Fixed duration tasks

[jdk]

I have read through some of the posts regarding this but have not found
the answer I am looking for...

I have a task that should be open for the duration of the project -
administrative type work. I set the start date and duration such that
the task would last the length of the project.
We initially set up the task with Fixed work because the task has X
hours associated to it. As resources entered in their hours the end
date would change. This makes sense - as they do the work it could
finish sooner, however we know that it should end on Y date.

That being the case I changed the task to fixed duration and made sure
that the remaining hours for each of the resources was correct.

It is now 1 week later and the resources have again updated their
hours. The end date has changed again on me.

I get the impression from some of the posts that I should turn off the
effort driven check, however I have seen a few posts say that doesn't
always seem to work.

I also saw a post where someone suggested setting up 2 tasks - one
planned and one actual. Resources would charget to the actual task and
the end date for it would change as they updated hours where the
planned one would stay "right."

What is the proper way to set up a task that has X hours assigned for
the duration of the project. I don't want the end date to ever change
but understand that the hours could increase or decrease over that time
period.

 

[tonyzink]

Hi jdk --

Fixed Duration, Non Effort Driven tasks seem to work the best for
capturing ongoing / administrative / time bucket tasks. If you
configure a task as being Fixed Duration, MSProject should attempt to
maintain the duration of the task, regardless of how you apply actual
work hours against it (there are exceptions, such as when you reach the
last day of the task and there is still some non-zero Remaining Work).

However, keep this in mind... if you have created a task with a planned
start date and a duration, and the task starts late, then MSProject
will assume that the originally-planned duration is still correct
(unless you specify otherwise) and "slide" the entire task down the
timeline. You've told MSProject that the start date has changed, but
you haven't told MSProject that the duration has changed, so the tool
slid the task downstream and calculated a new finish date.

This may be what happened to your task(s)... if the Team Members posted
their first Actual Work hours on a day after the planned Start date,
then this effectively set an Actual Start date which was later than
planned... causing the entire task to shift downstream.

To prevent this from happening, You can manually set the Actual Start
date for each of the tasks to align with the planned Start date. Then,
if Team Members post time somewhere along the timeline, the tasks are
effectively "pinned down" and shouldn't shift.

Good luck!

Tony Zink
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