How to calculate Planned and Actual Duration Monthwise

[Anum Imam]

Dear Experts,
I am new to MS Project 2007.I want to generate a report through which I can
get Duration (Planned) and Duration (Actual) on monthly basis to calculate
the schedule variance like Duration(Planned) – Duration(Actual).
Like I want to filter out tasks that were planned to be finished on
December. Now I want to calculate how much Duration I planned for December.
And In actual what was the duration of these tasks.
Can I achieve get this through reports option in MS Project or any other way
round.
Waiting for valuable feedback.

 

[Gérard Ducouret]

Hello Anum Imam,

Do you really want to compare planned et actual Duration instead of planned
and actual Work?
Anyway, the first thing to do, before entering actuals, is to set the
Baseline (what you call Planned):
Tools / Tracking / Set Baseline
The Tracking Gantt view will display the Baseline (gray color) the actual
(full color) and the remaining (pattern)
If you want to filter out tasks that were planned to be finished on
December, create a custom filter:
Project / Filtered For... / More Filters / New...
- Field Name : Baseline Finish
- Test : is within
- Value(s) : 01/12/09;31/12/09 (with the French date format)

Hope this helps

Gérard Ducouret

 

[Steve House]

December is a month with 20 working days or 160 working hours, if you
organization's workday matches the defaults and ignoring holidays. If the
project straddles December, the planned duration in December is 160 hours
and the Actual duration is 160 hours. The only way they can deviate is if a
working day becomes a non-working day, like the resource doing a certain
task takes a personal holiday. It really can't be anything else, by the
definition of duration.

I would strongly urge you to study-up on Earned Value - there the schedule
performance index reflects the work sheduled versus the work achieved and
gives you a valid indication of whether your project is on schedule. Simple
durations don't do that.