cost task duration versus cost actual work time

[Tom]

What's the best way to assign cost of labor to the actual time it takes to
complete a task while still showing the possible duration of the task? In
other words, what if a task only takes 1 min to complete, but may take a week
before the task is acted upon. In project, you have to specify the date when
that task is expected to be performed. Is it possible to set a one week
duration (best guess to when task will actually be performed) and only assign
a cost ($/hr) to the actual time it takes to complete the task? Hope i didn't
confuse anyone

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

Yes; read about the differnece between duration and work.
It's work that is used to calculate cost, not duration.
And BTW, I get the creeps whan someone claims that
"In project, you have to specify the date when

that task is expected to be performed."

NO? No, NO, NO
To the contrary, you should avoid that.
Project is designed to calculate the dates, not to register dates somebody
else calculated by hand.

HTH

 

[Haris Rashid]

Specify the work in the WORK column and use Task Type. Task type specifies
the effect that a change to work, assignment units, or duration has on the
calculation of the other two fields for this task. Unless you specify a
different default task type on the Schedule tab of the Options dialog box
(Tools menu), the default task type is Fixed Units. Fixed Units indicates
that the task's number of assignment units must remain constant, regardless
of any change in duration or work for the task. This is the default. For
fixed-unit tasks:

If you revise units in a fixed-unit task, Project recalculates duration.
If you revise duration, Project recalculates work.
If you revise the amount of work, Project recalculates the duration.


Regards,
Haris