Specifying Start Date and Time

[Andrew Lindsay]

Hello, I am using Microsoft Project 2007 SP2.

I have a project that is set up to operate 27-7.

I would like to be able to enter start times for my project events down
to the minute, an example of the sort of information is as follows...

Act ID Description B Start B Comp Duration
IN INSTALLATION - AUDACIA 15/01/2009 14:24 16/10/2009 10:45 6572:21
AUI AUDACIA 10/02/2009 0:01 18/09/2009 6:06 5286:05
AUMO Mobilisation Audacia 10/02/2009 0:01 26/02/2009 20:20 404:19
AU110 Project mobilisation activities Audacia (Malaysia) 10/02/2009
0:01 11/02/2009 0:01 24:00
AU100 Mobilise nautical crews AU 10/02/2009 0:01 11/02/2009 0:01 24:00
AU120 Sail to Field 11/02/2009 0:01 23/02/2009 0:01 288:00
1968 Infield mobilisation 23/02/2009 0:01 26/02/2009 8:20 80:19
AU130 DP trials 26/02/2009 8:20 26/02/2009 20:20 12:00
AUAP APS / Sleeper installation 26/02/2009 20:20 2/03/2009 9:43 85:23
AU220 Sleeper installation (10 sleepers) 26/02/2009 20:20 28/02/2009
20:20 48:00


How do I do this in Microsoft Project? I can only seem to enter whole
days for the start date and time.

 

[Ben Wiegers]

Andrew,

what you can do is to go to Tools|Options tab View and change the Date
Format to show the time as well.
Then go to the Gantt chart and look at the Start/Finish fields.
They will show the time as well and you can change them if you like.
You can do this without changing the date format, but then you won't be able
to check the result.

Furthermore I would like to tell you that I am very much opposed to changing
start/finish dates and/or times, but that is besides your question

 

[Steve House]

You have to ask yourself if it's practical to schedule the minute. Can you
truthfully day that a particular task will take 37 minutes to perform, as
opposed to 42 minutes or 25 minutes? Further, can you really predict that
widget waxing will start Tuesday at 10:42 and not 11:15? Ben correctly
pointed out you can switch the Date/Time format using the Tools/Options/View
menu selections. Further, Project does, in fact, always store and schedule
durations using time to the nearest 10th of a minute - no matter what units
you use for duration entry they are converted to minutes internally. But
just because it's using minutes doesn't mean it makes sense to try to
micromanage your project schedule to the degree of precision.

Another even more important point is that it is not a good practice to
manually enter task dates and times. Project does not exist to document a
schedule you have predetermined. Rather, its purpose in life is to
calculate the schedule for you; you don't tell it when tasks should happen,
IT tells YOU when tasks CAN happen, based on task durations, predecessor
links, and resource availability. Except for the rare task with
constraints, you input the project kickoff date and MSP calculates
everything else.