Start and Finish Dates on Alerts (or when republishing assignments

[JodyJ]

I have a task in a plan that is fixed duration and has a start date of
7/22/05 and a finish date of 12/22/05. There are several resources assigned
to the task.

When I "republish assignments" the start and finish dates displayed in this
window are not the same start and finish dates listed in the project plan.
They ARE the ones that get sent in the notification to resources, resulting
in much confusion.

The start and finish dates listed in the republish assignments window seem
to have something to do with when a resources has or hasn't logged time to
the task but I can't seem to discern a pattern.

Does anyone have any idea what the logic might be for these dates?

 

[Gary L. Chefetz [MVP]]

Jody:

The start and finish dates belong to the assignments themselves, not the
task start and end. When you use a fixed-duration task to collect work and
you use reporting by day in the PWA timesheet, the actual start of the
assignment, and the start date, by definition, becomes the first day the
resource logs time, when someone else has already caused an actual start
date to occur at the task level. If you want to preserve start dates on
tasks like these, then you should set an actual start date before publishing
or republishing the assignments.

 

[JodyJ]

What about the finish date? I have a fixed duration task...the finish dates
for each assignment are varying.

Also, for some resources, the start date does match up to the first day they
logged time. For others, if I go look at actual work by day on the resource
sheet, the start date may be 7/19 but they didn't log time until 8/8. The
resource sheet has zeroes from 7/19 thru 8/7.......The resources actual PWA
timesheet does not show these zeroes.

The real issue here is that notifications sent to resources are causing a
tremendous amount of confusion. Since I can't pin down exactly where these
dates are coming from consistently, notifications aren't adding much value at
all.

 

[JodyJ]

Let me try to provide a little more information.....

I have a fixed duration task with 4 resources assigned. The task start and
finish dates are 7/19/05 and 12/22/05 respectively.

From an assignment perspective, resource 1 has start and finish of 7/19 and
8/9. The first time resource 1 logged time to this task was 8/9. This was
also the last time the resource logged to this task.

Resource 2 has a start and finish of 7/19 and 12/22. First logged time on
7/25...last logged on 8/24.

Resource 3 has a start and finish of 8/8 and 8/26 which correspond to the
first and last time that resource logged time to the task.

Resource 4 has a start and finish of 7/19 and 8/25 which also corresponds to
the first and last time the resource logged time.

I see how the TASK start date was set to 7/19 since someone did start
logging time......I'm not sure why the other resources have assignment start
dates of 7/19 though. I'm also not sure how the finish dates are getting set
for the other 2 resources.

This issue is not limited to fixed duration tasks. I have the same problem
on fixed work tasks if there are multiple resources assigned. Causing an
enormous amount of confusion on task notifications to resources.

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[Gary L. Chefetz [MVP]]

Jody:

Fixed Durations tasks behave exactly as you've described. Have you made sure
to uncheck effort-driven for these? That can really screw things up. With
fixed-duration tasks, actual work is spread like cream cheese on a bagel.
I'm certain that given the work values entered, I can explain every date
you've posted, but it's probably not worth it to either of us. To use these
effectively, here are some rules:

1) Uncheck effort-driven
2) Assign resources at low percentage of units, which allows the system to
assign planned work across the duration
3) Immediately enter an actual start date for the task

These three simple rules will help you manage this task type more
effectively.

Your issues with Fixed-work tasks will have a similarly simple/not-so-simple
explanation. The key is understanding the scheduling algorithm and
programming bias in Project. We consider this "fundamental" training. Very
few tasks are candidates for fixed-duration or fixed-work modeling. Chances
are if I reviewed your plans, I'd have you change the task types in a lot of
your tasks.