Dont reschedule a missed recurring task

[Michael]

I did search for this and didnt find anything, maybe cause its a strange
request.
Anyway, say I have a recurring task everyday for 1 hour.
I go to a class for a week, I dont want to set it to non working time, and I
dont want to have the task rescheduled the next week.
Then I just have double of the same task the next week.
So what I want is to just have the tasks during the class week to go away.
I know I could delete the week of tasks, but, if I dont acutally go to the
class I want to delete the class and have the task show up again.
Thanks,
Michael

 

[davegb]

I did search for this and didnt find anything, maybe cause its a strange
request.
Anyway, say I have a recurring task everyday for 1 hour.
I go to a class for a week, I dont want to set it to non working time, and I
dont want to have the task rescheduled the next week.
Then I just have double of the same task the next week.
So what I want is to just have the tasks during the class week to go away.
I know I could delete the week of tasks, but, if I dont acutally go to the
class I want to delete the class and have the task show up again.
Thanks,
Michael

I'm not really clear on what you're asking. Is it that you have a
weekly class for an hour, set as a recurring task, and that for a
particular week, while you're in another class, you won't be going? And
you want the weekly class to not show that week? I'm not clear what
"double of the same task the next week" means.

I can tell you it's not easy to make tasks "just go away". It might be
possible to write a VBA macro to have one group of tasks replace
another task it it's deleted, but would be a lot of work, not worth it
unless you have this happening a lot.

Please clarify and I'll try to help.

 

[Michael]

Ok, lets say I have a task everyday of checking email for 1hr everyday.
Now I want to go to a class full time for a week and skip checking email for
that week. I dont want to have the 5 tasks from that week moved to the next
week and have 2 tasks each day for cheking email the next week.
I just want to skip that task for that week.
But, if for some reason the class gets canceled I want to delete the class
and have the recurring task back with out needing to add them again.
BTW, this isnt the real stuff, I just didnt feel like going into it and
wanted to simplify it.

 

[davegb]

Ok, lets say I have a task everyday of checking email for 1hr everyday.
Now I want to go to a class full time for a week and skip checking email for
that week. I dont want to have the 5 tasks from that week moved to the next
week and have 2 tasks each day for cheking email the next week.
I just want to skip that task for that week.
But, if for some reason the class gets canceled I want to delete the class
and have the recurring task back with out needing to add them again.
BTW, this isnt the real stuff, I just didnt feel like going into it and
wanted to simplify it.

I think you are misunderstanding the purpose of Project. It's not a
PIM. It's not intended to schedule daily activities which come and go
rather capriciously. It's for scheduling projects.

A far better way to account for those things that you do routinely that
may or may not occur at the "normal" time is to set the Base Calendar
(Tools, Change Working Time) to less than 40 hrs per wk. 32 to 36 hrs
is more realistic for most of us. Then do routine activities during
that unscheduled time, and your task-related activities as scheduled in
Project. Project is not designed for and does not easily accomodate,
situations like if I attend class next week, cancel all the other stuff
I normally do but continue it the week after. If you want software that
can schedule activities that way, I suggest Commence. It doesn't do CPM
project scheduling. I use it for my daily scheduling and Project for my
projects.

Hope this helps in your world.

 

[Michael]

BTW, this isnt the real stuff, I just didnt feel like going into it andI think that is what is confusing.
So, Ok I have recurring daily tasks, say that total 4hr a day that I need to
perform. If I have a project that comes along I want to do the project for
8hrs a day and skip the daily task (like review log files of servers) if need
be with out overallocating. And this project may have slack time, start date
change, etc. that I want to be able to change and not have to keep editing
the recurring tasks and not have them pile up when the project is done.
Because, even after the project is done it will still only take the normal
amount of time to do the task not double etc.
I found that so far the best I can do is to remove myself manually as a
resource from the task and then when the project schedule changes manually
add myself back etc.

 

[davegb]

I think that is what is confusing.
So, Ok I have recurring daily tasks, say that total 4hr a day that I need to
perform. If I have a project that comes along I want to do the project for
8hrs a day and skip the daily task (like review log files of servers) if need
be with out overallocating. And this project may have slack time, start date
change, etc. that I want to be able to change and not have to keep editing
the recurring tasks and not have them pile up when the project is done.
Because, even after the project is done it will still only take the normal
amount of time to do the task not double etc.
I found that so far the best I can do is to remove myself manually as a
resource from the task and then when the project schedule changes manually
add myself back etc.

I gather it's not working for you, or you wouldn't be asking for a
better way here. But anything you do for this kind of situation is
going to be a workaround, because that's not how Project is intended to
be applied. I don't have any better ideas, and so far, it doesn't
appear anyone else does.

Best of luck!

 

[davegb]

I think that is what is confusing.
So, Ok I have recurring daily tasks, say that total 4hr a day that I need to
perform. If I have a project that comes along I want to do the project for
8hrs a day and skip the daily task (like review log files of servers) if need
be with out overallocating. And this project may have slack time, start date
change, etc. that I want to be able to change and not have to keep editing
the recurring tasks and not have them pile up when the project is done.
Because, even after the project is done it will still only take the normal
amount of time to do the task not double etc.
I found that so far the best I can do is to remove myself manually as a
resource from the task and then when the project schedule changes manually
add myself back etc.

I gather it's not working for you, or you wouldn't be asking for a
better way here. But anything you do for this kind of situation is
going to be a workaround, because that's not how Project is intended to
be applied. I don't have any better ideas, and so far, it doesn't
appear anyone else does.

Best of luck!