Reporting actual overtime hours

[Bella]

Hi,

I would like my resoruces to be able to report actual overtime hours in PWA.
I published this field in Ms Pro and addedit to the view in PWA, but it
will not allow resources to enter any hours. How can I make the field
editable? We are entering information in the gantt view, should we be using
the timsheet view instead?

Has anyone else had this problem. Please help ...

Thanks,
Bella

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Bella --

What is your default method of tracking in PWA?

 

[Bella]

Dale,

Currently resources report via the gantt chart in PWA their actual work,
remaining work, actual start and actual finish dates to the PM.

Thanks,
Bella

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Bella --

Assuming you added the Actual Overtime Work field to the list of published
fields in each project using Tools - Customize _ Published Fields, then you
need to reopen every project and click Collaborate - Publish - Republish
Assignments and then click OK. Doing so will "push" this field to each
user's timesheet in PWA. Hope this helps.

 

[Bella]

Dale,

The field exists in the timesheet, but it will not allow any resource to
enter in overtime hours. The field is yellow, instead of white.

Thanks,
Bella

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Bella --

You stated that your team members enter their time in the Gantt Chart view
of the View my tasks page. This means that they enter Actual Work and
Remaining Work in the left side of the page, and that they cannot enter
actuals in the timesheet grid of the View my tasks page. You need to follow
the directions I gave you in my last post, unless I am totally
misunderstanding how your organization tracks project progress in PWA. Hope
this helps.

 

[Bella]

Dale,

Forgive me if I've confused you, but let me explain again how we have things
set up for reporting hrs:

In PWA under View My Tasks we are using the gantt sheet to enter in actual
work, remaining work, actual start, actual finish dates. I added the actual
overtime work field to both PWA and in the published field in Ms Pro. I did
notice that when I added this published field in Ms Pro that the option to
"allow resources to change field" was greyed out. (Why was I not able to
click on this as I did before when I published the actual start and finish
dates). I did re-publish this plan with the published field. The field
does shows up in PWA under View Tasks in the gantt, but it will not allow any
hours to be entered (field is yellow instead of white). Have I done
something wrong?

We are not using the timesheet view in PWA to report hours. Should we be?
I hope this helps.

Sincerely,
Bella

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Bella --

I can confirm what you state about adding the Actual Overtime Work field to
the list of published fields. Yes, you are correct in stating that the "Let
resource change field" option is grayed out for this field. This means that
resources cannot enter actuals in this field in their View my tasks page in
PWA. This situation may be an oversight on Microsoft's part, as I believe
that resources should be able to enter time into this field. Beyond this,
I'm not sure there's much you can do about the situation as I know of no way
to fix this problem. Perhaps the others would like to comment on their
ideas about this. Hope this helps.

 

[Bella]

Dale,

If I switch the method of reporting actuals to the timesheet view in PWA
will this problem be fixed. I did switch to the timsheet view and it showed
actual work and actual overtime fields that were still yellow and not white.
Resources are not able to enter in any hours this way either.

Please allow me to explain why I was hoping reosurces could report actual
overtime work:
A resources working calendar is set to work 7 hours. The standard calendar
is set to 7 hours/day also. Plans are created with finish to start
dependencies. We have set duration and work in hours and not days because of
the nature of our business. If a resource is scheduled 5 hours of work and
7 hour duration, yet she reports in PWA that it took her 10 hours to complete
the task, this will cause the plan to shift affecting all the successor tasks
start and finish dates (the resource has exceeded both the scheduled duration
and work). However, how should we deal with the fact that although the
resource took more time to work on the task than was scheduled, in reality
the plan was not off schedule because it does get to the next reosurce on
time. We donot want the successor tasks to shift because a resource takes
longer to complete a task, because it still does go to the next reource as
scheduled on the plan.

This is where my idea of setting up the actual overtime work field would
help resolve this. Is there another way to deal with this? I thought
about not linking the tasks, yet then all tasks will be set with constraint
dates (not sure if this is best way to handle this). Any ideas?

Thanks again for all your help,
Bella

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Bella --

If you used the actual timesheet grid to enter actuals in PWA, I do not
believe you would have your current problem, nor would you need to use the
Actual Overtime Work field either. Assume the following:

- You assign me to perform 7 hours of work on a one-day Duration task
- I perform 10 hours of Actual Work that day and finish the task

Using the timesheet grid on the right side of the View my tasks page, I
would enter 10 hours of Actual Work on the day I performed the task, and
submit the update to you. When you process the task update into the project
plan, the next task would not slip as a result of updating my 10 hours of
Actual Work. The software would simply show that all 10 hours of Actual
Work were performed in that single day and the project would remain on
schedule. The only potentially negative consequence is that the Units value
on my task assignment would jump to 143%, revealing that I worked 143% of a
typical working day to accomplish the task.

If you change your organization's tracking method in mid-stream, every
project manager will need to open every project and republish the
assignments using Collaborate - Publish - Republish Assignments.
Furthermore, doing so will not change the method of tracking for any
in-progress tasks, which will return the former method of tracking until the
task is completed. Hope this helps.

 

[Bella]

Dale,

When I look at the timesheet view in PWA View My Tasks, I see a field for
work, actual work, actual overtime work. Both the actual work and actual
overtime work fields are yellow and not white. I am not able to enter in any
hrs. Why is this? If I'm in the gantt view, I'm able to enter in actual
hrs. Is there something else that I'm not doing correctly?

thanks,
Bella

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Bella --

Your default method of tracking progress IS NOT set to use the timesheet
portion of the View my tasks page. That's why you cannot enter actuals in
the right side of the page. Please re-read my last post about how to change
the method of tracking. Hope this helps.

 

[Bella]

Dale,

I have made some progress with getting the timesheet in PWA to work.
Resources can now wnter in actual work and actual overtime work, yet I am
not able to add a remaining work field. This field does exist when you look
at tasks in the gantt view. I suppose if i can't get thie field added to the
timehseet, resources could report remaining time in the gantt view. Or is
there something else that I'm missing? Getting the remaining work column to
show up on the timesheet would be the icing on the cake!!!

Thanks for all you help and patience with some of my silly questions. Much
appreciated.

Bella

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Bella --

Your questions are not silly, and I am happy to answer them.

The Remaining Work column displays by default in the left side of the
timesheet grid on the View my tasks page. If you have removed it in the
Timesheet view, you should edit the Timesheet view and add it back into the
view. You cannot display Remaining Work in the actual timesheet itself on
the right side of the page.

I would recommend that you teach your people HOW and WHEN to use the
Remaining Work field, including situations like this:

1. I was assigned to perform 40 hours of work, but fninished in only 32
hours. I must adjust the Rem. Work from 8 hours to 0 hours to show an early
finish.

2. I was assigned to perform 40 hours of work and have performed 40 hours
of work and am still not finished. I must adjust the Rem. Work from 0 hours
to a value that is my estimate of how much more work I believe I still have
left to do.

3. I was assigned to perform 40 hours of work, but only performed 30 hours
of work the first week. Furthermore, I believe that I have more than 10
hours of work left to do on this task, so I must adjust the Rem. Work from
10 hours to a value that is my estimate of how much more work I believe I
still have left to do

I hope this gives you some ideas of how to make your tracking process more
effective.