milestone time

[Markarina]

rightly or wrongly I have a project with a number of milestones and I
need a number of tasks that need to be completed by the end of the
milestone day, however milestone dates always seem to set themselves
at the start of the desired day and I can't see an option to set them
to be the end of the day.

The logic behind this, is that I have some fixed dates and I need to
see how much work I can fit in by the milestones, so I'm trying to set
the milestones and work back.

cheers

Mark

 

[Jim Aksel]

Use a Deadline instead, they finish at 5:00PM.
You can also key the date and time into the finish date: 11/08/2008 5:00PM
but this creates date constraints.
--
If this post was helpful, please consider rating it.

Jim Aksel, MVP

Check out my blog for more information:
http://www.msprojectblog.com

 

[DavidC]

Hi Markarina

You can set the time for the activity as well.

Hence the finish would be dd/mm/yy hh:mm, or in American version, mm/dd/yy
hh:mm. Go to "tools/options" and select the "view" tab. Set the date format
to show the time as well, then change the time from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm on you
milestones.

Normally all start times are set to a morning time, and of course a
milestone will only be seen as having a start, where the finish is the same
time, not the other way around.

Unfortunately it does mean manual input. The other option, although it will
look wrong, is to sert the milestone date as the day after, hence any
activities need to be completed by the day before to meet the milestone. It
could be argued that this is appropriate since you have met the milestone if
you finish at 4:59:59 on the day, and that is in effect then the milestone
starting at 8:00am the next day.

That approach though will not give you any float for the unknown that
inevtiably happens in most projects, so having the milsetone left as the end
date but first thin in the morning, gives you that day to finish any last
minute items.

Hope this helps

Regards

DavidC

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

For what it's worth, a milestone is not a date nor is a date a milestone. A
milestone is an event, a change of state. The proposal has the initial
status of not approved, then instantly changes into the state of being
approved when it's signed off so work can proceed, that sort of thing. And
that change of status will happen whenever it happens - they may, and often
do, have very important deadlines that they need to meet - but they happen
when the work driving them is done and that might end up being before, on,
or (God forbid!) after the deadline. Projects always create something and
those deliverables are what the work creates. Most projects need an exact
amount of deliverable - if you require 100 widgets you can't stop work at 90
just because you've hit a deadline nor will you keep working and make 110 if
you've finished the 100 earlier than the deadline. You must make exactly
100, no more and no less, regardless of how long it takes. While seeing how
many widgets could be made in a certain date range might useful to help
estimating the work required, it's not going to be a very viable way of
generating a workable schedule that leads to a specific, defined, outcome.

Just some thoughts, hope they help...

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

Davis C gave the solution, but just for the sake of completeness, it's even
simpler than that
You don't have to change the date format to be able to ENTER a date/time
combination such as xx/xx/xx hh:mm, that is possible wherever you can enter
a date. Moreover, if you use Must finish on as a constraint instead of Must
Start on, the exact date/time is at the end of day.

HTH

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
+32 495 300 620
For availability check:
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/Calendar.pdf