What column reflects actual duration of the project?

[Kimi Himi]

What column reflects actual duration of the project? Not the time span but
the actual time it took. We need to know the number of hours over the whole
year. It gives us the amount and includes the number of days that have
passed.

Also, can you quickly convert from days to hours without re-entering? For
example, from 1 day to 8 hours?

thanks

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

In the Tools menu, Select Options, View tab, and in the lower right corner
turn on the box beside View Project Summary Task. That turns on the
top-most "zero'th level" task that rolls up everything for the entire
project. But when you say you need to know the number of hours over the
whole year, are you looking for hours of duration or man-hours of work? If
you had *two* people working together on the same task for 1 8-hour workday,
would you want to see "8 hours" or "16 hours"? Second question - if you had
a task that began Wednesday morning at 8am and ended the following Tuesday
at 5pm, woulkd you expect to see 5 days or 7 days duration? (5 days is the
duration, 7 days is the elapsed time or time span)?

To see durations in hours instead of days, use the FormatDuration macro
found in Tools, Macros.

 

[Kimi Himi]

(LOVE THAT MACRO - THANKS)

Well, I understand what project is really telling me as far as forcasting
the total amount of time and how the resources affect it. My problem is that
when my management sees that a project that is scheduled for 1.5/hr/day over
10 days as
73.5 hours when it should be 15, they don't understand. So, I would like to
see a total number of hours not including the time span. (even when a
weekend is included) Maybe it isn't possible.

thanks for the response. It was helpful! Kimberly

 

[Kimi Himi]

Hello Steve, thanks again for your help. I just created a calendar that only
had 1.5 hours available each day. It came up with the 390 hours I was
looking for. I am going to play with this. Thanks again!

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

Duration is the time units when work could take place according to the
calendar, whether it does or not, between when the task starts and when it
ends. Work is the full-time equivalent number of hours of work the
resource(s) actually did perform. And elapsed time is the amount of time as
told by a clock between when work is first done and when it is finished. So
imagine a task beginning Monday at 8 am, ending Friday at 5pm, 1 person
working on it who does one hour a day for that whole week (the first hour
from 8am to 9am Mon and the last hour from 4pm to 5pm Fri with the rest
distributed however you feel like it. Assuming the default standard
calendar, that task has 40 hours of duration, 5 hours of work, and 105 hours
of elapsed time. If you add a second person who also works 5 hours like the
first, whether they're working together with the first or separately, work
goes to 10 hours but the duration and elapsed time remain the same. It
sounds like your management is looking for work and calling it duration.
Work is what you pay the resources for, duration is the number of work hours
you need to keep the lights on for it to be in-progress, and elapsed time is
the total time it takes as measured by the clock on the wall.
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer/Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

 

[Kimi Himi]

Yes, I think you've nailed it. Thanks a bunch.

Duration is the time units when work could take place according to the
calendar, whether it does or not, between when the task starts and when it
ends. Work is the full-time equivalent number of hours of work the
resource(s) actually did perform. And elapsed time is the amount of time as
told by a clock between when work is first done and when it is finished. So
imagine a task beginning Monday at 8 am, ending Friday at 5pm, 1 person
working on it who does one hour a day for that whole week (the first hour
from 8am to 9am Mon and the last hour from 4pm to 5pm Fri with the rest
distributed however you feel like it. Assuming the default standard
calendar, that task has 40 hours of duration, 5 hours of work, and 105 hours
of elapsed time. If you add a second person who also works 5 hours like the
first, whether they're working together with the first or separately, work
goes to 10 hours but the duration and elapsed time remain the same. It
sounds like your management is looking for work and calling it duration.
Work is what you pay the resources for, duration is the number of work hours
you need to keep the lights on for it to be in-progress, and elapsed time is
the total time it takes as measured by the clock on the wall.