Milestone date calculation logic

[Annabel Mackay]

Hi,

I am trying to understand how milestone (0 duration tasks) dates are
determined. I want to set milestones to portray this sort of situation

1 MILESTONE Start process Mon 1
2 tasks.... on Mon, Tue, Wed
3 MILESTONE End process Wed 3
4 MILESTONE Start process Thu 4
5 tasks... on Thu, Fri
6 MILESTONE End process Fri 5

I find I get varying results depending on my use of predecessors.

If the milestone does not have a successor then it is assigned the same
date as the predecessor task. That works well in the case of task 6
above as the milestone is dated Fri 5. However, when the milestone has
both a predecessor and a successor it is assigned the predecessor date
+1. So, in the case of task 3 above it gets the date Thu 4.

Sometimes I can work around the second situation to achieve a date of
Wed 3 by marking task 3 as a milestone but assigning a duration of 1
day. However, in other cases if I do that then task 3 remains on Thu 4
and tasks 1 and 2 are made a day later (Tue 2, Wed 3 and Thu 4).

Any suggestions or advice?

Thank you,
Annabel

 

[Rod Gill]

Why have these milestones? They seem redundant. The start of the first task
is obviously the start of the process and ditto for the finish. I would
instead create a summary task for the process. The beginning and end of the
summary task is also the beginning and end of the process.

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[Annabel Mackay]

The Milestones are used primarily for management reporting. Management
say what "events" (milestones) they want to know about. So, by setting
these milsetones I can use the Milestone report to show what they want.

I found that I can mark a summary task as a milestone which works well
for filtering in views but it won't show in a true MS Project "Report".
My only option in a report is to show summary tasks but then it shows
all summary tasks rather than just the summary tasks marked as milestones.

As suggested by another user, printing customised views rather than
reports might be a more appropriate way to get the output I want.
Certainly, customising a table, filtering, etc, and then using that
table in a report might get what I want.

Never the less if anyone can provide some logic on the way milestone
dates are determined that would be good.

 

[JulieD]

Hi Annabel

(good to see another aussie on this site!)

unfortunately i never saw your original post only this reply to Rod ...
asking

Never the less if anyone can provide some logic on the way milestone dates
are determined that would be good.

Milestone dates are determined by the completion date / time of their
predecessor(s) ... so if you have a "phase" of tasks (task 1 to 5 all linked
finish / start with a milestone at the end) then the milestone's date / time
would be that of the finish of task 5.

is this what you're after?

the other thing that i wanted to mention to you - if you don't know about
it, is the ability to "rollup tasks" to summary bars ... so, if you were
after say the gantt chart showing the project's outline - you could set the
milestones to rollup to the summary bars and then use the Milestone Rollup
View (view / more views / apply) and then

Hope this helps
Cheers
JulieD

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Annabel,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

I believe the answer lies in Constraints. Insert a column for Constrain
Type. I suspect the Milestone 4 is set As Late As Possible - they should
all be As Soon As Possible - change them and that should fix it. Have you
been playing around with schedulling from the Finish Date? If so that might
have cause the constraint changes.

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: <http://www.mvps.org/project/>

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on )

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP

 

[Annabel Mackay]

Thanks for the tips.

Mike was spot on in that I am scheduling from Finish Date with most
constraints set to As Late As Possible. No doubt a familiar story where
the finish date is decided and then the work must be scheduled in a
limited time frame, rather than the ideal where a start date is selected
and the work required determines the finish date.

Remembering that milestones generally "inherit" their date from their
predecessor (as noted by Julie), and playing a little with the
constraint types, I am starting to get the results I am after and
printing appropriately in reports for management.

Once more, thank you to all the people who responded to my query.

Annabel

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Annabel,

I strongly advise against scheduelling from the finish. Doing so will make
each task finish as late as possible and thus every task becomes critical.
You've lost all flexibility and have set the schedule in stone! Don't do
it. Always schedule from the start to see what Project tells you is
possible with the resources you've assigned - try using Deadline dates to
put down markers for you. Then adjust your plan to get an acceptable end
date.


Mike Glen
Project MVP