Import Dates and Duration from Excel

[Hadi]

I am having a problem with importing dates and durations from excel to MS
Project. After the wizard is complete the dates and duration coming from
excel do not overwrite the ones in MS Project . the task name and text
fields transfer with no problems.

Thanks

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

Since Project's job is to calculate the start and finish dates of your tasks
based on the project start date, the task duration estimates, and any
predecessor relationships, it's probably doing exactly what it's supposed to
do. Can you give some specific examples of what your source data looks like
and what it's ending up as when imported into Project versus what you're
expecting it to be? It's likely it's importing the data properly but then
recalculating as it should and overwriting the imported data with corrected
dates.

 

[Hadi]

Here is what I am trying to do:

I have an excel sheet with 5 columns, task ID, task name, start date,
duration, and another text field. When i try to import the data into MS
project I go to the import wizard and merge data, I have the ID field as the
primary key. all the fields import OK into project except the start date and
duration. basically nothing changes on these 2 fields in MS project. for
example, if the start date for the task is 1/2/06 and i try to overwrite it
with 1/31/06 from excel, after the import is complete the date is still
1/2/06 (nothing changes). The task name comes across alright so does the text
field.