New Tasks added to plan start in the past (resource leveling)

[Paul]

I can't figure out why newly added tasks to my established plan are given a start date in the past
I've set up my plan using Work, Predecessors & Resource assignments exclusively (i.e. no fixed dates). When the week is through, I enter everyone's actual time in the Resource Usage sheet. If someone works less then 8 hours a day, I change the working time to the number of hours worked
I'm using the Level by "Priority, Standard" option. I use prority to keep tasks together. I've set the priority of my new task to be the same as tasks currently in-progress. When I run the leveling, it starts the task two months in the past. So I looked at the day it started the task, and the resource was fully allocated for the day in question. After the leveling, the resource picked up an additional .47 hrs for the day. (9.47 now displayed in red). As far as resource allocation % goes, I have resources assigned 100% to a single task at a time.

 

[John Beamish]

Tools | Options | Schedule-tab lets you choose whether newly-added tasks are
initially scheduled with the project start date or the current date.

If you choose "the current date" there is an explicit "Start No Earlier
than" constraint applied to the task.

I can't figure out why newly added tasks to my established plan are given a start date in the past.
I've set up my plan using Work, Predecessors & Resource assignments

exclusively (i.e. no fixed dates). When the week is through, I enter
everyone's actual time in the Resource Usage sheet. If someone works less
then 8 hours a day, I change the working time to the number of hours worked.

I'm using the Level by "Priority, Standard" option. I use prority to keep

tasks together. I've set the priority of my new task to be the same as
tasks currently in-progress. When I run the leveling, it starts the task
two months in the past. So I looked at the day it started the task, and the
resource was fully allocated for the day in question. After the leveling,
the resource picked up an additional .47 hrs for the day. (9.47 now
displayed in red). As far as resource allocation % goes, I have resources
assigned 100% to a single task at a time.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Paul,

I've seen something similar, and the clues you give make me think the
following creates the problem:
Both % allocation and Max Units are rounded into tens-of-minutes times, adn
that rounding is sometimes troubling.
I've indeed run into cases where rounding of hours to work yielded an
overallocation say by 0.1 minute on a day - but for leveling, the resource
was overallocated on that day, this is an overallocation it cannot resolve,
so it abandons calculation for that day altogether and there is your second
task and it doesn't move.

Still, I haven't seen it happening when the working time was introduced as
Actual Work.
Do you have any Work in the past that is not actual work? If yes, why?
Planning undone work in the past is not realistic.
And BTW, why change capacity in the past? You aren't going to re-plan
thatare you?

HTH
--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/index.htm
32-495-300 620

Thanks. That's helpful. I've been adding that constraint by hand.

Still bugs me that I've been so careful to make sure everyone's at their

max units and level still assigns the task to a max-ed out date.

 

[Paul]

Do you have any Work in the past that is not actual work? If yes, why?

For the *most* part No, I don't have Work in the past. Most of the time when a task doesn't get worked as planned, I reschedule the task in the future, each week. Once in a while, I don't reschedule un-worked tasks because I haven't decided what I'm going to do about the situation. In those cases, I leave the task as-is until I've decided what to do about it.

Planning undone work in the past is not realistic.
And BTW, why change capacity in the past? You aren't going to re-plan
thatare you?

I change capacity during my weekly updates, because I thought it might play into the leveling algorithm. If someone left early and only put in 6 hours (assuming 8 as max), I didn't want leveling to try to start the task in the remaining 2 hours available - which as you mention is not realistic, because the available time is in the past. I figured, if I had all resources 100% from the start of the project to now, leveling would place the task in the next available position (relative to the assigned priority)

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Paul,

I would still put the "undecided" tasks after today (for instance by using
Reschedule Work). Then leave past capacity alone, Leveling will not push any
task into the past.
HTH

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/index.htm
32-495-300 620

For the *most* part No, I don't have Work in the past. Most of the time

when a task doesn't get worked as planned, I reschedule the task in the
future, each week. Once in a while, I don't reschedule un-worked tasks
because I haven't decided what I'm going to do about the situation. In
those cases, I leave the task as-is until I've decided what to do about it.

I change capacity during my weekly updates, because I thought it might

play into the leveling algorithm. If someone left early and only put in 6
hours (assuming 8 as max), I didn't want leveling to try to start the task
in the remaining 2 hours available - which as you mention is not realistic,
because the available time is in the past. I figured, if I had all
resources 100% from the start of the project to now, leveling would place
the task in the next available position (relative to the assigned priority)

 

[Paul]

I would still put the "undecided" tasks after today (for instance by using
Reschedule Work). Then leave past capacity alone, Leveling will not push any
task into the past.
HTH

That's exactly my problem, leveling DOES push tasks into the past. Not only does it put them in the past, but it overallocates people to do it!

I did as you suggested. I looked for every incomplete task and made sure it was rescheduled in the future. Then I entered everybody's time for the week (leveling set to off). After everyone's time is in the plan, I run leveling. This week I had a task starting 6/14 move back to 6/8. The task has a Start No Earlier then 5/23/2004 constraint and doesn't have any dependencies.

 

[Steve House]

Are you posting the hours that your resources have put on the tasks into the
Work field or into the Actual Work field? Just plain Work is planned work,
even if it's presently shown as in the past, and can move around. Actual
Work is history and will stay put. By "Capacity" I presume you mean the
resource's maximum availability and their calendar hours. I'd suggest never
changing the calendar to reflect someone didn't put in a full day nor
changing their maximum availability. In a previous message you gave example
of a resource scheduled to work 8 hours in a day but leaving 2 hours early.
The schedule resource usage view will initially show 8 hours scheduled that
day. You do not change that work value!!!! Right click so you can add the
Actual Work row to the view and put 6 hours in there. The Work row will
also now show 6 hours but most importantly it is NOT the equivalent of
editing the plain Work field. Chaging Work from 8 to 6 means the task
really is expected to take 2 hours less time to do than originally
estimated. Posting 6 in Actual Work and letting it chage Work on its own
means the task actually still requires 8, we've done 6, and the remaining 2
hours has to be rescheduled into the future. Initially Project will add it
to the end of the task. If that's still in the future, that's all we have
to do. If the task was supposed to end sometime in the past but hasn't, the
two hours is simply lumped in at the end of the uncompleted portion. The
earliest time work can be done that we should have done in the past but
didn't do, is sometime in the future. So after posting in those actual
hours for the whole lot, run the "Reschedule Uncompleted Work After" tool to
move the uncompleted portion of all the tasks forward to whenever you think
they'll get back to it. Do


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

That's exactly my problem, leveling DOES push tasks into the past. Not

only does it put them in the past, but it overallocates people to do it!

I did as you suggested. I looked for every incomplete task and made sure

it was rescheduled in the future. Then I entered everybody's time for the
week (leveling set to off). After everyone's time is in the plan, I run
leveling. This week I had a task starting 6/14 move back to 6/8. The task
has a Start No Earlier then 5/23/2004 constraint and doesn't have any
dependencies.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

If the Constraint is start not earlier than May 23, and you seem too refuse
to block the task by entering actual work (we all suggested that several
times) then Project will schedule the task on May 23rd (why not?) and from
there leveling will only put ot forward.
Either you put in a constraint with a later date (f.i. by reschedule work)
or you put in Actuals that will fix the task.
You can hardly complain about project doing exactly what you want (i.e.
respect the constraint date).
HTH

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/index.htm
32-495-300 620

That's exactly my problem, leveling DOES push tasks into the past. Not

only does it put them in the past, but it overallocates people to do it!

I did as you suggested. I looked for every incomplete task and made sure

it was rescheduled in the future. Then I entered everybody's time for the
week (leveling set to off). After everyone's time is in the plan, I run
leveling. This week I had a task starting 6/14 move back to 6/8. The task
has a Start No Earlier then 5/23/2004 constraint and doesn't have any
dependencies.

 

[Paul]

Yes. I've always been using Actual Work when I've been entering the time the team members have reported. Forgive me for not making that explicit enough. Poor assumption on my part, but the part where I refused something is lost on me.

The only reason I decided to change Calender Working Time was to prevent Project from rescheduling my "not started" tasks in the past during leveling.

So the only solution to prevent leveling from moving a task into the past is to put a "Start No Earlier Than" constraint on the task? (Either manually or with the Reschedule Work function?)