P
Peter
Is that a way to disable the automatic changing of Duration when the Start or
Finish column is changed?
Thanks,
Peter
Finish column is changed?
Thanks,
Peter
R
Rod Gill
No.
The power of Project is in the recalculation so that when something
somewhere is changed the rest of the schedule recalculates. However if you
really want to you can set calculation to manual (Tools, Options and
Calculation tab) then manually adjust every value with no automatic
calculation anywhere!!
The power of Project is in the recalculation so that when something
somewhere is changed the rest of the schedule recalculates. However if you
really want to you can set calculation to manual (Tools, Options and
Calculation tab) then manually adjust every value with no automatic
calculation anywhere!!
M
Mike Glen
Hi Peter,
Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup
You cannot do this as the Duration, by definition, is the span of working
time between the begining and ending of the task. However, you should not
be changing the dates - that's Project's job. Only in extreme cases should
you enter Start or Finish dates as doing so will evoke a constraint which
will reduce the flexibility of your project. Enter Project Start Date, task
Durations and precedence links, then leave Project to do what it is designed
to do - calculate that dates for your schedule.
I detect that you are newish to Project, might I strongly suggest you take
an introductory course for a few days to get you up to speed quickly. You
also might like to consider a Project Management course also. Also, you
might like to have a look at my series on Microsoft Project in the TechTrax
ezine 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
Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup
You cannot do this as the Duration, by definition, is the span of working
time between the begining and ending of the task. However, you should not
be changing the dates - that's Project's job. Only in extreme cases should
you enter Start or Finish dates as doing so will evoke a constraint which
will reduce the flexibility of your project. Enter Project Start Date, task
Durations and precedence links, then leave Project to do what it is designed
to do - calculate that dates for your schedule.
I detect that you are newish to Project, might I strongly suggest you take
an introductory course for a few days to get you up to speed quickly. You
also might like to consider a Project Management course also. Also, you
might like to have a look at my series on Microsoft Project in the TechTrax
ezine 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
J
John
Rod Gill said:
Rod,
Just a question. Can you give an example of a case where doing what the
poster is asking makes any sense?
John
S
Steve House [Project MVP]
Jumping in, I can 't think of any circumstance at all. There's the joke
that says when you interview a candidate for an accounting job, the one to
hire is the guy that answers "What would you liike it to be?" when you ask
him "What's 2 plus 2?" In the real world I would never, ever, under any
circumstance want a program to tell me 2+2 is 5 or that when working an 8
hour a day, 5 day a week calendar there are 24 hours of duration in a task
that starts July 1st and ends August 1st. Neither is mathematically valid -
they're just plain wrong - and one of the reasons for using a program like
MS Project is to short-circuit the human propensity for self-delusion. A
useful program is one that stubbornly refuses to give me wrong answers no
matter how badly I want them .
that says when you interview a candidate for an accounting job, the one to
hire is the guy that answers "What would you liike it to be?" when you ask
him "What's 2 plus 2?" In the real world I would never, ever, under any
circumstance want a program to tell me 2+2 is 5 or that when working an 8
hour a day, 5 day a week calendar there are 24 hours of duration in a task
that starts July 1st and ends August 1st. Neither is mathematically valid -
they're just plain wrong - and one of the reasons for using a program like
MS Project is to short-circuit the human propensity for self-delusion. A
useful program is one that stubbornly refuses to give me wrong answers no
matter how badly I want them .
P
Peter
Hi Mike,
You're right that I'm a newbie to Project. Thanks for the link and I will
definitely go thru the series. I understand that I should not need to enter
Start or Finish date. The problem that I encounter is that the Project is
started by another person and he is responsible for tasks which are
predecessor of my tasks. But his tasks information are not probably entered
so the dates and duration are not right. So, the Start date on all my tasks
are not correct.
Thanks,
Peter
You're right that I'm a newbie to Project. Thanks for the link and I will
definitely go thru the series. I understand that I should not need to enter
Start or Finish date. The problem that I encounter is that the Project is
started by another person and he is responsible for tasks which are
predecessor of my tasks. But his tasks information are not probably entered
so the dates and duration are not right. So, the Start date on all my tasks
are not correct.
Thanks,
Peter
S
Steve House [Project MVP]
You say the start date for your tasks is not "correct." When I hear someone
make a statement like that, usually they have an idea when they want to do
those tasks or the bos has told them they should do those tasks, but Project
is telling them something different. Remember that Project is calculating
those dates based on the task in question's relationship to the tasks that
come before it and the lngth of time it is taking to accomplish thos
predecessor tasks. So if it's telling you that task X is supposed to start
next Thursday when you really want it to start next Monday, it's telling you
it won't be POSSIBLE to start it before Thursday because everything that has
to be done before you can do that won't be ready before then. Or
convsersely, if You want to start something in 2 weeks and it's telling you
it will start day after tomorrow, that means you have some inefficiencies in
the work as you've arranged it and you're wasting time when you could start
the task in question eearlier than you thought.
If the relationships between the tasks - the predecessor/successor links -
are input correctly, the estimates of their durations are accurate, and any
constraints are taken into account, the "correct" dates are those that
Project is calculating for you, not the dates that you have come up with on
your own. Indeed, having it do those calculations for you is the reason for
using Project in the first place.
make a statement like that, usually they have an idea when they want to do
those tasks or the bos has told them they should do those tasks, but Project
is telling them something different. Remember that Project is calculating
those dates based on the task in question's relationship to the tasks that
come before it and the lngth of time it is taking to accomplish thos
predecessor tasks. So if it's telling you that task X is supposed to start
next Thursday when you really want it to start next Monday, it's telling you
it won't be POSSIBLE to start it before Thursday because everything that has
to be done before you can do that won't be ready before then. Or
convsersely, if You want to start something in 2 weeks and it's telling you
it will start day after tomorrow, that means you have some inefficiencies in
the work as you've arranged it and you're wasting time when you could start
the task in question eearlier than you thought.
If the relationships between the tasks - the predecessor/successor links -
are input correctly, the estimates of their durations are accurate, and any
constraints are taken into account, the "correct" dates are those that
Project is calculating for you, not the dates that you have come up with on
your own. Indeed, having it do those calculations for you is the reason for
using Project in the first place.
P
Peter
Hi Steve,
In my case, the Duration is entered by the persons who actually is going to
do the tasks. I control the start and end dates for those tasks. Based on
the duration and other factors of each tasks, I will decide the start and end
dates. Since the duration will be entered first, I want to disable the
automatic changing of Duration when I enter start and end dates.
Thanks,
Peter
In my case, the Duration is entered by the persons who actually is going to
do the tasks. I control the start and end dates for those tasks. Based on
the duration and other factors of each tasks, I will decide the start and end
dates. Since the duration will be entered first, I want to disable the
automatic changing of Duration when I enter start and end dates.
Thanks,
Peter
S
Steve House [Project MVP]
I really don't mean to sound insulting but you don't seem to understand the
basic workflow behind scheduling software such as MS Project and its role in
the PM process. Fundamentally you don't tell it the dates that tasks will
take place, *it* tells *you* the dates tasks CAN take place. If you already
knew what dates the tasks should occur on, you could save a lot of money and
instead of spending hundreds of dollars on scheduling software you could
accomplish the same result with a wall planner and box of magic markers for
about 10 bucks. You use the software because you either don't have a clue
when tasks can take place because there's simply too many of them in too
much of a complex of relationships to schedule by the seat of your pants or
to give you a reality check as to whether a certain schedule you have in
mind is workable or not.
A second concept you simply must internalize is that duration is DEFINED as
the number of hours or minutes shown as work time by the Project calendar
between when a task starts and when it ends. If you work a standard
calendar (M-F, 8-5) and a task starts Monday at 8am and ends Friday at 5pm,
there are 40 hours (5 days) of working time between start and finish any way
you cut it - not 20 hours, not 50 hours, not 37.3 - it's 40 hours, no more,
no less, ever and mathematically impossible to be anything else. Any other
number is measuring something besides duration. Viewed another way, if it
starts Monday at 8am and has 40 hours of duration, it absolutely positively,
will end Friday at 5pm. Any other ending time would be something other than
40 hours duration.
That's not to say that the resource will spend all of those working hours
actively engaged in the task but that's work, something quite different from
duration. If Joe works on the task Mon 8a-9a, Tues 9a-10a, Wed 11a-12n,
Thur 2p-3p, and Fri 4p-5p the task has 5 hours of work spread over the
course of 40 hours of duration. When you use the term "duration" in the
question you posed, could it be you're really thinking about man-hours of
work rather than hours of duration?
HTH
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs
basic workflow behind scheduling software such as MS Project and its role in
the PM process. Fundamentally you don't tell it the dates that tasks will
take place, *it* tells *you* the dates tasks CAN take place. If you already
knew what dates the tasks should occur on, you could save a lot of money and
instead of spending hundreds of dollars on scheduling software you could
accomplish the same result with a wall planner and box of magic markers for
about 10 bucks. You use the software because you either don't have a clue
when tasks can take place because there's simply too many of them in too
much of a complex of relationships to schedule by the seat of your pants or
to give you a reality check as to whether a certain schedule you have in
mind is workable or not.
A second concept you simply must internalize is that duration is DEFINED as
the number of hours or minutes shown as work time by the Project calendar
between when a task starts and when it ends. If you work a standard
calendar (M-F, 8-5) and a task starts Monday at 8am and ends Friday at 5pm,
there are 40 hours (5 days) of working time between start and finish any way
you cut it - not 20 hours, not 50 hours, not 37.3 - it's 40 hours, no more,
no less, ever and mathematically impossible to be anything else. Any other
number is measuring something besides duration. Viewed another way, if it
starts Monday at 8am and has 40 hours of duration, it absolutely positively,
will end Friday at 5pm. Any other ending time would be something other than
40 hours duration.
That's not to say that the resource will spend all of those working hours
actively engaged in the task but that's work, something quite different from
duration. If Joe works on the task Mon 8a-9a, Tues 9a-10a, Wed 11a-12n,
Thur 2p-3p, and Fri 4p-5p the task has 5 hours of work spread over the
course of 40 hours of duration. When you use the term "duration" in the
question you posed, could it be you're really thinking about man-hours of
work rather than hours of duration?
HTH
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs