How to create broken-up (or interrupted) task

[groj]

Hi,

I was wondering how to set up an interrupted task. By chance I saw the
tasks as in the attached image in my project plan.

I have also made a screen-shot of the Task Information dialog box if
that is some clue to you.

I have no idea -how- this was created, but think this is a really
useful way to describe that a task starts as a dependancy before another
task and then gets finished after the task that it depends on finishes.
How do I create such a task in MS Project?

Thanks a lot.

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi grog,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

I suspect the split was created when levelling the resources. Tools/Level
resources.../ Levelling can create splits in remaining work. You probably
have a higher priority task needing the same resource.

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

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

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP
See http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc for my free Project Tutorials

 

[JulieS]

Hello Groj,

To add to Mike's reply. You may also manually split a task in
several ways:

1. Click the Split task button on the standard toolbar and then
click on the task bar in the Gantt chart where you'd like to create
the split. Once the task is split you can drag the right side of
the task bar out further to increase the split.

2. If you have resources assigned, go to the Task Usage view and
edit the work on the right side to add zero work on days you'd like
the task to be split.

3. When a task has actual work and a partial percent complete,
rescheduling incomplete work will create a split in the task.

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

 

[groj]

Thanks for your responses. What surprised me was that this task split u
was a result of extending the dependent task, i.e. I extended the tim
it takes to finish task "Define scope of work". As a result tas
"Create draft project plan/schedule" got split up. However, and tha
surprised me, this task ("Create draft project...") did only have
constraint type "As Soon As Possible".

What also surprised me and what I like about this presentation is tha
the part of the task that I marked as x% complete (the black bar ove
the blue bar) is to the left of the vertical red "Current date" line.
So it really appears as if this is done and the rest still needs to b
done. If I set the x% complete to 25 then only 25% of that bar is t
the left of the "Current date" line, if I set it to 50 (as in th
attachment) then a greater amount of that bar was split off to th
left.

I played with a new project to see if I could recreate the scenario an
here is what I found out:


- go to Project/Project Information...
- enter as Start date 23/07/09
- go to Format/Gridlines and set "Current Date" to type solid/red
- create a "Task A" and assign it "2 days"
- create a "Task B" and assign it "2 days" and set its predecessor t
"1" (Task A)
- On "Task B" press Shift+F2 (Task Information)/General tab/Percen
complete "25%"
- extend "Task a" to "4 days" --> result is in attachment


I just don't know how I got it to align at "Current date" so, that th
completed part was before the current date and the uncompleted par
after the depedant task (Task A) finished.

However, if I change "Task B" back to 0% and again to 25% complete th
result looks different --> see second attachment. Is that a bug in th
software

+-------------------------------------------------------------------
|Filename: split_task.png
|Download: http://forums.techarena.in/attachment.php?attachmentid=9265
+-------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[JulieS]

Hello groj,

No, not a bug. When you enter a percent complete project
automatically assigns an Actual Start date to the task, effectively
"locking" the task to a specific date. Depending upon the settings
on the calculation tab regarding calculations for late or early
tasks, you may very well see tasks split. Go to Tools > Options,
and click the calculation tab. Select the Help button and read the
information on "Schedule adjustments for early and late tasks."

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