-)... There was a lengthy thread about this "In
favor of separating work and duration in tracking" just a few days ago
- you probably read it already.

I'm apparently using a very similar update process as yours, my actuals
data is processed by a macro that does a lot of math, converting and
updating for me; I tried to extract what you're looking for. If you
follow these steps:

1. Calculation is manual and option "Updating task status updates
resource status" is OFF.
2. store current task type (e.g. fixed units & effort driven) in local
variable (i.e. memorize or write down)
2. set task type to "fixed duration" for updating
3. If task actual start=N/A, set actual start now
4. set actual work and remaining work
5. set actual duration and remaining duration
6. calculate (F9)
7. restore original task type

I did a quick test and this sequence works in my installation - I hope
in yours too; I don't have a "vanilla" at hand and I've become so used
to my little helper macros that I have a hard time discerning whether I
can still reproduce standard MSP 2003 behavior.
(I'm shivering at the thought of what will happen to my customizations
with upgrade to 2007...)

Sorry, I forgot to mention that I tried that as well (and I tried
it again, now) but it didn't have any effect on this.

 

[Jack Dahlgren]

Sorry no, but you could create a "Business Processes" resource and use that
as a proxy for units.

 

[John]

All,

My apologies for tagging my question onto this somewhat old (from December)
thread, however, I can't get the "New Thread" functionality of the message
board to work. This thread was closest to my topic concern.

What I'm wondering is if MS Project allows one to set the units of work to
something other than units of time? For example, if one of my tasks was to
complete documentation of 57 business processes, could I set the units of
work as "business processes" so that when I update the actual work, MS
Project indicates how much of the required work has been completed, rather
than how much of the time I expected would be required has elapsed?

Thanks

ksmorris,
You really ought to get that "new thread" functionality working. It will
be a lot easier "tracking" your questions.

In Project, Work is always time related whether in minutes, hours, days,
etc. You can however set up a custom fields to track some other
quantity. For example, let's say you estimate 1 hour per business
process. Use the following process:
1. First set up the task as fixed work
2. Set up Text1 as the total number of processes (e.g. 57)
3. Set up Text2 as the time related rate per process using the following
formula (Note: you do NOT need this field if your rate is 1 hour per
process but it is convenient when a different rate is applicable. Also,
you do NOT need to show this field as a column)
Text2=[Text1]*1
4. Copy Text2
5. Go to Edit/Paste Special
6. Select Paste Link for text data and hit "OK" (The Work field will now
display the total hour content of the 57 processes - if calculation is
set for automatic)
7. Set up Text3 for entering the number of processes completed
8. Set up Test4 with the following formula (Again you don't need to
display this field as a column)
Text4=[Text3]/[Text1]*60
9. Use the same process as step 5 & 6 to link Text4 to the Actual Work
field

Now, all this may either seem pretty slick or pretty klugy, depending on
your point of view, but I'll caution you that using paste links can
cause file corruption if not used carefully. It is best if there are
only a few in the file.

John
Project MVP

 

[John]

John,

I must be especially dense this morning...what does "Text1," "Text2, " etc
refer to in your example? Where are you prpoposing setting these up? I can't
follow this, because I can't envision what part of MS Project you're working
in. It would be a nice trick to have under one's hat, corruption dangers
aside.

I'm guessing that if work can only be expressed as units of time in MS
Project, that Project Managers always require the Progress Reports submitted
to them to express prrogress as % work complete (not in elapsed time). Then
the Project Manager (or his Coordinator) interprets the % complete into hours
complete when updating Actual Work in MS Project?

Karen

Karen,
No, you're not "dense" - uranium is dense. The text fields I was
referring to are spare Task Text fields. You can display them in any
Task view by adding them as columns. You can also customize them with
the formulas I provided by going to Tools/Customize/Fields.

With regard to progress reporting, there are several ways to do so in
Project. One way is to enter % Complete (duration based). Another is by
entering % Work Complete (Work based). And yet another is to enter
Actual Work either as a composite or in timescale fashion via either the
Resource or Task Usage views.

It sounds like you are pretty new to Project (maybe you told us that
before - I don't remember). May I suggest you go to our MVP website at:
http://www.mvps.org/project/links.htm, and click on the link for fellow
MVP, Mike Glen's tutorials. That should give you a nice overview of how
to use Project.

John
Project MVP

All,

My apologies for tagging my question onto this somewhat old (from
December)
thread, however, I can't get the "New Thread" functionality of the
message
board to work. This thread was closest to my topic concern.

What I'm wondering is if MS Project allows one to set the units of work
to
something other than units of time? For example, if one of my tasks was
to
complete documentation of 57 business processes, could I set the units of
work as "business processes" so that when I update the actual work, MS
Project indicates how much of the required work has been completed,
rather
than how much of the time I expected would be required has elapsed?

Thanks

ksmorris,
You really ought to get that "new thread" functionality working. It will
be a lot easier "tracking" your questions.

In Project, Work is always time related whether in minutes, hours, days,
etc. You can however set up a custom fields to track some other
quantity. For example, let's say you estimate 1 hour per business
process. Use the following process:
1. First set up the task as fixed work
2. Set up Text1 as the total number of processes (e.g. 57)
3. Set up Text2 as the time related rate per process using the following
formula (Note: you do NOT need this field if your rate is 1 hour per
process but it is convenient when a different rate is applicable. Also,
you do NOT need to show this field as a column)
Text2=[Text1]*1
4. Copy Text2
5. Go to Edit/Paste Special
6. Select Paste Link for text data and hit "OK" (The Work field will now
display the total hour content of the 57 processes - if calculation is
set for automatic)
7. Set up Text3 for entering the number of processes completed
8. Set up Test4 with the following formula (Again you don't need to
display this field as a column)
Text4=[Text3]/[Text1]*60
9. Use the same process as step 5 & 6 to link Text4 to the Actual Work
field

Now, all this may either seem pretty slick or pretty klugy, depending on
your point of view, but I'll caution you that using paste links can
cause file corruption if not used carefully. It is best if there are
only a few in the file.

John
Project MVP

:

Hi Hannu,

I believe the difficulty you are having is that when you increase
Actual
Work to 14.5 hours, Project assumes the original unit assignment of 17%
hold true.

I haven't tried St. Dilbert's method but I do have a suggestion that
you
may find works for your situation.

Display the Task Usage View and add Actual Work to the timescaled
portion.(Format > Detail Style) Zoom out of the view until you see the
level of detail you need. (You may zoom out for example to see the 7.5
hours of work on the task for the month of September.) Add the Actual
Work of 14.5 hours. Project will increase the assignment units and
place the 14.5 hours within the original 6 days duration.

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie
Project MVP

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for the FAQs and additional information
about Microsoft Project



Try DEselecting "Updating task status updates resource status"; this
option can be found in the claculation tab of the Tools/options
dialogue.

Sorry, I forgot to mention that I tried that as well (and I tried
it again, now) but it didn't have any effect on this.

 

[Steve House]

Sorry but no. 'Work' is a measure of the amount of effort, energy, expended
by a resource in accomplishing a certain result. It's unit is not a unit of
time, contrary from what you might expect given the common use of the term
'hours' to describe it. But reference to work "hours" is just shorthand for
the actual unit of 'man-hour,' which is a unit used to measure human energy
consumption quite analgous to the unit 'kilowatt-hour' used to measure
electrical energy consumption. A 1 kilowatt space heater running for 1 hour
consumes 1 kilowatt-hour. A 1 kilowatt space-heater running for 10 hours
consumes 10 kilowatt-hours. 10 1-kilowatt space heaters running for 1 hour
also consumes 10 kilowatt hours. That's exactly the same situation as 1
resource working 100% for 10 hours or 10 resources working 100% for 1 hour
expending the same energy and impacting the project budget by the same
amount.