Duration vs. Start/Finish Constratints in 2007

[Confused]

Is the only way to have a task be worked on for 10 days over 2 months to set
a custom calendar with different default work hours?

 

[John]

Is the only way to have a task be worked on for 10 days over 2 months to set
a custom calendar with different default work hours?

Confused,
It depends on what you mean by "worked on for 10 days". Does that mean
any 10 of the 60 some odd days or does that mean 80 hours of effort over
the 2 month period? I'm guessing you really mean the latter. In that
case, set the task as Fixed Duration and enter 2 months (i.e. 40 working
days nominal) in the duration field. Then enter 80 hours in the Work
field. That effectively means that the work effort is 80 hours and the
resource(s) assigned to it have 2 months of duration time to complete
that work effort.

John
Project MVP

 

[Confused]

Hi John,

Thank you for the response, but I guess I remain a bit confused. I would
like the duration to read 10 days but the start date to be August 1 and the
Finish date to be September 30. As far as I can tell, the only way to
accomplish this is a custom calendar, but that seems very challenging for
something that is quite common. Any additional information would be very
helpful.

Thank you again!

 

[John]

Hi John,

Thank you for the response, but I guess I remain a bit confused. I would
like the duration to read 10 days but the start date to be August 1 and the
Finish date to be September 30. As far as I can tell, the only way to
accomplish this is a custom calendar, but that seems very challenging for
something that is quite common. Any additional information would be very
helpful.

Thank you again!

Confused,
By definition the duration is the difference in working time between the
start date and the finish date. I guess you could get the equivalent of
10 days duration between a start date of Aug 1 and a finish date of 30
Sept by changing the working time calendar, but the question is why?

I have never heard of anyone wanting to set up a schedule the way you
describe. Normally there is confusion over the difference between
duration time and work effort time. Duration is the time during which a
task is worked on - it is strictly the passage of time. Work on the
other hand is the actual effort one or more resources must accomplish to
complete the task. If a single resource is assigned full time to a task,
duration time and work time will be the same. However, in most cases,
(more than one resource assigned to the task, a resource assigned less
than full time, etc.), duration time and work time are different. I
can't help but think that your 10 days of duration is, as I said in my
previous post, really 80 hours of work effort (8 hours for 10 days), and
to set that up you do NOT normally fiddle with the working time calendar.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP