Project 2003 duration not accurate

[SP]

Hi all, hoping you can assist me. On a task we have entered a duration of
12 mons, the dates are showing Sept 4, 2007 - August 5, 2008. We need it to
show Sept 4, 2007 to Sept 4, 2008. We need all durations to show the real
dates? How do we accomplish this?

Sheri

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

Avoid months. Specify 365 ed or better,n the number of working days in a
year as d.
HTH

 

[Steve House]

You already are getting the "real dates" for a 12 month DURATION task
beginning 04 Sept 2007. Durations will never show dates the way you
describe because you're not measuring duration when you do that, you're
measuring elapsed time, a different breed of critter altogether. Duration
ONLY includes working time as defined by the task's controlling calendar.
Non-working hours of the day and non-working days don't count, so the time
period from, say, 01 Sept through 30 Sept, while it's 30 days elapsed time,
only is about 20 days duration time. Project always tracks duration in
hours to the nearest 10th of a minute. Using the default settings, an
average month has 20 working days and a working day has 8 hours. So when
you say that task has a duration of 12 months, you have told MSProject that
the amount of working time required to complete the task is 12 mon * 20 day
* 8 hour * 60.0 min or 115200 minutes. Starting 04 Sept '07 and counting
minutes in the Project Calendar, you'll find that that exact number of
working minutes will have been consumed on 05 Aug 08 after dropping
non-working hours, weekends, and holidays from consideration. Sorry, but
that's the ANSI definition of duration and that's just the way it is.

You can enter elapsed time by prefixing the duration number with 'e' so that
01 Sept through 30 Sept would be entered "30ed." To enter your 12 month
task, then, you can enter it as "12 emonth" but be aware if you use elapsed
time it can really screw up your ability to schedule resources and the work
hours and budget calculations. Tasks entered with elapsed time completely
ignore non-working time for start and end dates and will have budgets based
on the assumption that work proceeds on them 24/7 from the time they start
until they're completed, leading to man-hour and budget estimates that can
be triple the real figures.

 

[SP]

Steve, thank you for the response and great explanation. This makes a lot
of sense. I have sent the information on to individuals who were
questioning the durations. Hopefully this will suffice!

Again Thanks

Sheri

You already are getting the "real dates" for a 12 month DURATION task
beginning 04 Sept 2007. Durations will never show dates the way you
describe because you're not measuring duration when you do that, you're
measuring elapsed time, a different breed of critter altogether. Duration
ONLY includes working time as defined by the task's controlling calendar.
Non-working hours of the day and non-working days don't count, so the time
period from, say, 01 Sept through 30 Sept, while it's 30 days elapsed
time, only is about 20 days duration time. Project always tracks duration
in hours to the nearest 10th of a minute. Using the default settings, an
average month has 20 working days and a working day has 8 hours. So when
you say that task has a duration of 12 months, you have told MSProject
that the amount of working time required to complete the task is 12 mon *
20 day * 8 hour * 60.0 min or 115200 minutes. Starting 04 Sept '07 and
counting minutes in the Project Calendar, you'll find that that exact
number of working minutes will have been consumed on 05 Aug 08 after
dropping non-working hours, weekends, and holidays from consideration.
Sorry, but that's the ANSI definition of duration and that's just the way
it is.

You can enter elapsed time by prefixing the duration number with 'e' so
that 01 Sept through 30 Sept would be entered "30ed." To enter your 12
month task, then, you can enter it as "12 emonth" but be aware if you use
elapsed time it can really screw up your ability to schedule resources and
the work hours and budget calculations. Tasks entered with elapsed time
completely ignore non-working time for start and end dates and will have
budgets based on the assumption that work proceeds on them 24/7 from the
time they start until they're completed, leading to man-hour and budget
estimates that can be triple the real figures.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Hi all, hoping you can assist me. On a task we have entered a duration
of 12 mons, the dates are showing Sept 4, 2007 - August 5, 2008. We need
it to show Sept 4, 2007 to Sept 4, 2008. We need all durations to show
the real dates? How do we accomplish this?

Sheri