MS-project - changing dates and wrong calculations

[Alain Rodrigue]

Hi all,

I am using MS-project and I have a project with three schedules linked
together. One of 6.1 Mo (construction), 7.2 Mo (commissioning and start-up of
utilities and services) and 1 Mo (summary schedule of the two schedule).
There is external predecessors and successors from one schedule to the other.

Sometimes dates are moving occasionnally for no reasons. I have set up my
calendar for all tasks and it unexpectedly results in different dates
sometimes. For example, let's say I enter in task information a new task with
a duration of 150 days starting from today 16 december 2004. It means that
the activity would end in mid-july 2005. However, occasionnally the program
will forget the relationship dates - calendar entered for a particular task
and it will results in different end dates. In our above case, the program
would calculate for example 180 days insted of 150 days and the activity
would finish in September 2005 instead of July 2005. Thus, all dates become
wrong if linked to this task.. I am mystified by this problem. Is there
anything I can do?.

I think I have reached the limit of the software. Does that also mean that
the structure implemented of the three schedules is too loaded and that the
program calculates wrongly because of that. Is it possible ? Please advise.
Alain

 

[Jim Aksel]

Try this: Establish a separate calendar and be certain that calendar applies
to each of the three schedules you mentioned.

Also, "days" in project means "work days" and this will be determined by the
start date of an activity and the assigned calendar. If you wish to count
elapsed days (all calendar days) you need to enter the times as edays, ewks,
etc.

I played with Project using two subprojects and a summary level project and
could not reproduce your problem.