formulas not working

[bikerjohn]

I am testing some formulas and I am getting strange results. My ultimate
goal is to calculate capacity for resources. The resouces are for groups so
the max available is different for each one. For testing purposes, I broke
every step out into seperate simple formulas. The first step is to find max
avail per day for a resource. I create a formula [max avail] * 5.56 which
gives me the total daily available hours for this resouce. Resouce 1 has
990% availability. Per the formula this means that there are 55.04 hours per
day. This works correctly. The 2nd step is to calculate the total available
hours for the length of the project. So the next formula called capacity1 is
[hours per day(number1)] * 56. The result for my test resource is 3082.46
This works as expected. Now here is where things break down. The next step
is to figure availabilty which should be capacity - work. This resouce has
2498 hours of work. I tried creating the formula in both pwa and also
locally within a project plan. From pwa the formula is [capacity1]-[work]
the expected result should be 3082-2498 = 540. My result using the
enterprise formula above comes out as -146797. For a 2nd test, I created a
dup formula locally within a project plan. The result this time is 0. I
then imported the 2nd formula into the enterprise and the result now is
-146797. If I change the amount of work assigned to the resouce from 2498
to 1hr. The results change to avail to 3022. If I change the work to 100
hrs, the avail is -2917. The formula works for resouces that do not have
assignments. Meaning the avail and the capacity are showing the same number.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[bikerjohn]

I figured it out, it's not intuitive but I figured it out. Apparently work
displays in hours but in this formula, 60 was being used instead of 1 for
each hour. I edited the formula to read [capacity1]-([work]/60) The sad
thing is that I wasted half a day playing with this!!!

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

bikerjohn --

Thanks for solving your own problem, and for sharing the solution with us.
Believe me, you are not the first person who has burned hours and hours
trying to solve a formula problem in Microsoft Project (or other types of
problems as well)!

I figured it out, it's not intuitive but I figured it out. Apparently
work
displays in hours but in this formula, 60 was being used instead of 1 for
each hour. I edited the formula to read [capacity1]-([work]/60) The sad
thing is that I wasted half a day playing with this!!!

I am testing some formulas and I am getting strange results. My ultimate
goal is to calculate capacity for resources. The resouces are for groups
so
the max available is different for each one. For testing purposes, I
broke
every step out into seperate simple formulas. The first step is to find
max
avail per day for a resource. I create a formula [max avail] * 5.56
which
gives me the total daily available hours for this resouce. Resouce 1 has
990% availability. Per the formula this means that there are 55.04 hours
per
day. This works correctly. The 2nd step is to calculate the total
available
hours for the length of the project. So the next formula called capacity1
is
[hours per day(number1)] * 56. The result for my test resource is
3082.46
This works as expected. Now here is where things break down. The next
step
is to figure availabilty which should be capacity - work. This resouce
has
2498 hours of work. I tried creating the formula in both pwa and also
locally within a project plan. From pwa the formula is
[capacity1]-[work]
the expected result should be 3082-2498 = 540. My result using the
enterprise formula above comes out as -146797. For a 2nd test, I created
a
dup formula locally within a project plan. The result this time is 0. I
then imported the 2nd formula into the enterprise and the result now is
-146797. If I change the amount of work assigned to the resouce from
2498
to 1hr. The results change to avail to 3022. If I change the work to
100
hrs, the avail is -2917. The formula works for resouces that do not have
assignments. Meaning the avail and the capacity are showing the same
number.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.