Problems with timesheet updates

[Arthur]

Hi

We have been running an implementation project for Project Server in our
company. We use Project Server 2003 and Project Pro 2003, both with latest
servicepacks. We have checked that all software has latest servicepacks as
part of the project. We used the EIF2002 for our implementation project, we
started out in september 2006, had pilot in january, rollout in february and
have been reporting all ours in Project Server from Mars. We use
administrative prosjects for none project time. Some groups have reported all
hours from january(pilot groups). Pilot did not result in any changes, thus
we continued on the same version for production. We do not use managed
timeperiods. We report "Hours of work done per day or per week", we only use
enterprise projects, we do not use master projects.

Recently(last two reporting sycles) we discovered problems in a few
projects. Hours(Actual work) not reported suddenly appeares in Project Pro
2003, when we check the timesheets we find these correct. In project Pro
several tasks is marked as completed, actual work is somehow set to equal to
work. Project Manager has not "messed" with percent complete.

Another problem is the administrative project, hours(actual work) reported
does not emerge in the administrative project when we open this in Project
Pro. Again the timesheet in PWA is correct.

Have anyone seen any problems like this before? What are we doing wrong? Can
we trust Project Server? Is there some way we can force the hours that we see
in PWA into the projects in Project Pro 2003?

/Arthur

 

[Gary L. Chefetz [MVP]]

Arthur:

The problem you describe here:

Recently(last two reporting sycles) we discovered problems in a few
projects. Hours(Actual work) not reported suddenly appeares in Project Pro
2003, when we check the timesheets we find these correct. In project Pro
several tasks is marked as completed, actual work is somehow set to equal
to
work. Project Manager has not "messed" with percent complete.

In project, Actual Work always equals Work when a task is complete. Think
about it, how can you "plan" to finish a completed task at any other value
for Work than the value of Actual Work? Makes sense, right? When you managed
time periods, the official work record is always the web tables. With this
option selected, the system never lets you have work values in the project
that do not match the web tables. When this option is turned off, the
Project Manager can make changes in the project that change the actual work
value and system won't complain about it. So, if a PM marks a task complete
by changing the percent complete, the system accrues the remaining work on
the task as actual work that wasn't reported through Web Access. This is
normal behavior. If you want to re-synch these values, you can use Publish >
Republish and select to overwrite the actual work recorded in the timesheet.
This pushes the values in the Project to the web tables. If your PMs want to
update a task to 100% complete without affecting the actual work values,
they must do this by changing remaining work on the assignments to zero.
This avoids the actual work accrual and most likely affects what probably
happened in your system. Does the following scenario sound plausible?

A resource updated a task with their time and sent it to the PM
The PM updated the information into the project
The following week or the next day the PM had a conversation with the
resource who said "by the way, I finished that task."
The PM decides to make that update directly in the project plan and viola,
your actual work is out of synch.

The resource should have adjusted remaining work in the timesheet.
The PM should have adjusted remaining work in project

This indicates a lack of training in fundamentals on both sides of the
equation.

So, I don't believe that the PM didn't "mess with percent complete."


--


Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
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