Creating a company time sheet - Project Pro and Project Server

[Glen]

I am currently using MS Project Professional 2002 and MS Project Server 2002, I am trying to create a time sheet system for the company. I have created a project and within that project I have created 15 or so tasks, and assigned people to each of those tasks. In the start column I put 12/1 and in the finish field I have 12/31/10 so the duration is around 1800 days. I publish the project out to the server and everyone is able to access their tasks.

My questions

1). How do I create a report that shows how much time has been spent on a particular task

2). How do I get it so that it doesn't automatically put hours in each task for everyone, I want the employees to do this

Any advice on how to build a timesheet system using MS Project Pro 2002 and MS Project Server 2002 would be greatly appreciated

Thanks in advance !!

 

[Dale Howard]

Glen --

1. Open your project and click View - Reports. Double-click the
Assignments section and then double-click the Who Does What When Report.
This will provide a report for how much work each resource has done on each
task on a daily basis.

2. If you use Project Web Access to collect actuals from your team members,
then they will be the ones who enter the Actual Work for each task. You
should probably select the Hours of Work Done Per Day or Per Week method of
tracking progress for this project (click Tools - Customize - Published
fields and select this method).

3. Project Web Access is probably the timesheet system that you are
seeking.

Follow up if you have more questions. Hope this helps.

I am currently using MS Project Professional 2002 and MS Project Server

2002, I am trying to create a time sheet system for the company. I have
created a project and within that project I have created 15 or so tasks, and
assigned people to each of those tasks. In the start column I put 12/1 and
in the finish field I have 12/31/10 so the duration is around 1800 days. I
publish the project out to the server and everyone is able to access their
tasks.

My questions.

1). How do I create a report that shows how much time has been spent on a particular task?

2). How do I get it so that it doesn't automatically put hours in each

task for everyone, I want the employees to do this.

Any advice on how to build a timesheet system using MS Project Pro 2002

and MS Project Server 2002 would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Glen]

Thanks Dale for replying

When I do the view report like you suggested, I see that each resource already has time for each task for each day. It looks like the system is automatically putting times in for each resource from the start to finish date. Is there anyway not have the system do this.

 

[Dale Howard]

Glen --

Oops! I forgot one of the steps you needed to do. Try these steps and see
if this tells you what you want to know:

1. Open your project and click View - Reports.
2. Double-click the Assignments section
3. Select the Who Does What When Report and click the Edit button
4. Change the Work field to the Actual Work field and click OK
5. Double-click the Who Does What When report to print preview it

This will provide a report for how much Actual Work each resource has done
on each task on a daily basis. If the customized Report meets your
reporting needs, then copy it to your Global.mpt file by clicking Tools -
Organizer - Reports. This will make the new report available in every
current and future project.

Sorry for the confusion! Hope this clarification helps.

Thanks Dale for replying.

When I do the view report like you suggested, I see that each resource

already has time for each task for each day. It looks like the system is
automatically putting times in for each resource from the start to finish
date. Is there anyway not have the system do this.

 

[Kevin Flanagan]

By maiking the task fixed duration, non effort-driven,
this should change that for you.

Kevin (sorry Dale for butting in)

-----Original Message-----
Thanks Dale for replying.

When I do the view report like you suggested, I see that

each resource already has time for each task for each
day. It looks like the system is automatically putting
times in for each resource from the start to finish
date. Is there anyway not have the system do this.

 

[Glen]

Great !!! That worked perfectly.

Now can I do a report to show how much time has been spent by all resources on a particular or all tasks?

 

[Glen]

Okay, I spoke too soon. The data I see in my report is not what I see on my Project Server. When I update the server and put in my time daily, I click on Save Changes, should I be doing something different.

Thanks for you help and patience with me and my questions.

----- Dale Howard wrote: -----

Glen --

Oops! I forgot one of the steps you needed to do. Try these steps and see
if this tells you what you want to know:

1. Open your project and click View - Reports.
2. Double-click the Assignments section
3. Select the Who Does What When Report and click the Edit button
4. Change the Work field to the Actual Work field and click OK
5. Double-click the Who Does What When report to print preview it

This will provide a report for how much Actual Work each resource has done
on each task on a daily basis. If the customized Report meets your
reporting needs, then copy it to your Global.mpt file by clicking Tools -
Organizer - Reports. This will make the new report available in every
current and future project.

Sorry for the confusion! Hope this clarification helps.

Thanks Dale for replying.

already has time for each task for each day. It looks like the system is
automatically putting times in for each resource from the start to finish
date. Is there anyway not have the system do this.

 

[Dale Howard]

Glen --

When you enter actuals in PWA each day (or each week), at the end of the
reporting period you need to click the Update All button to send the updates
to the project manager. The PM then needs to update these actuals into the
project plan. Once the update is completed by the PM, then he/she should
publish the project again by clicking Collaborate - Publish - All
Information. This is done to "synch up" the numbers in the project plan
with the numbers in PWA. Hope this helps.

Okay, I spoke too soon. The data I see in my report is not what I see on

my Project Server. When I update the server and put in my time daily, I
click on Save Changes, should I be doing something different.

 

[Glen]

Since I am the IT persona and created this Project and these tasks I am the PM. Is there anyway so that the system will automatically do this for me or how do I change the PM for each task?

----- Dale Howard wrote: -----

Glen --

When you enter actuals in PWA each day (or each week), at the end of the
reporting period you need to click the Update All button to send the updates
to the project manager. The PM then needs to update these actuals into the
project plan. Once the update is completed by the PM, then he/she should
publish the project again by clicking Collaborate - Publish - All
Information. This is done to "synch up" the numbers in the project plan
with the numbers in PWA. Hope this helps.

Okay, I spoke too soon. The data I see in my report is not what I see on

my Project Server. When I update the server and put in my time daily, I
click on Save Changes, should I be doing something different.

 

[Glen]

Since I created this project and these tasks I am the PM. Is there anyway to have the system automatically do this for me, that way I don't get all this stuff from each resource

----- Dale Howard wrote: ----

Glen -

When you enter actuals in PWA each day (or each week), at the end of th
reporting period you need to click the Update All button to send the update
to the project manager. The PM then needs to update these actuals into th
project plan. Once the update is completed by the PM, then he/she shoul
publish the project again by clicking Collaborate - Publish - Al
Information. This is done to "synch up" the numbers in the project pla
with the numbers in PWA. Hope this helps

--
Dale A. Howar
Enterprise Project Trainer/Consultan
http://www.msprojectexperts.co
"We wrote the book on Project Server

Okay, I spoke too soon. The data I see in my report is not what I see o

my Project Server. When I update the server and put in my time daily,
click on Save Changes, should I be doing something different

 

[Dale Howard]

Glen --

Since you are the project manager, Microsoft rightly assumes that you should
be directly involved in the process of reviewing and processing task
updates. There is no way to automate this process without at least minimal
involvement from you. The closest that you can come to automating the
process is to create one or more Rules on the Updates page, which can then
be run by clicking the Run Rules Now button. I don't really recommend this
method, however, since you will lose control over the process of updating
actuals, and might miss important information that you people are trying to
communicate with you. Hope this helps.

Since I created this project and these tasks I am the PM. Is there anyway

to have the system automatically do this for me, that way I don't get all
this stuff from each resource.

 

[Sarah]

Glen,

If you are referring to Project scheduling work in the future, and not
to Actual Work performed, then you can assign each resource at 0% on
the task. But I believe this can also cause some problems on its own.
I've never tried it, so maybe someone else can advise.

Sarah

 

[Glen]

Okay, that makes sense.

One last question. Each time someone updates their task I see in MS Project Pro that either the Start date or Finish date changes, why is that?

----- Dale Howard wrote: -----

Glen --

Since you are the project manager, Microsoft rightly assumes that you should
be directly involved in the process of reviewing and processing task
updates. There is no way to automate this process without at least minimal
involvement from you. The closest that you can come to automating the
process is to create one or more Rules on the Updates page, which can then
be run by clicking the Run Rules Now button. I don't really recommend this
method, however, since you will lose control over the process of updating
actuals, and might miss important information that you people are trying to
communicate with you. Hope this helps.

Since I created this project and these tasks I am the PM. Is there anyway

to have the system automatically do this for me, that way I don't get all
this stuff from each resource.

 

[Dale Howard]

Glen --

OK, one last answer. HA!

When a team members enters actuals values in the timesheet portion of the
View My Tasks page, the first date cell in which they type a number is
established as the Actual Start date of the task. And the last date cell in
which they type a number is established as the Actual Finish date of the
task. This mirrors the real world. Even though my task was supposed to
start on Monday, December 1, I did not actually start until today, December
3. Therefore, the Actual Start date of my task is December 3.

When you update actuals into your Microsoft Project plan, the Start date of
the task is changed to match the Actual Start date, and the Finish date of
the task is changed to match the Actual Finish date of the task. As you
update actuals into the plan, I like to say that the project plan "morphs"
from what we planned to happen (the baseline version of the plan) into the
way it really happened. Remember, your baseline has captured the original
state of the project (assuming you remembered to save a baseline), and you
can compare the current state of the project against its baseline in several
ways, including:

1. The Tracking Gantt view
2. The task Work table
3. The task Cost table
4. The task Variance table

In the three tables, the column(s) called Variance tells you the difference
between the current state and the baseline state of the project. Hope this
helps.

Okay, that makes sense.

One last question. Each time someone updates their task I see in MS

Project Pro that either the Start date or Finish date changes, why is that?

 

[Glen]

Thanks for you time, answers and patience. You have been a huge help and I appreciate it. I'm sure I'll come up with more in the near future but this certainly helps.

Thanks for everything !!

 

[Glen]

One more thing.

When users update their timesheet and click "Update All" it says that some tasks will go to me for approval and other will go to DxCG for approval. Why is this happening, they are all under the same Project. How can I make it so that all approvals go to me? and not be split.

Thanks,