Shifting Tasks

[Robin Roe]

Hi

I am just wondering if anyone has a solution for the following scenario.

Task A has a duration of 5 days, Monday to Friday, Resource A and Resource B
are assigned

Resource A does not enter any actual hours for Monday but enters hours for
the Tuesday. PM accepts these hours onto the plan. The plan is now
rescheduled to start on Tuesday and is 5 days duration, which is to be
expected.

Resource B fills their timesheet after the PM has already accepted hours
from Resource A. Resource B fills hours as per plan for Monday and Tuesday.
PM Accepts these hours. The task now starts on Monday again (as expected) but
the Task is now 6 days duration instead of 5 with Resource B’s hours divided
evenly over the remaining 4 days rather than 3.

Is there a way to keep the task set in a predefined time frame. I don’t want
the schedule to change just because a resource didn’t enter time against the
first day of the task.

Thanks in advance

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Robin --

The system is performing as it is designed to do, given your description of
what the resources entered on their timesheets. Hope this helps.

 

[Robin Roe]

Dale, thanks again for your help. I reckoned that was the case. But I can’t
see the logic in having different results (Task lengths) depending on which
resource enters their time first on a task. If for example in the scenario
below, Resource B’s time is accepted onto the project first by the PM, the
task will stay as 5 days duration. If A’s gets accepted first, it ends up as
6 days duration even though identical actuals are entered.

 

[Robin Roe]

Forgot to mention that it's fixed duration I'm using.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Robin --

Are you accepting the updates for both resources at the same time, or at two
different times? It sounds like you are accepting an update from resource B
at one time and then see the dates shift, and then at a later time, are
accepting an update from resource A and see the dates shift again and
Duration change. If you accept both updates at the SAME time, you will see
the new dates and Duration based on the results of both sets of actuals.
Our recommendations on the task updating process are summarized in the
following FAQ:

http://www.projectserverexperts.com/Shared Documents/TrackingUpdatingBestPractices.htm

You will notice in the FAQ that we recommend you process task updates only
once a week, and that you do so at a regular time and date each week. For
example, if your resources must enter actuals by Friday on last week, you
might update actuals every Monday morning at 10:00 AM. Just a thought that
would help to resolve your date shifting issues. Hope this helps.

 

[Robin Roe]

Thanks Dale,

The methods you have described certainly will eliminate 95% of the problems,
but I suppose you will always get the occasion where a resource is absent
from work and doesn't get to fill in their time sheet. I guess we'll just
have to live with it. I assume you recommend to your clients maybe to have
different approval times for different departments, just so they aren't all
hitting the server at the same time?