Adding new tasks or changing start and end dates from within PWA?

[Jean-Pierre Abello]

Is it possible for team members to add new tasks or change the start
of end dates of existing tasks assigned to them, using just the
Project Web Access (PWA) interface. My team members don't have MS
Project clients installed on their PCs. Thanks.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Jean-Pierre --

Team members can propose new tasks in a project, but they cannot be added to
the project until you approve the New Task request. Team members cannot
directly change the Start or Finish date of a task, or the Duration of the
task, but they can indirectly change the Start, Finish, and Duration of the
task by the information they enter in their timesheet.

For example, you assigned me to a task full-time (40 hours of Work) and the
task was scheduled to begin on this past Monday and was supposed to Finish
today (Start = 2/9/04, Finish = 2/13/04, and Duration = 5 days). On my
timesheet, I entered 8 hours of work each day on Wednesday and Thursday only
(16 hours total), and I changed the Remaining Work estimate from 24 hours to
40 hours (because I will have to redo the work). In other words, I started
two days late so the task will finish two days late. However, because I
increased the Remaining Work estimate by 16 hours, the task will finish a
full four days later than originally scheduled. Therefore, after submitting
my actuals to you for this task and after you update my actuals into the
project plan, the Start date will be 2/11/04 and the Finish date will be
2/19/04 with a Duration of 7 days. Hope this helps.

 

[Carl Yang]

in PWA,Project member can apply for the task change to PM
When he want to do it ,he should refer the change request in "PWA's task" to PM. Only after PM approve it , the change request( the date of the task) can be adjusted
There is a process of adjusting tasks in project. That's it!

 

[Jean-Pierre Abello]

Thanks Dale. How do team members propose new tasks in a project using
the PWA interface alone? I can see how they update the actual and
remaining work in their existing tasks, but not how to create new
tasks using the web interface alone. Regards - JP

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Jean-Pierre --

In the sidepane on the left side of the View My Tasks page, there is a link
called Create a new task. If you do not see the link in the sidepane, then
your Project Server administrator may have disabled that option for some
reason. Hope this helps.

 

[Jean-Pierre Abello]

Thanks Dale - I can see the "new task" link now.
How can team members indirectly make the start date for one of their
tasks change if they have not started it yet, and the start date is in
the past? I tried to change the Actual Work and Remaining Work fields,
but they are not moving the start date, just the end date.
Thanks,

JP

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Jean-Pierre --

Please review the steps I gave you in my answer to your original question.
You will need to include the Actual Start date, and probably the Actual
Finish date as well, as published fields in your project plans. Your team
members can then enter an Actual Start date for each task assignment, which
will indirectly impact the Start date of the task. Hope this helps.

 

[Sarah]

Jean-Pierre,

If the task has not yet started and the Start date is in the past, it
sounds as if you are not telling Project to reschedule incomplete
work. You should do this every time you update the schedule with
actuals. Click Tools>Tracking>Update Project. Select "Reschedule
uncompleted work to start after" and select a day. We do this every
week, and tell it to reschedule work to start after that Monday, 8:00
am. This takes all of the unfinished work and pushes it into the
future.

Sarah
sarah_kiko@(removethis)cinfin.com

 

[Jean-Pierre Abello]

Thanks for the response. The method you described in your earlier
email works for entering Actual Work on a day by day basis in the
right side of the timesheet view, and Remaining Work in the left side
the timesheet view. This allows for automatically moving the start
date of a task based on actual work , and moving the end date based on
the remaining work to be done. However it does not allow for
rescheduling the finish date to some more distant date in the future,
as often necessary and not based on remaining work alone.

I tried adding the Actual Start and Actual Finish date fields to the
project plan and the PWA timesheet view as you suggested and republish
all information to the server, but unfortunately I cannot enter any
data in these fields in the PWA "Tasks" timesheet view. How can team
members enter an Actual Finish date in their timesheet on PWA, if this
field is not accepting any character input?

Also the WBS field as well as the Actual Start and Actual Finish date
fields are not getting populated in the "Tasks" view in PWA, no matter
how much data I publish from the MS Project 2003 client to the server.
Are you getting the same problem with your installation, or could
this be a bug (or change in behavior) in MS Project Server 2003 (the
version I am running)? Thanks.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

JP --

If you are looking for an automatic way to extend the project Finish date of
a task, then the adjustment of the Remaining Work value is the only way to
do this directly. There is no other direct way for the resources assigned
to a task to change the Finish date of the task within Project Web Access.
I believe you have already found this to be true.

On the other hand, you could use an indirect method, which would be
something like this:

1. Open the Enterprise Global for editing
2. Set up an enterprise task Finish field, such as Finish1, and rename it
to something like "Estimated Finish"
3. Save and close the Enterprise Global
4. Close Microsoft Project
5. Open Microsoft Project again and log into Project Server
6. Open a project in your portfolio
7. Click Tools - Customize - Published Fields
8. Add the new "Estimated Finish" field to the project, set it as an
Assignment field, and click OK
9. Click Collaborate - Publish - Republish Assignments and click OK
10. Repeat these steps for every project in the portfolio

From this point forward, the new Estimated Finish field would apppear on
each team member's timesheet. You would then need to teach your team
members how to use it. When they have a new estimated Finish date for a
task, they should enter the date in this field and add a task Note
documenting what they have done. The PM would need to be "on the lookout"
for any values in this field at the time updates are processed into the
project plan. The PM would then need to manually adjust the Duration on the
affected task to yield the new estimated Finish date. The PM SHOULD NOT
enter the date in the Finish field for the task, as this would set a Finish
No Earlier Than constraint on the task.

I realize this is not an automatic way to handle your situation, but as I
have stated, adjusting the Remaining Work value is the only automatic way.
To answer your other question, I do not believe the WBS values are going to
show on each user's timesheet. I have tried it myself and can't get it to
work either. I suspect it has to do with the way Project Server handles
assingments. Sorry. Hope these answers help.