tasks disappear from resources' timesheets

[jpx]

I need some help understanding a problem we're having with MS Project Server.

The problem is : Our project managers are finding that tasks are disappearing
from resources' timesheets.

A project manager will publish a plan, and resources will see the tasks in
their timesheets. They can enter actual data and update the tasks. Then,
unpredictably, the task disappears from the resource's timesheet although
there is still work remaining to be done.

The task isn't X'd out, isn't shown to be complete, it's just gone, like it
was never there on the timesheet.

It still appears in the project plan. The project manager can change data
associated with the task -- for example, changing the amount of work that
needs to be done on the task. If they change the details of the task
assignment, then republish the assignments, the task re-appears in the
timesheet.

This doesn't seem to be limited to just one project, although it happens more
with one specific project than with others. It is not an issue with Current
Tasks vs All Tasks -- definitely not. I've checked that.

Could it be some kind of file corruption, database corruption, a problem with
the way resources are set up...?

I haven't had luck understanding this problem because I can't seem to get a
task to disappear on command -- I haven't had success in replicating the
behaviour. I've seen many people in the newsgroup that have this problem, but
I've had no luck finding what they did to solve it if they did manage to solve
it.

I realize it is tough to debug a problem that can't be consistently
replicated, but I wonder if someone can help me come up with a strategy to
help me understand what is going wrong here? I can't believe that it is a
genuine bug in MS Project since this is core functionality for Project and
also it doesn't happen very consistently or very often. I think it must be a
setting or something particular about our file or our server setup. So far we
have lost perhaps 2 dozen tasks in 6 months of use. But it is a serious
problem and makes our project managers understandably nervous about putting
their faith in this system. It makes me wonder about the data we're
extracting about projects and resources, too.

Any thoughts?

Thanks everyone
John-Paul

 

[michael_mvi]

Hello John-Paul,

i recently had the same effect until I realized that the schedule for
the tasks had changed. Can you check if the task start dates are later
now? I spent much time in organizing the schedules of tasks.

Regards,
Michael

 

[ad9aggie]

John-Paul and Michael,

Check your users' Tasks displayed settings in PWA. Have them change it to
All tasks and see if the tasks reappear. If they do, then the start dates
for the tasks in question have either changed to beyond the future limit you
set up in Admin, or they used up all the work assigned and were marked
complete.

The Current tasks setting in Tasks displayed shows only incomplete tasks or
those that are going to start within the time period set up in Customize
Project Web Access under Admin.

Hope this helps,

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

J-P --

Just to add my "two cents worth" to this discussion, is there any
possibility the resource in question is hiding tasks, accidentally or on
purpose?