Monthly Recurring Task

[roppy5]

Is there an automated way to create a task calendar for a monthly recurring
task (at the summary task level)? I have a task that takes place the first
Thursday of every month (duration of 4h). When I create the task calendar, I
can select the days of the week and make them non-working time. I leave the
first Thursday open and change the working time for it to account for the 4
hour duration. I then have to manually change the remaining Thursdays to
non-working time. I can do this manually but the task runs for the next 4
years and I have other monthly recurring tasks as well. I did not load
resources at the task level because this ends up crashing the computer (I
wrote about this issue in this forum before).

-
roppy5

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

roppy5 --

Why don't you create a Recurring Task for this purpose using Insert -
Recurring Task? Set the Recurrence Pattern to Monthly on the first Thursday
of every month. Set the Duration of each occurrence to 4 hours and set the
End After value to 48 occurrences. Just a thought. Hope this helps.

 

[roppy5]

Dale,
Thanks for the reply. Actually, setting up the recurring task is ok. Its
allocating a resource to it at the summary level. If I allocate the resource
at the task level, the calculations are correct (48 x 4h = 192h). However,
doing this when the plan has several recurring tasks will cause the computer
to crash. The solution, from my research, to the crashing problem is to
assign resources at the summary level. When I do this, I end up getting
8164h for the same task. The solution was to create a task calendar. So
back to my original question, is it possible to create a monthly task
calendar that will make only the 1st Thursday (for a 4h duration) of every
month available as the working time? I can make M,T,W,F all non-working
days. I then have to manually make the 1st TH's working time for 4H.
Finally, I make the remaining THs non-working. I was hoping there was an
easier way to do this. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks again for the response,

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

You're confusing duration and work. The duration of a recurring task is the
number of possible working hours between when the first occurrence starts
and when the last occurrence ends, regardless of whether work is performed
in those hours or not. In your case that is 8164 hours, 4 years @ ~2000
working hours per year. The work is the number of those hours where work on
the task actually takes place, 48 meetings @ 4 hours per meeting, or 192
hours per resource. The numbers you were getting without using task
calendars are absolutely correct.

Recurring tasks are the exception to the rule of never to assign resources
to summary tasks. Assigning resource to the recurring summary will populate
the assignments down to all of the individual occurrences.

Forget the task calendar. Put in your recurring task occurring the first
Thur of each month, duration 4 hours, continue for 48 occurrences. Assign
your resources to the summary. That's all it takes.
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer/Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

 

[roppy5]

Steve,
Thanks for the reply. I actually did what you suggested first. It makes
sense that it would work but it doesn't. I just tried it again. Setting up
a recurring task that end after 48 monthly occurrences ends up giving me a
duration of 1020.5 days and work totalling 8164h. The work should only equal
4h x 48 = 192h. I know it sounds very basic but hence my question.

Thanks again.

 

[Steve House]

How many resources are there on the task? It'll be 192 hours of work for
EACH resource. If 10 people are at the meeting, that means the work will be
1920 hours. The duration in the summary makes sense as that's about 4 years
worth of working days (4*(365.25 -104)) but the work is a puzzle. When you
entered the recurring task did you specify 4 hours in the duration block of
the entry form? What do your resource assignments look like?

Steve House [MVP]

 

[roppy5]

Steve,
I did specify 4h for the duration. As for as my resource assignments, I
only used one resource to test the calculation. It just doesn't work.

Thanks again for your comments!

 

[Steve House]

When I set it up to test with one resource it gave me a duration of 8164
hours and work of 192 hours. Either there's something else going on you
haven't mentioned or the file is corrupted. If you'd care to send a copy
email I'll take a look at it for you. sjhouse at hotmail dot com

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

For those who may have been following this, roppy sent me his file and it
appears to me he may have found a legit anomaly in MSP. When you create a
recurring task and then assign a resource by way of selecting the name from
the pulldown picklist obtained by clicking in the Resource Name box on the
recurring task's summary line in the entry table, the resource assignment
does not propagate down to the individual task occurences. It stays with
the summary line and shows total work equal to the summary duration times
the hours in the resource calendar. For a 4-hour duration task, occuring
once a week for 48 occurances, with a resource who works an 8-hour calendar
assigned to it, it shows a duration of 235.5 days, which is correct, and a
work value of 1884 hours (235.5*8) which is not correct. This only occurs
when you assign the resource through the pulldown picklist in the entry
table. Oddly, when you display the "Assign Resources" dialog box with the
recurring summary line selected the assignment units field next the the
resource name is blank. If one deletes the resource name in the Gantt chart
entry table, then assigns him by by selecting the recurring summary line,
selecting the name in the Assign Resources popup dialog, and clicking the
Assign button, the name goes to the individual task occurances, not the
summary line, and the summary work value is the correct sum of the work on
the individual task items. In the above example, the summary duration
remains at 235.5 days but the summary work becomes 192 hours as it should.
The name also now shows "100%" (or the assigned level) beside it in the
units column of the assignment dialog box.
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer/Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs