Duration problem

[Schalk]

I am just learning how to use ms project, I have a big project and I first
listed all the task names and didn’t worry about the start and finish dates.
Then I put in all the durations .Today I found out about the recourse
management and I cleared all the duration fields now my sub tasks are zero
but my tasks are still populated with days how do I clear the tasks duration?
I am using ms project professional 2003.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Schalk,

There is absolutely no need to clear all durations, when necessary they will
be recalculated when you will manipulate Work and Resource Units (i.e. how
many of one resource will be assigned to a task).
And there will always be a duration, the default being one day; it can be
zero but then the task will be considered a milestone, and all your tasks
can't be milestones, can they?

And I like your comment about not worrying about start and end dates, indeed
you shouldn't, Project will calculate them for you, that is the purpose of
the SW.
HTH

 

[Schalk]

I don't think i explained my question correctly, my task is populated with
100 days but the sub task is only 11 days, i dont know where the other 89
days are coming from, even if i delete the task and create a new task it is
still populated with the 100 days. Only when i go past 100 days the duration
starts to update, it does not happen with all the tasks. I have 5 big tasks
with alot of subtasks and subtasks for those tasks and only three tasks are
giving me the problem.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

That indeed sounds like a very different problem!
It's not something I recognize.
Would you send the file to
jandemesATprom-adeDOTbe
replacing AT and DOT by the appropriate signs?
I shall look at it and come back ASAP.

 

[Schalk]

Hi Jan, thanks for the help i think i solved the problem, it looks like it
has something to do with the settings of the time sceduling, i set the work
and duration to days, if i change the work time to hours and take off the
predesessors everything work out.thanks for the help.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

Not really. Read the mail I also sent directly after looking at your file:

Hi Schalk,

Sorry to have kept you waiting... I have some very demanding customers these
days
Had you been clear I could have set you straight from the start.
Why did you write 'I didn't care about start and finsh dates' when that's
exactly what you have been doing?

On summary task 4, most tasks start 7/11 and you FORCE task 28
Develop and set up the thematic maps in Autodesk MapGuide
to not finish before 27/3/06

So the summary task, which by definition starts with the first tasks and
ends with the finish of the latest one, will automatically stretch from
7/11/5 till 27/3/06, and that is 100 working days.

Duration runs from start to finish of the summary task and is absolutely not
(necessarily) the sum of the tasks' durations.

Hope this helps,