Actual Start/Finish craziness

F

Fred Jones

Hi,

We're running Project Web access and project. I've set up the timesheets so
that team members can enter Actual Start, Actual Work, Work Remaining and
Actual Finish. The original tasks in Project were set up with multiple
resources per task and each resource having around 15% units. It appears
that when the resources update their task information the units change from
15% to 100%. The hours seem to stay as entered except for people that enter
an Actual Finish that is later than the Finish date. In this case the
task/resource hours are greatly inflated and inaccurate.

What am I doing wrong? Is it incorrect to use Actual Start/Finish along with
hours tracking? Do I need to use just the Actual Start with the hours
worked?

What I was trying to achieve was a more accurate accounting of the actual
hours they worked along with a more accurate view of the percent time they
devoted to that task. My thinking was that the actual hours, combined with
the actual finish/start, might present a more accurate units calculation.
Instead, all of the units go to 100%, which is inaccurate.

Thanks for any insight or ideas...
 
T

Tim

Fred:

I'm not the expert, but I would allow Project to calculate the actual start
(based upon the first user to record actual hours against an activity). When
users are complete with a given activity, they zero out their remaining work.
When all remaining work = 0, Project will calculate the % Complete as 100%
and provide an actual finish date.
 
G

Gary L. Chefetz \(MVP\)

Fred:

If you're going to collect hours, then I strongly suggest that you the
day-by-day tracking settings and allow each user to enter hours the actual
day on the calendar that they work. This automates actual start and actual
end dates. The system knows what day the resource first enters work (actual
start) and the day it is when the resource enters enough work to complete
the assignment (actual finish). Let the system do the work for you.

--

Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
"We wrote the book on Project Server
http://www.msprojectexperts.com

-
 
F

Fred Jones

Hi Gary,

Thanks for the response. It appears I misunderstood how project calculates
times. Will I have problems changing to day-by-day tracking in the middle of
a project?

Thanks,
 
F

Fred Jones

Hi Gary,

One more question. If I change to hours of work done tracking what is the
process for indicating when the task is completed?

Thanks,
 
G

Gary L. Chefetz \(MVP\)

Fred:

If you change midstream, the tasks that have already have actual work
reported will remain in the old tracking method. When you change the
tracking method, you must republish the assignments. When using day-by-day
reporting, the task is complete when it runs out of remaining work and/or
the resource sets remaining work to zero.

--

Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
"We wrote the book on Project Server
http://www.msprojectexperts.com

-
 
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