Spread Work over Several Days

[Carl Mankat]

I'm running Project 98. I'm slowly remembering things since it's been
some time since I have really used Project. I have a task that will last
for 4 days but I only want the resource to spend 2 hours a day on it.
The total is 8 hours over 4 days.

Also, I have a task where a document is sent for review and should be
returned in 5 days. Should I have a task for send and a task for return?

TIA,

Carl Mankat

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Carl,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

1. Assign the resource at 25%.
2. I always prefer to see what's going on, so, from the Gantt view, right
click on the Gantt chart and select Split. Select the task in question and
then in the bottom pane click to remove Effort Driven and select Fixed
Duration - then click OK to set up that mode for this task. Now click on
the Resource name and select the resource or type it in, put 25% in the
Units cell and/or put 8h in the Work cell and OK. You can see all the
elements in the bottom pane to check that all's well.

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: http://www.mvps.org/project/

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on

Mike Glen
Project MVP

 

[Steve House]

If the review process is something that is part of the work done in your
project, and thus its cost is part of your budget, then you can show it as a
single task with a 5 day duration with the reviewer resource asssigned to
it, linked as appropriate. But if it is something like a proposal that is
sent to the client for review and they need to sign off on it and get it
back to you in 5 days, I don't think of their activity doing that review as
being part of the project work per se. So I would put a "Send for Review"
milestone (zero duration task) at the end of the document preparation tasks,
followed by a "Returned Approved" milestone that acts as a gateway to the
start of whatever follow-on activity happens after it comes back. The
"Send" milestone and the "Return" milestone are linked directly to each
other as predecessor/successor and the probable delay waiting for the
approval to come back is shown by including a 5 day lag time in the link
between them. When you do the project, the actual dates it's sent and
returned are entered as the completion dates for the milestones and the
subsequent schedule adjusts itself accordingly.