I cannot enter both actual hours and actual dates on some tasks.

[MT]

I have tasks in my plan where I cannot enter both actual hours and actual
start & end dates. Why would this occur? How can I prevent it, because it
is really annoying? (MS Project Professional 2003).

For example, on one task I entered the actual start date of June 5th and the
actual end date of June 12th. I said it took the resource assigned to it 40
hrs (actual hours). The actual end date changed to June 23rd. I changed the
actual end date back to June 12th and the actual hours changed to 12 hours.
Changing actual hours back to 40 reset the actual end date to the 23rd.
The resource has a calendar of 5 days of 8 hours of work each week. No May
or June vacation. I don't see how this even matters however since I am
entering ACTUALS and not a schedule.
Entering the actuals changed the resource allocation from 100% to 123%. I
tried changing to fixed duration, fixed work, and back to fixed units, but
got the same behavior. I was able to work around it by increasing the
allocation of the resource to 3000% (three thousand).

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

I'm afraid you are somewhat uncklear about what you are doing here.
Once you enter ACTUAL START and ACTUAL FINISH (not just different values in
Start and Finish) Project will no longer recalculate them unless... unless
you tell it to do so by changing ACTUAL DURATION (which is the working time
between start and finish, by definition.
OTOH, when you enter Actual WORK, dates remain unchanged and unly units are
recalculated to match the Work=duration times units equation.
HTH

 

[MT]

What you state is unfortunately not true actual finish and duration change
as a result of changing actual work and vise-versa.. I enter actual start
(6/5/2006). Then I enter actual finish (6/12/2006). This automatically sets
the actual work to 12 hours. The duration (and I don't care about duration
particularly) is 6 days. I then change actual work to 40 hrs to reflect that
the worker assigned put in 40 hrs over that period. At this point the actual
finish is 6/23/2006 (I did this last week so somehow it thought I was
predicting the future). The actual duration goes to 15 days. Changing the
actual finish back to 6/12 will adjust the actual duraction back to 6 days
and the actual work to 12 hrs. The only way I can find to get 40 hrs over 6
dasy is overallocate the resource at 3000%. (NOTE: I did not do a binary
search to find the minimum allocation, but 200% was too little.) The
resource's calendar allows for 8 hours/day M-F. Not that it matters since I
am entering actuals.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

Well have you ever, you are right.
But I've checked my point before posting!
Is it a matter of version or was I blind?
I'll try in different versions and come back.

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

Something seems very odd about your calendars I think. What does the
Project calendar say are the working time hours? What does the resource
calendar for the resource assigned to this task say? On the Tools, Options
menu, Calendar tab, what is the setting for Hours per Day?

To enter actual work without changing duration (and vice versa) look at the
Calculation tab, the first checkbox "Updating task status updates resource
status" and turn it off.

 

[MT]

The calendar for the project has 5 days of work (M-F) hours are 8-12 & 1-5.
8 hours per day. The resource for the task in question works the default
calendar for June. (although similar effects happen for tasks assigned to
any resource seemingly at random). Tools-options-calendar shows 8 hours per
day.

I read the help section on the "Updating task status updates resource
status" and I am concerned that this will cause the % complete to not be
updated. Unfortunately, mgmt uses % complete as an indicator of project
status. I cannot have this not get updated as I enter actual work, remaining
work, actual start, and/or actual finish.

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

But you said you want the duration not to change when you enter actual work
and remaining work. If we were supposed to be at 50% work complete today
but are instead at 60% and we actually worked at 100% precisely as assigned,
for the scheduled amount of work to be 60% of the total instead of the 50%
we expected, that suggests that the toal work required has changed. Unless
we disconnect work and duration - ie, disconnect task status from resource
status - that change of total work also implies change of total duration.
You either want changes to work to affect duration or you don't, you can't
have it both ways.

The schedule reflects history for what has taken place and forecasts for the
future based on the consequences of those historical actuals. For example,
if I have task A scheduled for 5 days starting this past Monday linked to
task B, task B will show starting next Monday. But if you input that Task A
has had 16 hours of work put in and 16 hours of work to go, that implies
that the real duration SHOULD have been 4 days, not 5. The schedule will
change to reflect that fact, show 50% work complete AND 50% (duration)
complete, reschedule A's finish to tomorrow (Thur)(it doesn't know whether
another 8 hours of actuals will be posted for Wed so it just assumes it will
until you tell it otherwise) and pulls Task B forward to start Friday
instead of Monday. This is in keeping with Project's role as a dynamic
monitoring tool, keeping you advised on the consequences of actual
performance differing from predicted performance so that you can always keep
the project on track towards the most efficient achievement of its stated
goals.

We might be able to better help you out of this quandry if you can provide
step-by-step exactly how the project looks before posting updates and
exactly step by step how to duplicate the problem.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

 

[MT]

I don't see what duration has to do with % complete. This is not an issue
with start or finish fields. This is an issue with the ACTUAL start and
ACTUAL finish fields. There is no contradiction here. I want % complete to
update as I enter actuals. % complete is the ratio of actual work to
remaining work. I don't want the entering of actual work to change the
actual dates if I have entered them already.

In many other tasks there is no problem. about 20% of my tasks have this
issue. In the other 80% of my tasks, I can enter actual start and actual
finish, and then I can enter actual work and all the data is input correctly.

BEFORE:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=NA
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 16th.
Actual Work = 5 hours.
Remaining work = 35 hours.
Work = 40 hours.
Duration=10 days
% complete = 13% (5/40=13%)

AFTER ENTERING ACTUAL FINISH of June 12th:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=June 12th
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 12th.
Actual Work = 12 hours.
Remaining work = 0 hours.
Work = 12 hours.
Duration=6 days
% complete = 100% (12/12=100%)

AFTER UPDATING ACTUAL WORK TO 40 HRS:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=June 23rd
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 23rd.
Actual Work = 40 hours.
Remaining work = 0 hours.
Work = 40 hours.
Duration=15 days
% complete = 100% (40/40=100%)

AFTER SETTING ACTUAL FINISH BACK TO June 12th:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=June 12th
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 12th.
Actual Work = 12 hours.
Remaining work = 0 hours.
Work = 12 hours.
Duration=6 days
% complete = 100% (12/12=100%)

But you said you want the duration not to change when you enter actual work
and remaining work. If we were supposed to be at 50% work complete today
but are instead at 60% and we actually worked at 100% precisely as assigned,
for the scheduled amount of work to be 60% of the total instead of the 50%
we expected, that suggests that the toal work required has changed. Unless
we disconnect work and duration - ie, disconnect task status from resource
status - that change of total work also implies change of total duration.
You either want changes to work to affect duration or you don't, you can't
have it both ways.

The schedule reflects history for what has taken place and forecasts for the
future based on the consequences of those historical actuals. For example,
if I have task A scheduled for 5 days starting this past Monday linked to
task B, task B will show starting next Monday. But if you input that Task A
has had 16 hours of work put in and 16 hours of work to go, that implies
that the real duration SHOULD have been 4 days, not 5. The schedule will
change to reflect that fact, show 50% work complete AND 50% (duration)
complete, reschedule A's finish to tomorrow (Thur)(it doesn't know whether
another 8 hours of actuals will be posted for Wed so it just assumes it will
until you tell it otherwise) and pulls Task B forward to start Friday
instead of Monday. This is in keeping with Project's role as a dynamic
monitoring tool, keeping you advised on the consequences of actual
performance differing from predicted performance so that you can always keep
the project on track towards the most efficient achievement of its stated
goals.

We might be able to better help you out of this quandry if you can provide
step-by-step exactly how the project looks before posting updates and
exactly step by step how to duplicate the problem.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

The calendar for the project has 5 days of work (M-F) hours are 8-12 &
1-5.
8 hours per day. The resource for the task in question works the default
calendar for June. (although similar effects happen for tasks assigned to
any resource seemingly at random). Tools-options-calendar shows 8 hours
per
day.

I read the help section on the "Updating task status updates resource
status" and I am concerned that this will cause the % complete to not be
updated. Unfortunately, mgmt uses % complete as an indicator of project
status. I cannot have this not get updated as I enter actual work,
remaining
work, actual start, and/or actual finish.

 

[davegb]

I don't see what duration has to do with % complete. This is not an issue
with start or finish fields. This is an issue with the ACTUAL start and
ACTUAL finish fields. There is no contradiction here. I want % complete to
update as I enter actuals. % complete is the ratio of actual work to
remaining work.

This might be part of your problem. In Project, % Complete is really %
Duration Complete. The number you describe is % Work Complete.

% Duration Complete is simply number of days into the project over
total number of days scheduled for the project.

I wish I could help you more, but I don't have Project on this computer
to try to emulate what you're seeing.


I don't want the entering of actual work to change the

actual dates if I have entered them already.

In many other tasks there is no problem. about 20% of my tasks have this
issue. In the other 80% of my tasks, I can enter actual start and actual
finish, and then I can enter actual work and all the data is input correctly.

BEFORE:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=NA
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 16th.
Actual Work = 5 hours.
Remaining work = 35 hours.
Work = 40 hours.
Duration=10 days
% complete = 13% (5/40=13%)

AFTER ENTERING ACTUAL FINISH of June 12th:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=June 12th
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 12th.
Actual Work = 12 hours.
Remaining work = 0 hours.
Work = 12 hours.
Duration=6 days
% complete = 100% (12/12=100%)

AFTER UPDATING ACTUAL WORK TO 40 HRS:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=June 23rd
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 23rd.
Actual Work = 40 hours.
Remaining work = 0 hours.
Work = 40 hours.
Duration=15 days
% complete = 100% (40/40=100%)

AFTER SETTING ACTUAL FINISH BACK TO June 12th:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=June 12th
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 12th.
Actual Work = 12 hours.
Remaining work = 0 hours.
Work = 12 hours.
Duration=6 days
% complete = 100% (12/12=100%)

But you said you want the duration not to change when you enter actual work
and remaining work. If we were supposed to be at 50% work complete today
but are instead at 60% and we actually worked at 100% precisely as assigned,
for the scheduled amount of work to be 60% of the total instead of the 50%
we expected, that suggests that the toal work required has changed. Unless
we disconnect work and duration - ie, disconnect task status from resource
status - that change of total work also implies change of total duration.
You either want changes to work to affect duration or you don't, you can't
have it both ways.

The schedule reflects history for what has taken place and forecasts for the
future based on the consequences of those historical actuals. For example,
if I have task A scheduled for 5 days starting this past Monday linked to
task B, task B will show starting next Monday. But if you input that Task A
has had 16 hours of work put in and 16 hours of work to go, that implies
that the real duration SHOULD have been 4 days, not 5. The schedule will
change to reflect that fact, show 50% work complete AND 50% (duration)
complete, reschedule A's finish to tomorrow (Thur)(it doesn't know whether
another 8 hours of actuals will be posted for Wed so it just assumes it will
until you tell it otherwise) and pulls Task B forward to start Friday
instead of Monday. This is in keeping with Project's role as a dynamic
monitoring tool, keeping you advised on the consequences of actual
performance differing from predicted performance so that you can always keep
the project on track towards the most efficient achievement of its stated
goals.

We might be able to better help you out of this quandry if you can provide
step-by-step exactly how the project looks before posting updates and
exactly step by step how to duplicate the problem.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

The calendar for the project has 5 days of work (M-F) hours are 8-12 &
1-5.
8 hours per day. The resource for the task in question works the default
calendar for June. (although similar effects happen for tasks assigned to
any resource seemingly at random). Tools-options-calendar shows 8 hours
per
day.

I read the help section on the "Updating task status updates resource
status" and I am concerned that this will cause the % complete to not be
updated. Unfortunately, mgmt uses % complete as an indicator of project
status. I cannot have this not get updated as I enter actual work,
remaining
work, actual start, and/or actual finish.

:

Something seems very odd about your calendars I think. What does the
Project calendar say are the working time hours? What does the resource
calendar for the resource assigned to this task say? On the Tools,
Options
menu, Calendar tab, what is the setting for Hours per Day?

To enter actual work without changing duration (and vice versa) look at
the
Calculation tab, the first checkbox "Updating task status updates
resource
status" and turn it off.

What you state is unfortunately not true actual finish and duration
change
as a result of changing actual work and vise-versa.. I enter actual
start
(6/5/2006). Then I enter actual finish (6/12/2006). This
automatically
sets
the actual work to 12 hours. The duration (and I don't care about
duration
particularly) is 6 days. I then change actual work to 40 hrs to
reflect
that
the worker assigned put in 40 hrs over that period. At this point the
actual
finish is 6/23/2006 (I did this last week so somehow it thought I was
predicting the future). The actual duration goes to 15 days. Changing
the
actual finish back to 6/12 will adjust the actual duraction back to 6
days
and the actual work to 12 hrs. The only way I can find to get 40 hrs
over
6
dasy is overallocate the resource at 3000%. (NOTE: I did not do a
binary
search to find the minimum allocation, but 200% was too little.) The
resource's calendar allows for 8 hours/day M-F. Not that it matters
since
I
am entering actuals.

:

Hi,

I'm afraid you are somewhat uncklear about what you are doing here.
Once you enter ACTUAL START and ACTUAL FINISH (not just different
values
in
Start and Finish) Project will no longer recalculate them unless...
unless
you tell it to do so by changing ACTUAL DURATION (which is the working
time
between start and finish, by definition.
OTOH, when you enter Actual WORK, dates remain unchanged and unly
units
are
recalculated to match the Work=duration times units equation.
HTH

--
Jan De Messemaeker, Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/
For FAQs: http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm
"MT" <[email protected]> schreef in bericht
I have tasks in my plan where I cannot enter both actual hours and
actual
start & end dates. Why would this occur? How can I prevent it,
because
it
is really annoying? (MS Project Professional 2003).

For example, on one task I entered the actual start date of June 5th
and
the
actual end date of June 12th. I said it took the resource assigned
to
it
40
hrs (actual hours). The actual end date changed to June 23rd. I
changed
the
actual end date back to June 12th and the actual hours changed to 12
hours.
Changing actual hours back to 40 reset the actual end date to the
23rd.
The resource has a calendar of 5 days of 8 hours of work each week.
No
May
or June vacation. I don't see how this even matters however since I
am
entering ACTUALS and not a schedule.
Entering the actuals changed the resource allocation from 100% to
123%.
I
tried changing to fixed duration, fixed work, and back to fixed
units,
but
got the same behavior. I was able to work around it by increasing
the
allocation of the resource to 3000% (three thousand).

 

[MT]

Dave,
THIS IS COMPLETELY WRONG.
% COMPLETE = [ACTUAL WORK]/([ACTUAL WORK] + [REMAINING WORK])
Please try the following: enter a task with 100 hours of work over 3
months, starting 2 months ago.
enter an actual start date matching the scheduled start, 0 hrs of actual
work, leaving 100 hrs of remaining work. Task is 1/2 done with duration and
0% complete. Slowly increment actual work 1 hour at a time. (watch as %
complete increments 1 % for each hour of actual work.)
Now change the scheduled end date around a few times. no change in %
complete, unless the remaining work changes as well.

I don't see what duration has to do with % complete. This is not an issue
with start or finish fields. This is an issue with the ACTUAL start and
ACTUAL finish fields. There is no contradiction here. I want % complete to
update as I enter actuals. % complete is the ratio of actual work to
remaining work.

This might be part of your problem. In Project, % Complete is really %
Duration Complete. The number you describe is % Work Complete.

% Duration Complete is simply number of days into the project over
total number of days scheduled for the project.

I wish I could help you more, but I don't have Project on this computer
to try to emulate what you're seeing.


I don't want the entering of actual work to change the

actual dates if I have entered them already.

In many other tasks there is no problem. about 20% of my tasks have this
issue. In the other 80% of my tasks, I can enter actual start and actual
finish, and then I can enter actual work and all the data is input correctly.

BEFORE:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=NA
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 16th.
Actual Work = 5 hours.
Remaining work = 35 hours.
Work = 40 hours.
Duration=10 days
% complete = 13% (5/40=13%)

AFTER ENTERING ACTUAL FINISH of June 12th:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=June 12th
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 12th.
Actual Work = 12 hours.
Remaining work = 0 hours.
Work = 12 hours.
Duration=6 days
% complete = 100% (12/12=100%)

AFTER UPDATING ACTUAL WORK TO 40 HRS:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=June 23rd
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 23rd.
Actual Work = 40 hours.
Remaining work = 0 hours.
Work = 40 hours.
Duration=15 days
% complete = 100% (40/40=100%)

AFTER SETTING ACTUAL FINISH BACK TO June 12th:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=June 12th
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 12th.
Actual Work = 12 hours.
Remaining work = 0 hours.
Work = 12 hours.
Duration=6 days
% complete = 100% (12/12=100%)

But you said you want the duration not to change when you enter actual work
and remaining work. If we were supposed to be at 50% work complete today
but are instead at 60% and we actually worked at 100% precisely as assigned,
for the scheduled amount of work to be 60% of the total instead of the 50%
we expected, that suggests that the toal work required has changed. Unless
we disconnect work and duration - ie, disconnect task status from resource
status - that change of total work also implies change of total duration.
You either want changes to work to affect duration or you don't, you can't
have it both ways.

The schedule reflects history for what has taken place and forecasts for the
future based on the consequences of those historical actuals. For example,
if I have task A scheduled for 5 days starting this past Monday linked to
task B, task B will show starting next Monday. But if you input that Task A
has had 16 hours of work put in and 16 hours of work to go, that implies
that the real duration SHOULD have been 4 days, not 5. The schedule will
change to reflect that fact, show 50% work complete AND 50% (duration)
complete, reschedule A's finish to tomorrow (Thur)(it doesn't know whether
another 8 hours of actuals will be posted for Wed so it just assumes it will
until you tell it otherwise) and pulls Task B forward to start Friday
instead of Monday. This is in keeping with Project's role as a dynamic
monitoring tool, keeping you advised on the consequences of actual
performance differing from predicted performance so that you can always keep
the project on track towards the most efficient achievement of its stated
goals.

We might be able to better help you out of this quandry if you can provide
step-by-step exactly how the project looks before posting updates and
exactly step by step how to duplicate the problem.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs



The calendar for the project has 5 days of work (M-F) hours are 8-12 &
1-5.
8 hours per day. The resource for the task in question works the default
calendar for June. (although similar effects happen for tasks assigned to
any resource seemingly at random). Tools-options-calendar shows 8 hours
per
day.

I read the help section on the "Updating task status updates resource
status" and I am concerned that this will cause the % complete to not be
updated. Unfortunately, mgmt uses % complete as an indicator of project
status. I cannot have this not get updated as I enter actual work,
remaining
work, actual start, and/or actual finish.

:

Something seems very odd about your calendars I think. What does the
Project calendar say are the working time hours? What does the resource
calendar for the resource assigned to this task say? On the Tools,
Options
menu, Calendar tab, what is the setting for Hours per Day?

To enter actual work without changing duration (and vice versa) look at
the
Calculation tab, the first checkbox "Updating task status updates
resource
status" and turn it off.

What you state is unfortunately not true actual finish and duration
change
as a result of changing actual work and vise-versa.. I enter actual
start
(6/5/2006). Then I enter actual finish (6/12/2006). This
automatically
sets
the actual work to 12 hours. The duration (and I don't care about
duration
particularly) is 6 days. I then change actual work to 40 hrs to
reflect
that
the worker assigned put in 40 hrs over that period. At this point the
actual
finish is 6/23/2006 (I did this last week so somehow it thought I was
predicting the future). The actual duration goes to 15 days. Changing
the
actual finish back to 6/12 will adjust the actual duraction back to 6
days
and the actual work to 12 hrs. The only way I can find to get 40 hrs
over
6
dasy is overallocate the resource at 3000%. (NOTE: I did not do a
binary
search to find the minimum allocation, but 200% was too little.) The
resource's calendar allows for 8 hours/day M-F. Not that it matters
since
I
am entering actuals.

:

Hi,

I'm afraid you are somewhat uncklear about what you are doing here.
Once you enter ACTUAL START and ACTUAL FINISH (not just different
values
in
Start and Finish) Project will no longer recalculate them unless...
unless
you tell it to do so by changing ACTUAL DURATION (which is the working
time
between start and finish, by definition.
OTOH, when you enter Actual WORK, dates remain unchanged and unly
units
are
recalculated to match the Work=duration times units equation.
HTH

--
Jan De Messemaeker, Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/
For FAQs: http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm
"MT" <[email protected]> schreef in bericht
I have tasks in my plan where I cannot enter both actual hours and
actual
start & end dates. Why would this occur? How can I prevent it,
because
it
is really annoying? (MS Project Professional 2003).

For example, on one task I entered the actual start date of June 5th
and
the
actual end date of June 12th. I said it took the resource assigned
to
it
40
hrs (actual hours). The actual end date changed to June 23rd. I
changed
the
actual end date back to June 12th and the actual hours changed to 12
hours.
Changing actual hours back to 40 reset the actual end date to the
23rd.
The resource has a calendar of 5 days of 8 hours of work each week.
No
May
or June vacation. I don't see how this even matters however since I
am
entering ACTUALS and not a schedule.
Entering the actuals changed the resource allocation from 100% to
123%.
I
tried changing to fixed duration, fixed work, and back to fixed
units,
but
got the same behavior. I was able to work around it by increasing
the
allocation of the resource to 3000% (three thousand).

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi MT,

Sorry, Dave IS correct. Search Help for the definitions:
----------------
%Work Complete:
How Calculated When a task is first created, the percent work complete is
zero percent. If you enter actual work for the task, Project calculates
percent work complete as follows:

Percent Work Complete = (Actual Work / Work) * 100

If you type a value in the % Work Complete field, Project automatically
calculates actual work and remaining work. Similarly, entering a value in
the Actual Work or Remaining Work field automatically recalculates the other
fields.

-----------------

% Complete:
How Calculated When a task is first created, the percent complete is zero
percent. As soon as you enter actual duration, remaining duration, or actual
work (which affects actual duration), Project calculates percent complete as
follows:

Percent Complete = (Actual Duration / Duration) * 100

If the % Complete field is set to a value greater than zero, the Actual
Start field is set to the scheduled start date if you have not yet entered
an actual start date. If the % Complete field is set to 100, the Actual
Finish field is set to the scheduled finish date.

---------------------
That' how it is

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 Project Tutorials

Dave,
THIS IS COMPLETELY WRONG.
% COMPLETE = [ACTUAL WORK]/([ACTUAL WORK] + [REMAINING WORK])
Please try the following: enter a task with 100 hours of work over 3
months, starting 2 months ago.
enter an actual start date matching the scheduled start, 0 hrs of
actual work, leaving 100 hrs of remaining work. Task is 1/2 done
with duration and 0% complete. Slowly increment actual work 1 hour
at a time. (watch as % complete increments 1 % for each hour of
actual work.)
Now change the scheduled end date around a few times. no change in %
complete, unless the remaining work changes as well.

I don't see what duration has to do with % complete. This is not
an issue with start or finish fields. This is an issue with the
ACTUAL start and ACTUAL finish fields. There is no contradiction
here. I want % complete to update as I enter actuals. % complete
is the ratio of actual work to remaining work.

This might be part of your problem. In Project, % Complete is really
% Duration Complete. The number you describe is % Work Complete.

% Duration Complete is simply number of days into the project over
total number of days scheduled for the project.

I wish I could help you more, but I don't have Project on this
computer to try to emulate what you're seeing.


I don't want the entering of actual work to change the

actual dates if I have entered them already.

In many other tasks there is no problem. about 20% of my tasks
have this issue. In the other 80% of my tasks, I can enter actual
start and actual finish, and then I can enter actual work and all
the data is input correctly.

BEFORE:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=NA
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 16th.
Actual Work = 5 hours.
Remaining work = 35 hours.
Work = 40 hours.
Duration=10 days
% complete = 13% (5/40=13%)

AFTER ENTERING ACTUAL FINISH of June 12th:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=June 12th
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 12th.
Actual Work = 12 hours.
Remaining work = 0 hours.
Work = 12 hours.
Duration=6 days
% complete = 100% (12/12=100%)

AFTER UPDATING ACTUAL WORK TO 40 HRS:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=June 23rd
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 23rd.
Actual Work = 40 hours.
Remaining work = 0 hours.
Work = 40 hours.
Duration=15 days
% complete = 100% (40/40=100%)

AFTER SETTING ACTUAL FINISH BACK TO June 12th:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=June 12th
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 12th.
Actual Work = 12 hours.
Remaining work = 0 hours.
Work = 12 hours.
Duration=6 days
% complete = 100% (12/12=100%)

:

But you said you want the duration not to change when you enter
actual work and remaining work. If we were supposed to be at 50%
work complete today but are instead at 60% and we actually worked
at 100% precisely as assigned, for the scheduled amount of work to
be 60% of the total instead of the 50% we expected, that suggests
that the toal work required has changed. Unless we disconnect
work and duration - ie, disconnect task status from resource
status - that change of total work also implies change of total
duration. You either want changes to work to affect duration or
you don't, you can't have it both ways.

The schedule reflects history for what has taken place and
forecasts for the future based on the consequences of those
historical actuals. For example, if I have task A scheduled for 5
days starting this past Monday linked to task B, task B will show
starting next Monday. But if you input that Task A has had 16
hours of work put in and 16 hours of work to go, that implies that
the real duration SHOULD have been 4 days, not 5. The schedule
will change to reflect that fact, show 50% work complete AND 50%
(duration) complete, reschedule A's finish to tomorrow (Thur)(it
doesn't know whether another 8 hours of actuals will be posted for
Wed so it just assumes it will until you tell it otherwise) and
pulls Task B forward to start Friday instead of Monday. This is
in keeping with Project's role as a dynamic monitoring tool,
keeping you advised on the consequences of actual performance
differing from predicted performance so that you can always keep
the project on track towards the most efficient achievement of its
stated goals.

We might be able to better help you out of this quandry if you can
provide step-by-step exactly how the project looks before posting
updates and exactly step by step how to duplicate the problem.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs



The calendar for the project has 5 days of work (M-F) hours are
8-12 & 1-5.
8 hours per day. The resource for the task in question works the
default calendar for June. (although similar effects happen for
tasks assigned to any resource seemingly at random).
Tools-options-calendar shows 8 hours per
day.

I read the help section on the "Updating task status updates
resource status" and I am concerned that this will cause the %
complete to not be updated. Unfortunately, mgmt uses % complete
as an indicator of project status. I cannot have this not get
updated as I enter actual work, remaining
work, actual start, and/or actual finish.

:

Something seems very odd about your calendars I think. What
does the Project calendar say are the working time hours? What
does the resource calendar for the resource assigned to this
task say? On the Tools, Options
menu, Calendar tab, what is the setting for Hours per Day?

To enter actual work without changing duration (and vice versa)
look at the
Calculation tab, the first checkbox "Updating task status updates
resource
status" and turn it off.

What you state is unfortunately not true actual finish and
duration change
as a result of changing actual work and vise-versa.. I enter
actual start
(6/5/2006). Then I enter actual finish (6/12/2006). This
automatically
sets
the actual work to 12 hours. The duration (and I don't care
about duration
particularly) is 6 days. I then change actual work to 40 hrs to
reflect
that
the worker assigned put in 40 hrs over that period. At this
point the actual
finish is 6/23/2006 (I did this last week so somehow it thought
I was predicting the future). The actual duration goes to 15
days. Changing the
actual finish back to 6/12 will adjust the actual duraction
back to 6 days
and the actual work to 12 hrs. The only way I can find to get
40 hrs over
6
dasy is overallocate the resource at 3000%. (NOTE: I did not
do a binary
search to find the minimum allocation, but 200% was too
little.) The resource's calendar allows for 8 hours/day M-F.
Not that it matters since
I
am entering actuals.

:

Hi,

I'm afraid you are somewhat uncklear about what you are doing
here. Once you enter ACTUAL START and ACTUAL FINISH (not just
different values
in
Start and Finish) Project will no longer recalculate them
unless... unless
you tell it to do so by changing ACTUAL DURATION (which is the
working time
between start and finish, by definition.
OTOH, when you enter Actual WORK, dates remain unchanged and
unly units
are
recalculated to match the Work=duration times units equation.
HTH

--
Jan De Messemaeker, Microsoft Project Most Valuable
Professional http://users.online.be/prom-ade/
For FAQs: http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm
"MT" <[email protected]> schreef in bericht
I have tasks in my plan where I cannot enter both actual
hours and actual
start & end dates. Why would this occur? How can I prevent
it, because
it
is really annoying? (MS Project Professional 2003).

For example, on one task I entered the actual start date of
June 5th and
the
actual end date of June 12th. I said it took the resource
assigned to
it
40
hrs (actual hours). The actual end date changed to June
23rd. I changed
the
actual end date back to June 12th and the actual hours
changed to 12 hours. Changing actual hours back to 40 reset
the actual end date to the 23rd.
The resource has a calendar of 5 days of 8 hours of work each
week. No
May
or June vacation. I don't see how this even matters however
since I am
entering ACTUALS and not a schedule.
Entering the actuals changed the resource allocation from
100% to 123%.
I
tried changing to fixed duration, fixed work, and back to
fixed units,
but
got the same behavior. I was able to work around it by
increasing the
allocation of the resource to 3000% (three thousand).

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

No, "% Complete" deals with duration and only with duration.MS Project
DEFINES "% Complete" as "actual duration/required duration." In other
words, a task is XX % Complete when it is XX% of the distance between its
starting date and its ending date. Your definition of % Complete is
Project's "% Work Complete" field, which is an entirely different metric
altogether. "% Complete" and "% Work Complete" may or may not be
numerically equal - if the work is distributed flat-line through the task
the two completion measures will be the same but if the work is contoured
they will be different. Let's say you have a task that begins Monday at 8am
and ends Friday at 5pm, the duration is 40 hours. If the scheduled work is
contoured so that 1 hour occurs on Mon, Tue, Wed, and Thu with 8 hours
finishing it off on Fri, the work is 12 man-hours. If at the end of the day
on Thu everything has been worked according to schedule, the task is at
32h/40h or 80% Complete but 4h/12h or ~33% Work Complete.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

I don't see what duration has to do with % complete. This is not an issue
with start or finish fields. This is an issue with the ACTUAL start and
ACTUAL finish fields. There is no contradiction here. I want % complete
to
update as I enter actuals. % complete is the ratio of actual work to
remaining work. I don't want the entering of actual work to change the
actual dates if I have entered them already.

In many other tasks there is no problem. about 20% of my tasks have this
issue. In the other 80% of my tasks, I can enter actual start and actual
finish, and then I can enter actual work and all the data is input
correctly.

BEFORE:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=NA
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 16th.
Actual Work = 5 hours.
Remaining work = 35 hours.
Work = 40 hours.
Duration=10 days
% complete = 13% (5/40=13%)

AFTER ENTERING ACTUAL FINISH of June 12th:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=June 12th
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 12th.
Actual Work = 12 hours.
Remaining work = 0 hours.
Work = 12 hours.
Duration=6 days
% complete = 100% (12/12=100%)

AFTER UPDATING ACTUAL WORK TO 40 HRS:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=June 23rd
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 23rd.
Actual Work = 40 hours.
Remaining work = 0 hours.
Work = 40 hours.
Duration=15 days
% complete = 100% (40/40=100%)

AFTER SETTING ACTUAL FINISH BACK TO June 12th:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=June 12th
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 12th.
Actual Work = 12 hours.
Remaining work = 0 hours.
Work = 12 hours.
Duration=6 days
% complete = 100% (12/12=100%)

But you said you want the duration not to change when you enter actual
work
and remaining work. If we were supposed to be at 50% work complete today
but are instead at 60% and we actually worked at 100% precisely as
assigned,
for the scheduled amount of work to be 60% of the total instead of the
50%
we expected, that suggests that the toal work required has changed.
Unless
we disconnect work and duration - ie, disconnect task status from
resource
status - that change of total work also implies change of total duration.
You either want changes to work to affect duration or you don't, you
can't
have it both ways.

The schedule reflects history for what has taken place and forecasts for
the
future based on the consequences of those historical actuals. For
example,
if I have task A scheduled for 5 days starting this past Monday linked to
task B, task B will show starting next Monday. But if you input that
Task A
has had 16 hours of work put in and 16 hours of work to go, that implies
that the real duration SHOULD have been 4 days, not 5. The schedule will
change to reflect that fact, show 50% work complete AND 50% (duration)
complete, reschedule A's finish to tomorrow (Thur)(it doesn't know
whether
another 8 hours of actuals will be posted for Wed so it just assumes it
will
until you tell it otherwise) and pulls Task B forward to start Friday
instead of Monday. This is in keeping with Project's role as a dynamic
monitoring tool, keeping you advised on the consequences of actual
performance differing from predicted performance so that you can always
keep
the project on track towards the most efficient achievement of its stated
goals.

We might be able to better help you out of this quandry if you can
provide
step-by-step exactly how the project looks before posting updates and
exactly step by step how to duplicate the problem.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

The calendar for the project has 5 days of work (M-F) hours are 8-12 &
1-5.
8 hours per day. The resource for the task in question works the
default
calendar for June. (although similar effects happen for tasks assigned
to
any resource seemingly at random). Tools-options-calendar shows 8
hours
per
day.

I read the help section on the "Updating task status updates resource
status" and I am concerned that this will cause the % complete to not
be
updated. Unfortunately, mgmt uses % complete as an indicator of
project
status. I cannot have this not get updated as I enter actual work,
remaining
work, actual start, and/or actual finish.

:

Something seems very odd about your calendars I think. What does the
Project calendar say are the working time hours? What does the
resource
calendar for the resource assigned to this task say? On the Tools,
Options
menu, Calendar tab, what is the setting for Hours per Day?

To enter actual work without changing duration (and vice versa) look
at
the
Calculation tab, the first checkbox "Updating task status updates
resource
status" and turn it off.

What you state is unfortunately not true actual finish and duration
change
as a result of changing actual work and vise-versa.. I enter actual
start
(6/5/2006). Then I enter actual finish (6/12/2006). This
automatically
sets
the actual work to 12 hours. The duration (and I don't care about
duration
particularly) is 6 days. I then change actual work to 40 hrs to
reflect
that
the worker assigned put in 40 hrs over that period. At this point
the
actual
finish is 6/23/2006 (I did this last week so somehow it thought I
was
predicting the future). The actual duration goes to 15 days.
Changing
the
actual finish back to 6/12 will adjust the actual duraction back to
6
days
and the actual work to 12 hrs. The only way I can find to get 40
hrs
over
6
dasy is overallocate the resource at 3000%. (NOTE: I did not do a
binary
search to find the minimum allocation, but 200% was too little.)
The
resource's calendar allows for 8 hours/day M-F. Not that it matters
since
I
am entering actuals.

:

Hi,

I'm afraid you are somewhat uncklear about what you are doing here.
Once you enter ACTUAL START and ACTUAL FINISH (not just different
values
in
Start and Finish) Project will no longer recalculate them unless...
unless
you tell it to do so by changing ACTUAL DURATION (which is the
working
time
between start and finish, by definition.
OTOH, when you enter Actual WORK, dates remain unchanged and unly
units
are
recalculated to match the Work=duration times units equation.
HTH

--
Jan De Messemaeker, Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/
For FAQs: http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm
"MT" <[email protected]> schreef in bericht
I have tasks in my plan where I cannot enter both actual hours
and
actual
start & end dates. Why would this occur? How can I prevent it,
because
it
is really annoying? (MS Project Professional 2003).

For example, on one task I entered the actual start date of June
5th
and
the
actual end date of June 12th. I said it took the resource
assigned
to
it
40
hrs (actual hours). The actual end date changed to June 23rd. I
changed
the
actual end date back to June 12th and the actual hours changed to
12
hours.
Changing actual hours back to 40 reset the actual end date to the
23rd.
The resource has a calendar of 5 days of 8 hours of work each
week.
No
May
or June vacation. I don't see how this even matters however
since I
am
entering ACTUALS and not a schedule.
Entering the actuals changed the resource allocation from 100% to
123%.
I
tried changing to fixed duration, fixed work, and back to fixed
units,
but
got the same behavior. I was able to work around it by
increasing
the
allocation of the resource to 3000% (three thousand).

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

You may want to have "Percent Complete" refer to work but the designers of
MS Project wrote the program so that field is a measure of duration that has
passed. If its any consolation, that is not unique to MS Project by any
stretch of the imagination. A project manager must manage both time and
budget. The Percent Complete is an indicator of how you're during with
regard to time viz a viz your promised completion. The Percent Work
Complete is an indicator of how you stand with regard to your budget (since
work hours are what you're paying for). (And of course these are only rough
indicators since Earned Value is the real deal for monitoring and predicting
performance.)
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Dave,
THIS IS COMPLETELY WRONG.
% COMPLETE = [ACTUAL WORK]/([ACTUAL WORK] + [REMAINING WORK])
Please try the following: enter a task with 100 hours of work over 3
months, starting 2 months ago.
enter an actual start date matching the scheduled start, 0 hrs of actual
work, leaving 100 hrs of remaining work. Task is 1/2 done with duration
and
0% complete. Slowly increment actual work 1 hour at a time. (watch as %
complete increments 1 % for each hour of actual work.)
Now change the scheduled end date around a few times. no change in %
complete, unless the remaining work changes as well.

I don't see what duration has to do with % complete. This is not an
issue
with start or finish fields. This is an issue with the ACTUAL start
and
ACTUAL finish fields. There is no contradiction here. I want %
complete to
update as I enter actuals. % complete is the ratio of actual work to
remaining work.

This might be part of your problem. In Project, % Complete is really %
Duration Complete. The number you describe is % Work Complete.

% Duration Complete is simply number of days into the project over
total number of days scheduled for the project.

I wish I could help you more, but I don't have Project on this computer
to try to emulate what you're seeing.


I don't want the entering of actual work to change the

actual dates if I have entered them already.

In many other tasks there is no problem. about 20% of my tasks have
this
issue. In the other 80% of my tasks, I can enter actual start and
actual
finish, and then I can enter actual work and all the data is input
correctly.

BEFORE:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=NA
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 16th.
Actual Work = 5 hours.
Remaining work = 35 hours.
Work = 40 hours.
Duration=10 days
% complete = 13% (5/40=13%)

AFTER ENTERING ACTUAL FINISH of June 12th:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=June 12th
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 12th.
Actual Work = 12 hours.
Remaining work = 0 hours.
Work = 12 hours.
Duration=6 days
% complete = 100% (12/12=100%)

AFTER UPDATING ACTUAL WORK TO 40 HRS:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=June 23rd
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 23rd.
Actual Work = 40 hours.
Remaining work = 0 hours.
Work = 40 hours.
Duration=15 days
% complete = 100% (40/40=100%)

AFTER SETTING ACTUAL FINISH BACK TO June 12th:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=June 12th
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 12th.
Actual Work = 12 hours.
Remaining work = 0 hours.
Work = 12 hours.
Duration=6 days
% complete = 100% (12/12=100%)

:

But you said you want the duration not to change when you enter
actual work
and remaining work. If we were supposed to be at 50% work complete
today
but are instead at 60% and we actually worked at 100% precisely as
assigned,
for the scheduled amount of work to be 60% of the total instead of
the 50%
we expected, that suggests that the toal work required has changed.
Unless
we disconnect work and duration - ie, disconnect task status from
resource
status - that change of total work also implies change of total
duration.
You either want changes to work to affect duration or you don't, you
can't
have it both ways.

The schedule reflects history for what has taken place and forecasts
for the
future based on the consequences of those historical actuals. For
example,
if I have task A scheduled for 5 days starting this past Monday
linked to
task B, task B will show starting next Monday. But if you input that
Task A
has had 16 hours of work put in and 16 hours of work to go, that
implies
that the real duration SHOULD have been 4 days, not 5. The schedule
will
change to reflect that fact, show 50% work complete AND 50%
(duration)
complete, reschedule A's finish to tomorrow (Thur)(it doesn't know
whether
another 8 hours of actuals will be posted for Wed so it just assumes
it will
until you tell it otherwise) and pulls Task B forward to start Friday
instead of Monday. This is in keeping with Project's role as a
dynamic
monitoring tool, keeping you advised on the consequences of actual
performance differing from predicted performance so that you can
always keep
the project on track towards the most efficient achievement of its
stated
goals.

We might be able to better help you out of this quandry if you can
provide
step-by-step exactly how the project looks before posting updates and
exactly step by step how to duplicate the problem.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs



The calendar for the project has 5 days of work (M-F) hours are
8-12 &
1-5.
8 hours per day. The resource for the task in question works the
default
calendar for June. (although similar effects happen for tasks
assigned to
any resource seemingly at random). Tools-options-calendar shows 8
hours
per
day.

I read the help section on the "Updating task status updates
resource
status" and I am concerned that this will cause the % complete to
not be
updated. Unfortunately, mgmt uses % complete as an indicator of
project
status. I cannot have this not get updated as I enter actual work,
remaining
work, actual start, and/or actual finish.

:

Something seems very odd about your calendars I think. What does
the
Project calendar say are the working time hours? What does the
resource
calendar for the resource assigned to this task say? On the
Tools,
Options
menu, Calendar tab, what is the setting for Hours per Day?

To enter actual work without changing duration (and vice versa)
look at
the
Calculation tab, the first checkbox "Updating task status updates
resource
status" and turn it off.

What you state is unfortunately not true actual finish and
duration
change
as a result of changing actual work and vise-versa.. I enter
actual
start
(6/5/2006). Then I enter actual finish (6/12/2006). This
automatically
sets
the actual work to 12 hours. The duration (and I don't care
about
duration
particularly) is 6 days. I then change actual work to 40 hrs to
reflect
that
the worker assigned put in 40 hrs over that period. At this
point the
actual
finish is 6/23/2006 (I did this last week so somehow it thought
I was
predicting the future). The actual duration goes to 15 days.
Changing
the
actual finish back to 6/12 will adjust the actual duraction back
to 6
days
and the actual work to 12 hrs. The only way I can find to get
40 hrs
over
6
dasy is overallocate the resource at 3000%. (NOTE: I did not do
a
binary
search to find the minimum allocation, but 200% was too little.)
The
resource's calendar allows for 8 hours/day M-F. Not that it
matters
since
I
am entering actuals.

:

Hi,

I'm afraid you are somewhat uncklear about what you are doing
here.
Once you enter ACTUAL START and ACTUAL FINISH (not just
different
values
in
Start and Finish) Project will no longer recalculate them
unless...
unless
you tell it to do so by changing ACTUAL DURATION (which is the
working
time
between start and finish, by definition.
OTOH, when you enter Actual WORK, dates remain unchanged and
unly
units
are
recalculated to match the Work=duration times units equation.
HTH

--
Jan De Messemaeker, Microsoft Project Most Valuable
Professional
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/
For FAQs: http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm
"MT" <[email protected]> schreef in bericht
I have tasks in my plan where I cannot enter both actual
hours and
actual
start & end dates. Why would this occur? How can I prevent
it,
because
it
is really annoying? (MS Project Professional 2003).

For example, on one task I entered the actual start date of
June 5th
and
the
actual end date of June 12th. I said it took the resource
assigned
to
it
40
hrs (actual hours). The actual end date changed to June
23rd. I
changed
the
actual end date back to June 12th and the actual hours
changed to 12
hours.
Changing actual hours back to 40 reset the actual end date to
the
23rd.
The resource has a calendar of 5 days of 8 hours of work each
week.
No
May
or June vacation. I don't see how this even matters however
since I
am
entering ACTUALS and not a schedule.
Entering the actuals changed the resource allocation from
100% to
123%.
I
tried changing to fixed duration, fixed work, and back to
fixed
units,
but
got the same behavior. I was able to work around it by
increasing
the
allocation of the resource to 3000% (three thousand).

 

[Jamil]

Steve,

I have been trying to follow this thread for a couple of days and it is
still not clear to me. I am a bit new to MS Project, but I am experience a
similar issue.

In my example, I have a task that is 20hr of Work with a Duration of 5 days.
However, if I complete this task in 10 hours, but it still takes 5 days, my
experience is that my duration is cut to 2.5 days. If I then change my
Duration back to 5 days, the work increases to 40 hours.

I did not see/understand how the suggestions in the thread would address
this issue. Can someone elaborate?

thanks,
JA

No, "% Complete" deals with duration and only with duration.MS Project
DEFINES "% Complete" as "actual duration/required duration." In other
words, a task is XX % Complete when it is XX% of the distance between its
starting date and its ending date. Your definition of % Complete is
Project's "% Work Complete" field, which is an entirely different metric
altogether. "% Complete" and "% Work Complete" may or may not be
numerically equal - if the work is distributed flat-line through the task
the two completion measures will be the same but if the work is contoured
they will be different. Let's say you have a task that begins Monday at 8am
and ends Friday at 5pm, the duration is 40 hours. If the scheduled work is
contoured so that 1 hour occurs on Mon, Tue, Wed, and Thu with 8 hours
finishing it off on Fri, the work is 12 man-hours. If at the end of the day
on Thu everything has been worked according to schedule, the task is at
32h/40h or 80% Complete but 4h/12h or ~33% Work Complete.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

I don't see what duration has to do with % complete. This is not an issue
with start or finish fields. This is an issue with the ACTUAL start and
ACTUAL finish fields. There is no contradiction here. I want % complete
to
update as I enter actuals. % complete is the ratio of actual work to
remaining work. I don't want the entering of actual work to change the
actual dates if I have entered them already.

In many other tasks there is no problem. about 20% of my tasks have this
issue. In the other 80% of my tasks, I can enter actual start and actual
finish, and then I can enter actual work and all the data is input
correctly.

BEFORE:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=NA
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 16th.
Actual Work = 5 hours.
Remaining work = 35 hours.
Work = 40 hours.
Duration=10 days
% complete = 13% (5/40=13%)

AFTER ENTERING ACTUAL FINISH of June 12th:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=June 12th
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 12th.
Actual Work = 12 hours.
Remaining work = 0 hours.
Work = 12 hours.
Duration=6 days
% complete = 100% (12/12=100%)

AFTER UPDATING ACTUAL WORK TO 40 HRS:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=June 23rd
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 23rd.
Actual Work = 40 hours.
Remaining work = 0 hours.
Work = 40 hours.
Duration=15 days
% complete = 100% (40/40=100%)

AFTER SETTING ACTUAL FINISH BACK TO June 12th:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=June 12th
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 12th.
Actual Work = 12 hours.
Remaining work = 0 hours.
Work = 12 hours.
Duration=6 days
% complete = 100% (12/12=100%)

But you said you want the duration not to change when you enter actual
work
and remaining work. If we were supposed to be at 50% work complete today
but are instead at 60% and we actually worked at 100% precisely as
assigned,
for the scheduled amount of work to be 60% of the total instead of the
50%
we expected, that suggests that the toal work required has changed.
Unless
we disconnect work and duration - ie, disconnect task status from
resource
status - that change of total work also implies change of total duration.
You either want changes to work to affect duration or you don't, you
can't
have it both ways.

The schedule reflects history for what has taken place and forecasts for
the
future based on the consequences of those historical actuals. For
example,
if I have task A scheduled for 5 days starting this past Monday linked to
task B, task B will show starting next Monday. But if you input that
Task A
has had 16 hours of work put in and 16 hours of work to go, that implies
that the real duration SHOULD have been 4 days, not 5. The schedule will
change to reflect that fact, show 50% work complete AND 50% (duration)
complete, reschedule A's finish to tomorrow (Thur)(it doesn't know
whether
another 8 hours of actuals will be posted for Wed so it just assumes it
will
until you tell it otherwise) and pulls Task B forward to start Friday
instead of Monday. This is in keeping with Project's role as a dynamic
monitoring tool, keeping you advised on the consequences of actual
performance differing from predicted performance so that you can always
keep
the project on track towards the most efficient achievement of its stated
goals.

We might be able to better help you out of this quandry if you can
provide
step-by-step exactly how the project looks before posting updates and
exactly step by step how to duplicate the problem.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs



The calendar for the project has 5 days of work (M-F) hours are 8-12 &
1-5.
8 hours per day. The resource for the task in question works the
default
calendar for June. (although similar effects happen for tasks assigned
to
any resource seemingly at random). Tools-options-calendar shows 8
hours
per
day.

I read the help section on the "Updating task status updates resource
status" and I am concerned that this will cause the % complete to not
be
updated. Unfortunately, mgmt uses % complete as an indicator of
project
status. I cannot have this not get updated as I enter actual work,
remaining
work, actual start, and/or actual finish.

:

Something seems very odd about your calendars I think. What does the
Project calendar say are the working time hours? What does the
resource
calendar for the resource assigned to this task say? On the Tools,
Options
menu, Calendar tab, what is the setting for Hours per Day?

To enter actual work without changing duration (and vice versa) look
at
the
Calculation tab, the first checkbox "Updating task status updates
resource
status" and turn it off.

What you state is unfortunately not true actual finish and duration
change
as a result of changing actual work and vise-versa.. I enter actual
start
(6/5/2006). Then I enter actual finish (6/12/2006). This
automatically
sets
the actual work to 12 hours. The duration (and I don't care about
duration
particularly) is 6 days. I then change actual work to 40 hrs to
reflect
that
the worker assigned put in 40 hrs over that period. At this point
the
actual
finish is 6/23/2006 (I did this last week so somehow it thought I
was
predicting the future). The actual duration goes to 15 days.
Changing
the
actual finish back to 6/12 will adjust the actual duraction back to
6
days
and the actual work to 12 hrs. The only way I can find to get 40
hrs
over
6
dasy is overallocate the resource at 3000%. (NOTE: I did not do a
binary
search to find the minimum allocation, but 200% was too little.)
The
resource's calendar allows for 8 hours/day M-F. Not that it matters
since
I
am entering actuals.

:

Hi,

I'm afraid you are somewhat uncklear about what you are doing here.
Once you enter ACTUAL START and ACTUAL FINISH (not just different
values
in
Start and Finish) Project will no longer recalculate them unless...
unless
you tell it to do so by changing ACTUAL DURATION (which is the
working
time
between start and finish, by definition.
OTOH, when you enter Actual WORK, dates remain unchanged and unly
units
are
recalculated to match the Work=duration times units equation.
HTH

--
Jan De Messemaeker, Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/
For FAQs: http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm
"MT" <[email protected]> schreef in bericht
I have tasks in my plan where I cannot enter both actual hours
and
actual
start & end dates. Why would this occur? How can I prevent it,
because
it
is really annoying? (MS Project Professional 2003).

For example, on one task I entered the actual start date of June
5th
and
the
actual end date of June 12th. I said it took the resource
assigned
to
it
40
hrs (actual hours). The actual end date changed to June 23rd. I
changed
the
actual end date back to June 12th and the actual hours changed to
12
hours.
Changing actual hours back to 40 reset the actual end date to the
23rd.
The resource has a calendar of 5 days of 8 hours of work each
week.
No
May
or June vacation. I don't see how this even matters however
since I
am
entering ACTUALS and not a schedule.
Entering the actuals changed the resource allocation from 100% to
123%.
I
tried changing to fixed duration, fixed work, and back to fixed
units,
but
got the same behavior. I was able to work around it by
increasing
the
allocation of the resource to 3000% (three thousand).

 

[Steve House]

The easiest way is to go to Tools Options Calculations and clear the
check box for "Updating task status updates resource status." Then on
the Tracking table enter Actual duration (5day), remaining duration
(0day), and actual work (10 hr).
--
Steve House
MS Project MVP
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Steve,

I have been trying to follow this thread for a couple of days and it is
still not clear to me. I am a bit new to MS Project, but I am experience a
similar issue.

In my example, I have a task that is 20hr of Work with a Duration of 5 days.
However, if I complete this task in 10 hours, but it still takes 5 days, my
experience is that my duration is cut to 2.5 days. If I then change my
Duration back to 5 days, the work increases to 40 hours.

I did not see/understand how the suggestions in the thread would address
this issue. Can someone elaborate?

thanks,
JA

No, "% Complete" deals with duration and only with duration.MS Project
DEFINES "% Complete" as "actual duration/required duration." In other
words, a task is XX % Complete when it is XX% of the distance between its
starting date and its ending date. Your definition of % Complete is
Project's "% Work Complete" field, which is an entirely different metric
altogether. "% Complete" and "% Work Complete" may or may not be
numerically equal - if the work is distributed flat-line through the task
the two completion measures will be the same but if the work is contoured
they will be different. Let's say you have a task that begins Monday at 8am
and ends Friday at 5pm, the duration is 40 hours. If the scheduled work is
contoured so that 1 hour occurs on Mon, Tue, Wed, and Thu with 8 hours
finishing it off on Fri, the work is 12 man-hours. If at the end of the day
on Thu everything has been worked according to schedule, the task is at
32h/40h or 80% Complete but 4h/12h or ~33% Work Complete.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

I don't see what duration has to do with % complete. This is not an issue
with start or finish fields. This is an issue with the ACTUAL start and
ACTUAL finish fields. There is no contradiction here. I want % complete
to
update as I enter actuals. % complete is the ratio of actual work to
remaining work. I don't want the entering of actual work to change the
actual dates if I have entered them already.

In many other tasks there is no problem. about 20% of my tasks have this
issue. In the other 80% of my tasks, I can enter actual start and actual
finish, and then I can enter actual work and all the data is input
correctly.

BEFORE:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=NA
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 16th.
Actual Work = 5 hours.
Remaining work = 35 hours.
Work = 40 hours.
Duration=10 days
% complete = 13% (5/40=13%)

AFTER ENTERING ACTUAL FINISH of June 12th:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=June 12th
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 12th.
Actual Work = 12 hours.
Remaining work = 0 hours.
Work = 12 hours.
Duration=6 days
% complete = 100% (12/12=100%)

AFTER UPDATING ACTUAL WORK TO 40 HRS:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=June 23rd
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 23rd.
Actual Work = 40 hours.
Remaining work = 0 hours.
Work = 40 hours.
Duration=15 days
% complete = 100% (40/40=100%)

AFTER SETTING ACTUAL FINISH BACK TO June 12th:
Actual Start of June 5th. Actual FInish=June 12th
Start=June 5th. Finish= June 12th.
Actual Work = 12 hours.
Remaining work = 0 hours.
Work = 12 hours.
Duration=6 days
% complete = 100% (12/12=100%)

:

But you said you want the duration not to change when you enter actual
work
and remaining work. If we were supposed to be at 50% work complete today
but are instead at 60% and we actually worked at 100% precisely as
assigned,
for the scheduled amount of work to be 60% of the total instead of the
50%
we expected, that suggests that the toal work required has changed.
Unless
we disconnect work and duration - ie, disconnect task status from
resource
status - that change of total work also implies change of total duration.
You either want changes to work to affect duration or you don't, you
can't
have it both ways.

The schedule reflects history for what has taken place and forecasts for
the
future based on the consequences of those historical actuals. For
example,
if I have task A scheduled for 5 days starting this past Monday linked to
task B, task B will show starting next Monday. But if you input that
Task A
has had 16 hours of work put in and 16 hours of work to go, that implies
that the real duration SHOULD have been 4 days, not 5. The schedule will
change to reflect that fact, show 50% work complete AND 50% (duration)
complete, reschedule A's finish to tomorrow (Thur)(it doesn't know
whether
another 8 hours of actuals will be posted for Wed so it just assumes it
will
until you tell it otherwise) and pulls Task B forward to start Friday
instead of Monday. This is in keeping with Project's role as a dynamic
monitoring tool, keeping you advised on the consequences of actual
performance differing from predicted performance so that you can always
keep
the project on track towards the most efficient achievement of its stated
goals.

We might be able to better help you out of this quandry if you can
provide
step-by-step exactly how the project looks before posting updates and
exactly step by step how to duplicate the problem.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs



The calendar for the project has 5 days of work (M-F) hours are 8-12 &
1-5.
8 hours per day. The resource for the task in question works the
default
calendar for June. (although similar effects happen for tasks assigned
to
any resource seemingly at random). Tools-options-calendar shows 8
hours
per
day.

I read the help section on the "Updating task status updates resource
status" and I am concerned that this will cause the % complete to not
be
updated. Unfortunately, mgmt uses % complete as an indicator of
project
status. I cannot have this not get updated as I enter actual work,
remaining
work, actual start, and/or actual finish.

:

Something seems very odd about your calendars I think. What does the
Project calendar say are the working time hours? What does the
resource
calendar for the resource assigned to this task say? On the Tools,
Options
menu, Calendar tab, what is the setting for Hours per Day?

To enter actual work without changing duration (and vice versa) look
at
the
Calculation tab, the first checkbox "Updating task status updates
resource
status" and turn it off.

What you state is unfortunately not true actual finish and duration
change
as a result of changing actual work and vise-versa.. I enter actual
start
(6/5/2006). Then I enter actual finish (6/12/2006). This
automatically
sets
the actual work to 12 hours. The duration (and I don't care about
duration
particularly) is 6 days. I then change actual work to 40 hrs to
reflect
that
the worker assigned put in 40 hrs over that period. At this point
the
actual
finish is 6/23/2006 (I did this last week so somehow it thought I
was
predicting the future). The actual duration goes to 15 days.
Changing
the
actual finish back to 6/12 will adjust the actual duraction back to
6
days
and the actual work to 12 hrs. The only way I can find to get 40
hrs
over
6
dasy is overallocate the resource at 3000%. (NOTE: I did not do a
binary
search to find the minimum allocation, but 200% was too little.)
The
resource's calendar allows for 8 hours/day M-F. Not that it matters
since
I
am entering actuals.

:

Hi,

I'm afraid you are somewhat uncklear about what you are doing here.
Once you enter ACTUAL START and ACTUAL FINISH (not just different
values
in
Start and Finish) Project will no longer recalculate them unless...
unless
you tell it to do so by changing ACTUAL DURATION (which is the
working
time
between start and finish, by definition.
OTOH, when you enter Actual WORK, dates remain unchanged and unly
units
are
recalculated to match the Work=duration times units equation.
HTH

--
Jan De Messemaeker, Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/
For FAQs: http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm
"MT" <[email protected]> schreef in bericht
I have tasks in my plan where I cannot enter both actual hours
and
actual
start & end dates. Why would this occur? How can I prevent it,
because
it
is really annoying? (MS Project Professional 2003).

For example, on one task I entered the actual start date of June
5th
and
the
actual end date of June 12th. I said it took the resource
assigned
to
it
40
hrs (actual hours). The actual end date changed to June 23rd. I
changed
the
actual end date back to June 12th and the actual hours changed to
12
hours.
Changing actual hours back to 40 reset the actual end date to the
23rd.
The resource has a calendar of 5 days of 8 hours of work each
week.
No
May
or June vacation. I don't see how this even matters however
since I
am
entering ACTUALS and not a schedule.
Entering the actuals changed the resource allocation from 100% to
123%.
I
tried changing to fixed duration, fixed work, and back to fixed
units,
but
got the same behavior. I was able to work around it by
increasing
the
allocation of the resource to 3000% (three thousand).