20 Hours over 5 days

[glpeters]

In my schedule there are many more days in my schedule than hours of
required work. for example...

I've allowed 5 days to complete task 1 but the actual hours required to
get the work done is 5. I can't seem to get the duration to ignore the
beginning and ending dates as it always reports 40 hours. This is
happening throughout my plan, where I allow more days to complete a
task and for a particular day may only work on the task for 2 hours.
Thanks for any help.

 

[Brian K - Project MVP]

In my schedule there are many more days in my schedule than hours of
required work. for example...

I've allowed 5 days to complete task 1 but the actual hours required to
get the work done is 5. I can't seem to get the duration to ignore the
beginning and ending dates as it always reports 40 hours. This is
happening throughout my plan, where I allow more days to complete a
task and for a particular day may only work on the task for 2 hours.
Thanks for any help.

you should insert the Work field. That would be 5 days (40 hours) of
Duration and then 20 hours of Work.

 

[John]

In my schedule there are many more days in my schedule than hours of
required work. for example...

I've allowed 5 days to complete task 1 but the actual hours required to
get the work done is 5. I can't seem to get the duration to ignore the
beginning and ending dates as it always reports 40 hours. This is
happening throughout my plan, where I allow more days to complete a
task and for a particular day may only work on the task for 2 hours.
Thanks for any help.

glpeters,
Don't get Duration hours confused with Work hours. They are completely
different concepts. Duration in Project is the time span during which
the task is performed. Work is the effort to perform the task.

It is very common to have a duration not equal to the work content. For
example, say you have a task that is scheduled to be accomplished over a
5 day period. Enter 5 days in the Duration field. Now let's say that it
will only take a resource 20 hours to actually complete that task (any
time during the 5 day period). Either first enter 20 hours into the Work
field and then assign a resource, or assign the resource at 50%
allocation.

The only time Duration hours and Work hours will be equal is if the
resource is assigned at 100%.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi glpeters,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

Also, you might like to have a look at my series on Microsoft Project in the
TechTrax ezine, particularly #11 - Task Types, at this site:
http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc or this:
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMFrame.asp?CMD=ArticleSearch&AUTH=23
(Perhaps you'd care to rate the article before leaving the site,
Thanks.)

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: <http://www.mvps.org/project/>

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

In addition to the other controibutions, just something to think about is
that duration is NOT the time allowed to finish a task. Rather it is the
time that will be required from the moment it actually starts until it is
finished. For example, I have a task that could begin any time after Monday
at 8am. It needs to be finished by Friday at 5pm. Once I start it,
whenever that is, I plan to work on it and nothing else until it is done. I
estimate that devoting my full attention to it, it will take me 2 hours to
do the work required. Tat is NOT a 40 hour duration task - it is a 2 HOUR
duration task and with a resource assigned 100% it involves 2 man-hours of
work. If I try to juggle it on my plate with some other duties and because
it has to share my energy with other things it takes me all day on whatever
day I decide to do it to do the work, the task still requires 2 man-hours of
work but now it is a 1 DAY duration tasks with the resource working on it at
a 25% assignment level. To repeat, duration is your estimate of the time
that will be required between the moment physical work is first actually is
done until the moment the task's deliverable is complete.

 

[Steven Spears]

I am not sure how you have your tasks set but for this taks, change the task
type to
Fixed Duration. Enter the number of hours (5) and then set your dates.
Hope it helps