Completed tasks showing up as incomplete after importing time

T

tilt

Hi,

We use Project Server 2003, Project Web Access to enter time, and MS-Project
Professional 2003.

A task was completed on April 4. So, on April 5, I entered the date of
completion in the column "Actual Finish" in Project Server and re-published
new and changed assignments.

Meanwhile, people entered time on PWA. The only person assigned to the task
in question entered time on April 4 against that task.

On Monday April 9, I imported all the PWA time entered for the previous
week, saaved the project as prompted and then noticed that the task in
question has lost its completion date of April 4 and was now showing up as
"NA".

Can someone tell me why this happened?

Point to note: I know I am supposed to mark tasks complete by zeroing out
Remaining work instead of entering the date in Actual Finish, but then I do
not get the correct finish date. This is why I enter the correct date in
Actual Finish.

Thank you and cheers
 
D

Dale Howard [MVP]

tilt --

Your tracking process is the source of this problem. Here's what I don't
get: Why are YOU entering an Actual Finish date on a task when a team
member is also entering time on his/her PWA timesheet? WHO is supposed to
enter time in your organization, anyway? You? The team member? Both you
can't do it, for the reasons you have now learned.

If you wanted to manually complete the task in the Microsoft Project plan
and then show the task as completed on the team member's PWA timesheet, you
should have done the following steps:

1. Enter the Actual Finish date in the Microsoft Project plan
2. Click Collaborate - Publish - Republish Assignments
3. Select the "Ovewrite actual work entered by resources" option
4. Click the OK button.

Hope this helps.
 
T

tilt

Thanks for the quick resonse Dave.

I am the Administrator for the Project server, I loaded the plan onto it, so
I am the only one who can access it and make changes.

People enter time in PWA. Team leads communicate details of completed tasks
and dates of completion to me and I update it in the Project Server.

I do enter the actual finish date in the server, I do publish new and
changed assignments (instead of repblishing all assignments). I can try
republishing assignments and overwriting actuals like you said, but what do I
do in case someone enters time to a task AFTER I mark it complete?

Anyway, one point I would like some clarification on (which I failed to
mention earlier) is that the dates are significant here. Task was completed
on April 4. I physically did the marking on April 5. The resource had entered
time for April 4. Since completion date is 4 and time was entered till 4th,
should it not still treat the task as complete? I can understand your point
if I amrked the task comlete as of April 3 or 2 or 1 when there was already
actuals entered for 4th.

Thanks again and cheers
 
D

Dale Howard [MVP]

tilt --

When the team member entered actuals on the 4th, did he/she enter enough
Actual Work so that the task shows no Remaining Work? If not, the task is
not completed. The Actual Finish date you entered on the 5th is ignored
because you did not publish the changes correctly, as I noted in my last
message. In your situation, the team member's actuals win. Hope this
helps.
 
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