Fluid Start and Finish Dates

[Adrian]

I am a trying to schedule a set of experiments (I'm a Ph.D. student--
cancer cell biology). The issue I have is that the experiments do not
always finish on the date anticipated. Some finish early, some finish
late. If I mark a task as 100% complete Project 2007 does not change
the finish date to the date on which the task was actually completed.
This creates a tracking issue as there are many downstream
dependencies from this first task as well as chains of dependencies
which start with this first task.
Does anyone have some suggestions on how to model/manage a project
where the dates are very fluid? Is the only way but to go in and
manually change the finish dates (I thought setting hard start and
finish dates was not a good way to use Project)?

Thanks,
Adrian.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

Indeed, you better not set PLANNED dates but as for reality, how would
Project know what happened if you do not tell?

So no fear, you are on the right track!
Greetings,

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
+32 495 300 620
For availability check:
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/Calendar.pdf

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Adrian,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

Avoid entering % Complete: use Actual Work and Remaining Work which will
make Project calculate the %Complete for you and the Finish Date will be
adjusted accordingly.

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP
See http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc for my free Project Tutorials

 

[Steve House]

Adding to the others, there's a difference between the Start and Finish
fields and the Actual Start and Actual Finish fields. Start and Finish
describe planned dates and should never be entered directly, as you rightly
point out. But Actual Start and Actual Finish describe true history and are
intended for manual entry. Entering a value in Start sets a SNET constraint
and nothing is in Actual Start - you've changed the plan but the task hasn't
started ye. Entering a date in Actual Start says the task really HAS
started and the date entered is transferred to the Start so the plan
adjusts. Entering an Actual Finish sets the task as 100% complete AND
also updates the duration to reflect what the task really took. Just
setting the task complete assumes that it really took place according to the
orginal plan. If that's what happened, fine. But if reality differed from
estimated, entering Actual Start and Actual Finish causes Project to update
everything accordingly.

 

[Adrian]

Excellent! Thank you all. The "Actual Start"/"Actual Finish" and the
"Actual Work" works like a charm.

Adrian.