Is there a place to get "real" support for MS Project?

[Carolyn]

I put a question in a couple days ago and got one response that just asked if
I was sure I put my actuals in the Actuals fields. Yes, of course! This was
not helpful. I have an issue that is holding me up from getting work done.
Is there a place to call and get a human being on the phone and work through
this issue to resolution?

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

You can call Microsoft's tech support line - the MS website has information
about the appropriate phone numbers for your part of the world. Be aware
that none of us here are Microsoft employees. We are all volunteers with
our own professions and businesses who choose to participate in this
community assisting our peers. Those of us with the MVP designation have
been recognized by Microsoft for our contributions to the user community as
a whole but we are not employed by Microsoft nor do we hold any official
standing in their tech support services.

As for being asked if you put your data into the actuals fields, that may
well have been me who asked that. It is an honest question because believe
it or not, it is a very common mistake and we have had many, many people
over the years coming to the group with questions who have entered the dates
tasks began and ended in the Gantt chart entry table's Start and Finish
columns rather than the ActualStart and ActualFinish fields and then
wondered why the system wasn't behaving as expected. Indeed, there are many
users who are not even aware that the Actual... fields exist as separate
entities from the plain Start and Finish fields they see on the startup
screens. So that's got to be the first thing to get out of the way before
going further into what might be causing your problem. Diagnosis is often a
process of elimination.

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

Figured it out - Add the "Remaining Work" field to the Tracking table. Make
the task type "Fixed Work." Go to the Tools Options menu, Calculation tab
and disable the checkbox labeled "Updattask status updates resoruce status."
When you enter progress, enter the actual start and actual finish fields,
the actual work in the Actual Work column and set Remaining Work to zero.
PRoject will recalculate what the assignment level was.

 

[Carolyn]

Hi Steve,

I didn't mean to be flippant. I understand and respect the credentials of
the people who volunteer their time to assist others at this site. It is
just that I am spending hours trying to figure this out. It has been a
couple years since I used Project for a real project instead of doing
training and troubleshooting for others. I don't remember having this issue
before. I'm not asking the program to do something illogical. When I
planned, I used Fixed Duration and gave Project 2 values (duration and units)
and let it calculate the work. Now that I have baselined and am entering
actuals, I changed the Type to Fixed Work and I am also giving it two values
(actual duration and actual work) and I am expecting it to recalculate the
actual allocation of the units. It is refusing. Even though I have not
assigned the Type of Fixed Units -- that is the variable that seems to be
fixed. Very annoying. Plus it is not logical. I believe it is 99.99% true
that no matter what your estimate of duration and work, you are never exactly
on target. I should be able to enter in MS Project exactly how much time I
worked and it should reflect that for a specific task although I PLANNED to
be allocated at 75% each day, I ACTUALLY was allocated at 40% or 110%. ARGH!

You can call Microsoft's tech support line - the MS website has information
about the appropriate phone numbers for your part of the world. Be aware
that none of us here are Microsoft employees. We are all volunteers with
our own professions and businesses who choose to participate in this
community assisting our peers. Those of us with the MVP designation have
been recognized by Microsoft for our contributions to the user community as
a whole but we are not employed by Microsoft nor do we hold any official
standing in their tech support services.

As for being asked if you put your data into the actuals fields, that may
well have been me who asked that. It is an honest question because believe
it or not, it is a very common mistake and we have had many, many people
over the years coming to the group with questions who have entered the dates
tasks began and ended in the Gantt chart entry table's Start and Finish
columns rather than the ActualStart and ActualFinish fields and then
wondered why the system wasn't behaving as expected. Indeed, there are many
users who are not even aware that the Actual... fields exist as separate
entities from the plain Start and Finish fields they see on the startup
screens. So that's got to be the first thing to get out of the way before
going further into what might be causing your problem. Diagnosis is often a
process of elimination.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

I put a question in a couple days ago and got one response that just asked
if
I was sure I put my actuals in the Actuals fields. Yes, of course! This
was
not helpful. I have an issue that is holding me up from getting work
done.
Is there a place to call and get a human being on the phone and work
through
this issue to resolution?

 

[Carolyn]

Thank you Steve. This is the best solution so far. It is still a little
finicky. I am pretty methodical and once I get something to work, I can
discipline myself to repeat exactly the steps. Even entering the data in the
exact same order every time I update a task, sometimes it calculates easily
the first time, and sometimes I have to go back and re-enter data, or reset
the whole task to 0% complete and start over. Odd.

I appreciate your time and help VERY MUCH! Thanks.

Figured it out - Add the "Remaining Work" field to the Tracking table. Make
the task type "Fixed Work." Go to the Tools Options menu, Calculation tab
and disable the checkbox labeled "Updattask status updates resoruce status."
When you enter progress, enter the actual start and actual finish fields,
the actual work in the Actual Work column and set Remaining Work to zero.
PRoject will recalculate what the assignment level was.

--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

I put a question in a couple days ago and got one response that just asked
if
I was sure I put my actuals in the Actuals fields. Yes, of course! This
was
not helpful. I have an issue that is holding me up from getting work
done.
Is there a place to call and get a human being on the phone and work
through
this issue to resolution?