task duration

[easyrider]

I noticed a difference between the task duration and the task start and
finish dates and I am not sure that I understand why the difference. For
example if I start a task on April 21, 2006 (Friday) and set the weekend to
be normal working hours, and set the finish date to be Monday April 24, 2006,
why doe usoft project 2003 only show 3 days for duration?

 

[JulieS]

Hi easyrider,

The duration of a task is determined by the amount of working time (as
defined in the project calendar) from the start of a task to the end of
a task.

You should not be "setting" start or end dates of tasks in Project. Set
the start date of the project (Project > Project Information). Enter
the task names and durations. Project will set the start date of the
first task equal to the start date of the project. The finish date will
be calculated by project based upon the start date + duration.

You may wish to take a look at Mike Glen's excellent series of articles
on MS Project at:
http://project.mvps.org/mike's_tutorials.htm

I think his articles will assist you.

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie

 

[DavidC]

Hi,

Check that the settings under 'Tools/options/schedule' have the number of
days in a week reflecting the calendar, simillarly the number of hours in the
week and day. These settings can have an impact on how the duration is
calculated, or as Julie comments it is better to allow the finish date to be
calculated from the duration and the finish date will be calculated using
these options as well.

Hope this helps

Regards

DavidC

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

Adding to Julies note - while you can type dates into the start and finish
columns, that does NOT "set" the start and end dates. An entry made
manually into the start cloumn actually sets a "start no earlier than"
constraint which sets the earliest allowed start date. If nothing else
interferes this will becomes the start date but other things may conspire to
push it later. Likewise if you enter something in the finish column it sets
the eariest possible finish date but again, it might go later than that if
driven by other factors.

Durations are always in hours (actually minutes if you want to get
technical). If you choose to enter and/or display duration in days, the
Tools Options Calendar "Hours per day" entry sets the conversion factor MSP
will use to convert days into hours and vice versa.