Actual & Remaining Work /Problems with Duration

[Cleo]

I noticed when going over my schedule that for one example the
duration is 10d, however Actual Work shows 32 days which I didn't
enter! Another one I show a Duration of 2d with Actual Work set to 0.4
and zero for the Remaining Work. Ugh!

 

[John]

I noticed when going over my schedule that for one example the
duration is 10d, however Actual Work shows 32 days which I didn't
enter! Another one I show a Duration of 2d with Actual Work set to 0.4
and zero for the Remaining Work. Ugh!

Cleo,
First of all you have to understand that duration and work are two
separate concepts. Duration is the time span during which effort will be
performed on a task. Work is the effort by one or more resources to
actually do the task. For example, if 4 resources are assigned at 80% to
a 10 day task and the task is 100% complete, the Work and Actual Work
fields will be 256 hours, or 32 days.

A similar situation would apply to a task with a 2d duration. If the
task was fixed duration and the original work estimate was 0.4 hours,
when the task is 100% complete the actual work will be 0.4 hours and the
remaining work will be 0.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP