Hours and days

[BobA]

I've a enterprise level project where I need to be able to report the days
expected to complete a task AND the total hours required.

Since there are multiple dependancies with almost all tasks, it is necessary
to schedule and track hours and days.

For example, if task "A" is slotted to take Bill 8 hours, but it will be
spread across 3 days - how can I assign that task as 8 hours but still
schedule it to reflect over a 3 day period.

I'd like to insert a new 'time' column that would track to the resource, but
not affect the duration shown.

Thanks in advance

 

[JulieS]

Hello BobA,

What I believe you are trying to differentiate between is what Project
calls "Duration" -- what you are calling days expected to complete a
task -- and "Work" -- total hours required.

In your example of task A - the duration is 3 days, and Bill is assigned
at 33% assignment unit and generates 8 hours of work over the 3 day
duration.

I think the easiest way to see the relationship between Duration, Work,
and Assignment units is to work in the Task Entry View. To display the
Task Entry View -- from a Gantt Chart View choose Window > Split to
split the screen horizontally. Create task a and set a 3 day duration.
In the task form at the bottom *temporarily* set the task as fixed
duration and click the OK button in the Task form. Click underneath the
Resource Name heading and select Bill from the list or resources -- go
to the Work column in the task form and enter 8 hours. Click OK to have
Project calculate the 33% assignment unit.

Fellow MVP Mike Glen has an excellent series of articles on MS Project
at:
http://project.mvps.org/mike's_tutorials.htm

Article #5 gives a very good overview and I think it will help you.

To your comment that you'd like to be able to change Work and not have
it change duration -- that is what fixed duration task types will do.
*However* -- realize if you change the duration to less than 1 day, that
will increase Bill's assignment units to over 100% and Bill will become
overallocated.

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

 

[BobA]

JulieS,

Thanks so much - I've a follow up question. After originally posting this, I
came across a tidbit of info that led me to think that the 'Actual Work'
column might be what I was looking for. I've added the Actual Work column to
my project plan and have started to populate with hours - it does not seem to
affect my Duration, but I thought I'd run it by you to see if you can see an
long term issues as far as reporting, etc...


BobA

 

[Jonathan Sofer]

If you are just entering actual hours against the task level with the basic
project options set, it will match what was scheduled for those resources on
a day by day basis for the resources and should not affect the duration
until you start entering more actuals then was scheduled in which case your
duration will be affected.

There are many options you can play with in Tools>Options that will change
the way project behaves as well as different task types and effort/non
effort driven that will cause different behaving when you add or remove,
resources, units, work and durations. I suggest reading through what Julie
gave you in order to get more comfortable with these concepts as they can
get complicated quickly.

Jonathan

 

[BobA]

Nope, that didn't work (Actual Cost) - it keeps changing the percentage
complete.

I need to be able to create something similiar, somthing like an "Extimated
Hours" or "Estimated Cost" etc...

I look to you experts for any additional insight.

Bob

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Bob,

Do mind the difference between Work (means planned work) and Actual Work
(means Work done so far)
First you enter Work, when the task is (partially ) done you enter Actual
Work, and if needed, Remaining Work.
Hope this helps,

 

[JulieS]

Hello BobA,

It appears as both Jan and Jonathan have weighed in with some good
information. As Jan said, Work is what you want to use when *planning*
the project. Actual (and remaining) work will be used to track
reality -- what happened. The process is plan your tasks using Work,
Duration, and Assignment Units to set up the project. Once you have
finished planning as best you can, save a baseline for the project.
That will copy:

Work to Baseline Work
Duration to Baseline Duration
Cost to Baseline Cost
Start to Baseline Start
Finish to Baseline Finish

Then you can begin tracking by supplying actual work and remaining work.
You can then compare Baseline work against actual work.

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

 

[BobA]

Thank you much - I've never really considered using the 'Work' column (I
don't know, I assumed it was something other than planned work).

I really appreciate all of your time.

This is a great support tool.

BobA

 

[JulieS]

You're most welcome BobA and thanks for the feedback. Do post
additional questions should you need any further assistance.

Julie
Project MVP

 

[JulieS]

Hi BobA,

Don't worry, you are most certainly *not* a burden -- that's why we're here
-- to answer questions

If you wish to see the work per day or per month, take a look at the Task
Usage or Resource Usage view.

When you enter in Work, it will spread the work evenly across the duration
of the task. For example: if you have a 10 day fixed-duration task and you
assign Sue and enter 20 hours of work, Project will calculate Sue's
assignment unit at 25%. The 25% assignment unit indicates that for each 1
hour in duration which passes, Sue can generate .25 hour (15 minutes) of work
during that 1 hour duration. If you view the Task Usage (or Resource Usage)
view, you can see the 2 hours of work per day for the 10 days.

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

Julie
Project MVP

 

[BobA]

Sorry to be a burden, but neither Work nor Baseline is giving me what I want.

When I baseline the project, it takes the Baseline hours and mutliples it by
the duration - which is totally NOT what I need.

I need a column that I can load estimated hours into and then pull a
resource report to reflect estimated hours per day/ week/ month so management
can plan the needed resources.

BobA

 

[BobA]

Yep, that works great for 1 to 1 relationships, but what happens when I have:

Bill needs to order a server, it will take Bill 2 hours to research and
purchase. BUT it take 45 days for that server to come in. I have to account
for the 45 days since all tasks after need to be dependent on the server
arriving.

How would I set that up to capture both Bill's time and the lag time for the
purchase to be complete?

BobA

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Bob,

Exactly the way reality is.
You make a 2 hrs task for Bill (say it is task 56) then all dependent tasks
need a relationship 56FS+45d
That reflects reality: it "frees Bill up" after the 2 hours
Hope this helps

 

[John Sitka]

->>Exactly the way reality is.

2 hours of work WILL take an IT person 45 days to accomplish.
Since the rest of the world sees it this way, may as well live up to expectations.

I hope poking fun at IT can help BobA see a possible flaw in the idea of a task.
Unless of course he works for Dell which in that case he may want to track the work of
the server build, or UPS, where he may want to track the in transit time.

The point being, why schedule "wait states" as tasks, does that not, in itself misrepresent the act of doing?
And if that misrepresentation was removed, does that not also solve the problem of your initial post?

task56 Research and order server Work 2 hours
task57 Receive Server Work .25 hours

task57's predecessor is task56 in a finish to start relationship with a lag of 45 days.

One other gotcha....Realize that all tasks after 57 will probably not
take advantage of an early server delivery. Sequential tasks 58 and up will
rarely be waiting on day 30 after the server order to pick up that server and run with it.
Which if they did, could greatly help the health of the project?