Setting Task times

[weboneau]

If I have a task that with take 10days overall, but that 10 days will be over
a period of 3 months, not all concurrently, how do I set that up?

If I use Finish No later Than and set a definite date for finishing, it then
puts that starting date 10 days previous to that, and I would prefer the
starting date 3 months previously.

Is this possible?

 

[Rob Schneider]

First, do not set either the start or finish date for the task. The
start of the task should be linked as a successor to a task that is its
predecessor, or if it is the first task of a project, then set the
Project Start Date to define when it starts.

Then, the task should be defined as
: fixed duration. You say three months, but that is not precise since
each month has a different number of days. Figure out how many work
days it should be, e.g. 3 months x 4 weeks/mo x 5 days/week = 60 days.
Or use whatever it is.
: Work is the the time "spent", which in this case is 10 days.
: if you have a resource assigned, Project will compute units as 10/60 =
0.17 ... which means 0.17 of a work day spread evenly across the 60
days to "spend" 10 days of work.

Do not set the Finish No Later Date since, based on what you say, there
is nothing to ay that is a constraint. I think what you *want* to do is
get the task done by a particular date. To do that, you need to make a
schedule that plans for the task to be done by that date. Set that date
you want to get done in the field "Deadline". When Project computes the
end date for you, if it computes later than the deadline, Project will
warn you. At that point, change schedule to get it in line with what you
want.


--rms

www.rmschneider.com