Tasks duration increasing automatically when a task completes ahead of schedule

[Dave]

Hello Everyone,

Here is the situation. I have certain tasks in my project that have a
duration of .5hrs, these tasks have to been set to have a fixed duration. We
are using Hours of work done per period as our tracking method. As long as
the user enters time grater that or equal to the scheduled time everything
is ok that is if the resource goes and updates his task and enters .5h or
greater it is ok, but the moment he enter say .4hrs the task in my project
plan becomes 8hrs and the resource utilization becomes 5%.
So a user can enter a time as long as it is delayed or on time but cannot
enter time if he is ahead of schedule.

Anyone know why this is happening.

Thanks
Dave

 

[Gary L. Chefetz [MVP]]

Dave:

Are you saying that the resource entered .4 hours a day ahead of time? If
so, the system is working as designed as long as you are specifically
talking about duration. When you accept the .4 hours on the given day, which
means that .1 hours remain. The system automatically pushes that work to the
next day, which increases the duration of the task. It doesn't mean that the
task finishes late, in fact it can finish early, but the duration still
changes. Remember that duration is calculated as the working time between
start and finish dates and times.

Now you have to ask yourself if "fixed-duration" is the correct task type.
Is it really fixed-work? Will it always take the same amount of work? If
not, perhaps it's fixed units after all. Fixed duration is one of the most
abused task types as in reality, it is the rarest to occur.

--

Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
MSProjectExperts
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