Project is calculating the Finish Date incorrectly...

[jgrafton]

Does anyone else have this problem?

When I open a new project and start from scratch. I go to enter a Duration
of X amount of days, lets say 3 days. Then I enter in the Start Date of
5/1/2008, for example. The finish date that is calculated automatically ends
up being a majorly incorrect date. Instead of it populating the date as
being 3 days later, it randomly chooses a date and inserts it into the Finish
Date. So I end up w/ something like the following:

Duration Start Finish
3 days 5/1/08 5/16/08

Has anyone else had this problem? I have a service call in with Microsoft,
but if you could come up w/ a solution on here I would appreciate it,
jgrafton

 

[John]

Does anyone else have this problem?

When I open a new project and start from scratch. I go to enter a Duration
of X amount of days, lets say 3 days. Then I enter in the Start Date of
5/1/2008, for example. The finish date that is calculated automatically ends
up being a majorly incorrect date. Instead of it populating the date as
being 3 days later, it randomly chooses a date and inserts it into the Finish
Date. So I end up w/ something like the following:

Duration Start Finish
3 days 5/1/08 5/16/08

Has anyone else had this problem? I have a service call in with Microsoft,
but if you could come up w/ a solution on here I would appreciate it,
jgrafton

jgrafton,
First of all, Project does NOT randomly calculate anything. It is
software that operates on a very specific set of algorithms to calculate
everything - all the time - every time. The data that the user gives it
is the only variable.

Ok, now let's look at what might be happening. What version of Project
are you using?

The most likely reason you are getting that finish date is that a
resource is assigned to the task at 25% level. A second possibility is
that the task has a resource assigned who only works three days during
the time span from 5/1/08 through 5/16/08. If no resource is assigned to
the task the project calendar may have May 5th through the 15th as
non-working time. Or, the hours per day (Tools/Options/Calendar tab) is
set for 24 hours per day and three days of the working time calendar are
set as non-working days.

So, there are several explanations but one of them is NOT that Project
is randomly calculating the schedule.

John
Project MVP

 

[jgrafton]

jgrafton,
First of all, Project does NOT randomly calculate anything. It is
software that operates on a very specific set of algorithms to calculate
everything - all the time - every time. The data that the user gives it
is the only variable.

Ok, now let's look at what might be happening. What version of Project
are you using?

The most likely reason you are getting that finish date is that a
resource is assigned to the task at 25% level. A second possibility is
that the task has a resource assigned who only works three days during
the time span from 5/1/08 through 5/16/08. If no resource is assigned to
the task the project calendar may have May 5th through the 15th as
non-working time. Or, the hours per day (Tools/Options/Calendar tab) is
set for 24 hours per day and three days of the working time calendar are
set as non-working days.

So, there are several explanations but one of them is NOT that Project
is randomly calculating the schedule.

John
Project MVP

Ok, so the problem was found in "Tools>Change Working Time>Options". Once
here, choose your calender and make sure that the "hours per day" is set to
8, "hours per week" is set to 40, and "days per month" is set to 20.

For some reason, there was an unusual calender that was created before a
reinstall of MS Project 2007 that was tagged as a default setting. This
default setting was very strange w/ some very unusual settings. The hours
per day were set to 24. The hours per week was set at 168. And the Days per
week was set at 24. This seems like it was a glitch in the program that
assigned a default with out being prompted to.

That being said, Problem solved.

 

[John]

Ok, so the problem was found in "Tools>Change Working Time>Options". Once
here, choose your calender and make sure that the "hours per day" is set to
8, "hours per week" is set to 40, and "days per month" is set to 20.

For some reason, there was an unusual calender that was created before a
reinstall of MS Project 2007 that was tagged as a default setting. This
default setting was very strange w/ some very unusual settings. The hours
per day were set to 24. The hours per week was set at 168. And the Days per
week was set at 24. This seems like it was a glitch in the program that
assigned a default with out being prompted to.

That being said, Problem solved.

jgrafton,
I'm glad you found the glitch. Thanks for the feedback.

John