Adjusting Deadlines from COB to 6 a.m. the next day

[Sarah A.]

My company's deadline schedule does not go on a COB basis; instead, due dates
are at 6 a.m. For example, if something was due COB Wednesday at another
company, this task would be due 6 a.m. Thursday at my company. In either
case, the resource who would be using the deliverable next would have access
to it when they arrive to work on Thursday morning.

I'm scheduling a few things in Project and this is messing up my
duration/start/finish columns. Let's say I've scheduled a task with a
duration of 4 days....the start and finish dates Project gives me are Tue
9/2/08 and Fri 9/5/08. In reality, this task begins on Tue 9/2 at 6 a.m. and
is due on Fri 9/5 at 6 a.m, so the duration is actually 3 days instead of 4
since Friday is not a working day for this task.

If I shorten the duration to 3 days, this will confuse my team because they
will think the task is due at 6 a.m on Thu 9/4 instead of 6 a.m. on Fri 9/5.

I think this has something to do with my base calendar...does anyone have
any tips on how to make the durations reflect the 6 a.m. deadline schedule?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

Project calculates everything in minutes.
For convenience you can express durations in days but that is not the
primaruy unit; it is derived from the true minutes duration by a division -
the factor being found in Tools, Options, Calendar.
Read the rest of the story in FAQ 5 in
http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm

HTH

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
+32 495 300 620
For availability check:
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/Calendar.pdf

 

[Scott]

Whenever I have a similar problem, I usually change the date field to show
the time also. This usually shows where/why Project is adjusting the
schedule as it is.

Go to Tools-->Options. On the View tab, change the date format to include
the time.

 

[Steve House]

The duration of a task is NOT the time between when it could start and when
it's due, it's not its 'window of opportunity.' Duration is defined as "the
number of working time minutes between the moment physical work begins and
the moment physical work completes." Tasks are always physical activites and
their duration is an estimate of the actual time the task will take, the
time you literally could see physical activity going on if you were watching
the resource, between when work starts and the task's deliverable is
complete. If I have a task that could start Monday at 8am, takes 1 day's
worth of work to do, and is due 6am Friday, that is NOT either a 5 day
duration task or a 4 day duration task - it is a ONE day duration task with
a deadline of Friday 6am. But when I schedule it in the project, I'm going
to ask the resource to have it ready for me by the end of the day Monday
unless I have other things I also need him to be working on at the same
time. Related to this, another important consideration is when the
resources will actually be physically present and working. Those are the
times for your project's working time calendar. If the resource actually
doing the work works 8 to 5, a task that is due Friday at 6am will actually
have to be finished 5 pm Thur since if it isn't, work will stop and the
remainder can't be done until after 8am Friday when the resource returns to
the job, thus missing the deadline. In order to meet the deadline of Start
of Business Friday, the task must be complete by the Close of Business
Thursday since no work can take place between COB and SOB since there's no
one there to do it. Thus your task that physically starts Tue 6am is not a
4 day task after all - it is in fact a 3 day task since 3 working days is
the actual number of working days over which the physical activity will take
place. It is a 3 day task starting SOB Tuesday, finishing COB Thursday,
with a deadline of 6am Friday.

I hope you're not trying to enter start and finish dates for your tasks.
You don't tell project the schedule - when used properly you tell it what
needs to be done and it tells you when you can do it.