Jan H-L said:
I'm trying to enter the hours of which a task starts and finishes,
is there any other way to control resources and cost accuratly?
Jan,
First of all, you shouldn't be entering either the task Start or Finish,
that's Project's job. Except in a few isolated cases (e.g. a task starts
independently of all other tasks and does not start when the project
starts), the task information you should be entering are:
1. Task Name - performance tasks should be in action verb format
2. Task Duration - whether in minutes, hours, days, etc. (Note: Task
Duration is NOT the same as Work effort although if a resource is
assigned at 100% the values in those two fields will be the same.)
3. Linkages between tasks - this sets up the logical flow of the
activities - the default is finish-to-start
4. Resource assignments - the people or material necessary to complete
the task
Given the above information, Project calculates a schedule. That is, it
will set up all task start and finish dates (and times if the option to
display time is selected under Tools/Options/View tab). Project will
also calculate Cost based on the resource pay rate x Work hours plus any
Fixed Cost associated with the task.
The user "controls" resources and cost by developing a realistic plan
and good project management techniques (e.g. workarounds when things
don't go as originally planned).
For some good reference material, you might want to go to our MVP
website at:
http://www.mvps.org/project/links.htm
and take a look at fellow MVP, Mike Glen's series on Project lessons and
techniques.
Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP
