project durations

[Tiggerz]

Hi,
This is a basic question that most likely has been asked, but I couldnt find
an answer.

In project (2000) I have a heading called "meetings". Indented under this
I have 16 one hour meetings - each one on a monday.

In the duration on the "Meetings" heading it has 601 hours displayed. I
want it to display 16 hours, which is the correct sum of the task.

I do not want project to calculate durations based on start and end dates of
the whole activity or the tasks.

Any ideas on how to do this.

 

[DavidC]

Hi Tiggerz

Sorry but no can do. Your "heading" Meetings, is a summary task of all the
tasks under it. As it is a summary of those tasks then it naturally
summarises the start and finsh dates, and hence the duration overall. In
essence the summary task is automated and as a general rule cannot be
manipulated. What the summary is telling you is that you are going to spend
601 hours in total on meetings, with the details of what makes up that 601
hours found in the tasks under the summary.

regards

DavidC

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

You can put a formula in a custom duration field and for summary tasks
choose Sum as the logic. Then that duration firls will show what you want.

 

[Tiggerz]

Ok, thanks muchly - I shall investigate formula

I would have expected a 5 hour task for example to only be shown as five
hours in a summary, not 5 weeks. I can see many people not liking the fact
that they cant work to actual time rather than some woolly numbers.

Maybe in a later version they might put in two fields, activity duration
(which is really what the summary is showing) and task durations (which is
what I want).

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

Mind you , your figure is there as well.
If you assign a resoruce to the task, or otherwise fill in the Work field,
that is summed up as you like; it's just that you have to get used to this
vocabulary; work is different from duration.
HTH