Task duration vs. Cost

[Bill Reicheld]

How can you enter a task duration that is longer than the
resource time allocated? For example, if I enter a task
of "Advertising Budget"; working on the budget may start
on Oct. 1 and end Oct. 30, but the actual billing time
may only be 40 hours over the 30 days. So I want my cost
of this task to be "40 hours x $RATE" not "30 days x
$RATE". At the same time I want to show the task
duration over 30 days. I'm using Project 2000 in case
that makes any difference.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
Project Management Consultancy
Prom+ade BVBA
32-495-300 620

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hello,

Enter the duration
Insert a column "Work"
Enter the work (defauilt is in hours)
Assign the resource

HTH

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
Project Management Consultancy
Prom+ade BVBA
32-495-300 620

 

[Rob Schneider]

How can you enter a task duration that is longer than the
resource time allocated? For example, if I enter a task
of "Advertising Budget"; working on the budget may start
on Oct. 1 and end Oct. 30, but the actual billing time
may only be 40 hours over the 30 days. So I want my cost
of this task to be "40 hours x $RATE" not "30 days x
$RATE". At the same time I want to show the task
duration over 30 days. I'm using Project 2000 in case
that makes any difference.

Bill,

Let's go back a step or two to the basics. Best if you do this yourself
on an empty project file to see. Display Gantt Chart view on top and
show the resource assignments in the bottom pane.

Create a task "Advertising Budget". By your definition, it is a "fixed
duration" task of 1 month.

In the Resource Assignment pane, assign Joe as a resource. Fill in 40h
for the work. Project will compute units for Joe to be 0.25. This
means that over the month, he's working quarter time (on average) and
will thus todal 40 hours for the full duration of 1 month. On the
Resource Sheet, give Joe the $RATE that is applicable. This will then
compute the costs as you expect.

Project always computes costs as the assigned resources's (work x
billing rate) ... it does not use task duration as that in itself has
nothing to do with costs.