Assign resources to a fixed duration task with no work in MSP 2007

[George]

I have the following situation which I have been able to handle in MSP
2003 but cannot figure out a way to do this in 2007:

The project has certain external customer tasks which I need to track
but for which we do not want to include work as this would distort our
budget, earned value etc.

The tasks have a duration, and should have progress tracked (%
complete) so we know how things are going. We need to show a customer
reource assigned to these tasks.

Soooo - the task has a duration, a resource assigned to it but no
effort/work.

Is this possible to set up?

I've tried every combination of fixed duration, fixed work, effort
driven, milestones marked, etc. etc but cannot seem to get a duration
to remain intact while reducing work to zero.)

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

I'll never understand why MS suddenly stops supporting a very useful
feature.
The only workaround I know is to systematically use Cost instead of Work,
and put the cost of these external resources to 0.

Hope this helps

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

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi George,

You could create 2 tasks and indent one. The indented task you give the
Duration, and the Summary task you assign the resource at zero work.

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

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

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP
See http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc for Project Tutorials