how do I schedule a task for one hour per day?

[Norm Bowler]

I have a well-understood task (reviewing the output of an automated daily
build) that I want to assign to one specific person for one hour per day over
a known range of dates.

I am new to Project, but am working with someone who has a lot of
experience. Neither one of us can make this work as expected. I have
experimented with various combinations of fixed-work tasks and assigning
resources at less than 100%, and have never gotten what I wanted.

Intuitively, it seems like if I define a task as 10 hours long and assign it
start day x and resource y allocated at 13%, the complete date should be 10
working days after the start date and the duration should still show as 10
hours.

Is there a way to do that in Project?

Thanks in advance for your replies,

nb

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Norm --

I believe you are confusing two very different fields in Microsoft Project,
which are the Duration and Work fields. The Duration field measures the
span of active working time on each task, measured from the Start date of
the task to the Finish date of the task, minus any non-working days. By
default, Microsoft Project measures the Duration field in Days. The Work
field measures the amount of actual work each resource will perform on the
task. By default, Microsoft Project measures the Work field in Hours.

In a scenario like yours, I like to think of the 10-day Duration as the
"window of opportunity" during which 10 hours of Work must actually be
performed. If I needed to model the behavior you seek, I might do it as
follows:

1. Apply the Gantt Chart view and select the task in question
2. Click Window - Split to apply the Task Entry view
3. In the lower pane, set the Task Type to Fixed Work and click OK
4. In the lower pane, select a resource, set the Work to 10 hours, and then
click OK
5. In the lower pane, change the Duration to 10 days and then click OK
6. Click Window - Remove Split

Hope this helps.

 

[NormBowler]

Dale: Thanks much. That's exactly what I was looking for. From reading
help, I had begun to catch the distinction between Duration and Work, but
couldn't see Work on the Task Information dialog and didn't know where else
to look.

I will pass this tip on to my team for scheduling low-load long-duration tasks

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Norm,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

You might like to have a look at my series on Microsoft Project in the
TechTrax ezine, particularly #5 - Working With Resources, at this site:
http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc or this:
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMFrame.asp?CMD=ArticleSearch&AUTH=23
(Perhaps you'd care to rate the article before leaving the site,
Thanks.)

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: <http://www.mvps.org/project/>

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP