line of dots preceding task bar?

[davegb]

I've finally figured out what causes the line of dots to the left of a
task bar in the Gantt chart. To recreate this, create a task in the
Gantt, give it a duration of several days, assign a full time resource
to it. Go to the task usage view, and on the first day there was
supposed to be work done, put in 0hrs actual work. Coninue putting in
0 hrs actual work for several days. Then enter some hours of actual
work. Go back to the Gantt. There will be a line of dots (like in a
split task) from the original start date to the start of actual work,
where the blue bar will start.
Now that I've figured out how to create this problem, any ideas on how
to remove the dots and just show the task as the blue bar portrays it,
without the preceding dots.
I've tried changing task type, changing duration, Start, actual start.
So far, no luck. Any ideas from the project gurus will be gratefully
accepted! Guru in this case being anyone who can solve the problem.

David G. Bellamy
Bellamy Consulting

 

[Steve House]

Remove the zero hours entries from actual work for the days before anthing
was done, leave the actual work fields blank for the dates where none was
accomplished and entering hours on the first day any work was actually done
will set the actual start date to the day work was first reported and shift
the task as a block without the dots appearing. Once it starts, if there is
a day where no work was done go ahead and enter that as zero but don't enter
any "leading zeros".

 

[davegb]

Steve,
How do I remove the zeros? They pop back up as soon as I move to
another field if I try to delete them.
Dave

 

[Steve House]

Are you entering actual work in the Actual Work field or are you entering it
in the Work field? When I tried an example, I didn't have any problem
setting the Work field to 8 hours and deleting the entry in the Actual Work
field.

--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer/Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

 

[davegb]

Steve,
I've tried both, neither worked. I think I'm going to put this down as
another example of file instability that I've seen so much of with
this client's files.
Dave