Taks Updates process issue

[Mauricio Iannini, PMP, MCITP]

Dear Gurus,

I have this situation with a specific enterprise project:

Project schedule was published by the administrator on behalf of the PM.
Ownership to the Project Manager was granted and Status Manager was updated
on every single assignment
Resources are submitting task progress via My Tasks page
Project Manager accepts updates

Here you have the issue I am experiencing: why the project schedule must be
published again? Shouldn't the approval process suffice?

TIA

Mauricio

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Mauricio --

No, accepting the task updates is not nearly enough. After updating the
project, the project manager must still publish the latest shedule changes.
This is mandatory, and not option, nor is this a bug. It is by design.
Because of this, we strongly recommend that your project managers view and
accept task updates from directly within the Microsoft Project plan. When
they open a project with pending updates, the software will tell them so,
and allow them to view the Task Updates page directly within Microsoft
Project. From there, they can approve or reject the task updates, and then
immediately see the result in the Microsoft Project plan. From there, they
can reschedule uncompleted work from the past, analyze project variance,
make plan revisions as needed, and then publish the latest schedule changes.
I think you and they will find this a superior method of processing task
updates. Hope this helps.

 

[Dots]

Dale,

If a task update is submitted and accepted, and there are mutplie resources
assigned to the task, does the plan have to be republished so that the rest
of the resources have the latest view of the task?
If a timesheet had already been created, and a subsequent task update is
accepted, does the timesheet need to be recretaed to get the current picture
of the task?

I ask because we have seen timesheet hours posted as Fixed units after the
plan itself was changed to fixed duration.
This leads me to believe the timesheet freezes a picture of the task as it
was when the timesheet was created, so that subsequent imports post under
obsolete task conditions.

If the above is true, then a task update has to be followed by a publish,
which in turn needs to prompt resources to recreate the timesheet (or task,
if possible.)
Only then can they submit timesheets for approval and finally import.


Can you please clarify the publish and timesheet update process for the
scenarios I present? Thanks.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Dots --

I can't remember what version of Project Server you are using, so I want to
give you a gentle reminder to let us know the version each time you ask a
question.

To answer your questions:

Yes, if a task update is submitted and accepted, and there are mutplie
resources assigned to the task, does the plan have to be republished so
that the rest of the resources have the latest view of the task.

Assuming you are using Project Server 2007, if a timesheet had already been
created, and a subsequent task update is accepted, does the timesheet need
to be recreated to get the current picture of the task. This is why you
need to establish a standard process of when timesheet are submitted for
approval and then approved, when task updates are submitted and then
approved, and when team members need to create their timesheet for the week.
Hopefully, the process would help your people to avoid a lot of the problems
you describe in this question.

Well, now I'm confused. Are you using 2003 or 2007? You are using the term
timesheets, which means something different in 2003 than it does in 2007.
Please follow up with your version and we'll try to help you.

 

[Dots]

Hi Dale,
sorry - yes I am using 2007. I can have users create timesheet at end of
week to avoid this update issue. But there will be another question added to
this. When users submit admin time and get approvals, timesheets are
automatically created. Which causes yet another problem. Would the
resolution be to delete the timesheet at the appropriate week in time, and
then recreate to have task updates included as well? Is this the "best"
practice?

Thanks, Dale.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Dots --

Ah, yes, I see your point about the Administrative time approval
automatically creating future timesheets. Instead of deleting the
Timesheet, if a resource knows that he/she has tasks missing in the
timesheet, why don't you teach them to use the Add Lines functionality
instead? It's about the same about of mouse clicks as deleting and
recreating the timesheet. Just a thought. Hope this helps.

 

[Dots]

My resources know how to add lines. The problem with this is the off chance
that they choose a Top level task rather than the specific task. Most are
doing correctly, but there are a few... Anyway, its a learning curve.

Have you found that updating task with time from the My Tasks view and then
importing that into the timesheets is more effective than importing
timesheets into tasks?

D.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Dots --

I think the import process works fine in both directions. I would recommend
you teach your people to do their time and task reporting in one particular
way and then mandate it for everyone. Hope this helps.