PWA Timesheet Issue

[Guest]

We are currently use the timesheet in PWA to track hours for our
projects. We need to track hours spent on each task on a daily basis.
This forces us to use the "Hours of work done per day or per week:
Resources report the hours worked on each task during each time
period. " method of time tracking. The downside of this method is
that the whole schedule starts shifting around, tasks get split, etc.
if anyone enters even one hour outside the time window for each task
defined in the baseline schedule. I understand that Project is just
trying to adapt to what it perceives as a change of schedule. But the
reality of the situation is that people do jump around on tasks even
though they are linked together in a waterfall method. I tried the
"Actual work done and work remaining: Resources report the actual work
done and the work remaining to be done on each task" method and it
works great as far as not turning the schedule into an unreadable
mess. The downside is I lose the day to day tracking of hours spent
on each task.

So.... my question is: Is there a way to track, on a day-by-day basis,
the hours spent on each task and then have those hours stuffed into
the "actual work" of each task regardless of what day the work was
actually done? Basically I'm looking for a hybrid of the two time
tracking methods I listed.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

SpamBeGone --

Sorry, but there is no hybrid of the two methods of tracking progress. The
Hours of work done per day or per week method is working exactly as it was
intended. It is showing you the way that the work is actually being
performed, which can certainly result in task splits, rescheduled tasks,
etc. If you want to use this method, you will have to live with the
results. For example, if you assigned me to perform 40 hours of work last
week from Monday through Friday, and I entered 8 hours of Actual Work each
day on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday only (no work on Wednesday and Thursday),
then the following will result:

1. You will see a task split on Wednesday and Thursday
2. The task will be scheduled to finish two days late on Tuesday of the
next week

This is how the software is programmed to work. If you are using the Hours
of work done per day or per week method, I strongly recommend that you
gather one or two addition pieces of information from your team members at
the end of each reporting period. First, you should task your team members
top submit their remaining work estimate, entered in the Remaining Work
field. In my previous example, if I peformed only 24 hours of Actual Work
on a 40 hour task, but I have finished the work, then you would want me to
adjust the Remaining Work field to 0 hours for that task to show an early
finish. If I performed 40 hours of work on that task and I am still not
finished, you would want me to increase the Remaining Work value to reflect
how much work I think I have left. Second, if a team member adjusts the
Remaining Work field value, you should also ask him/her to insert a Note on
the task to document the reason for changing the value. This will become an
important part of your project documentation and will assist with the
planning of future projects. Hope this helps.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the reply. Pretty much as I expected. Upon further
research and reflection I realized I probably wasn't clear enough with
my initial question. Most likely because all the issues weren't clear
in my head. The main issue is not so much the splitting of tasks, but
the fact that if someone puts in 2 hours on a task that isn't supposed
to start for two weeks, the whole task was being moved ahead two weeks
and the rest of the schedule that was linked to it moved
(unacceptable). Turning off the automatic recalculate isn't the
answer either as we are adding and subtracting tasks and need to
recalculate sooner or later. I played with a couple of knobs and
found out the following: If I turn the default task type from "fixed
duration" (previous setting) to "fixed units" and check the "split
in-progress task" option the whole schedule only moves slightly if a
task starts early, as opposed to the whole thing shifting over to the
left. There will be the splitting of tasks (acceptable) you described
and the start date will advance by the number of hours put in ahead of
schedule (MS Project doing what it's supposed to do).

So... my question really is: given the additional info in this
message, are there any other boxes I should check and settings I
should change to avoid the large changes in the end date of a schedule
that can be caused by putting just a few hours into a task before it's
scheduled to start? Or have I just solved the problem myself?

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

SpamBeGone --

Without being able to look at your project plans, I'm not sure if I can
really comment on whether you have solved the problem or not. If you can
live with the results, I'm happy.

 

[Casey]

If your objective is to minimize the disturbance of the constant schedule
change, I use the following method.

I ask my team to follow the approved baseline schedule, don't use the
constant changing work schedule. I added the baseline start and finish dates
on timesheet for all the team members.

Once a while, I analyze the new work schedule of my projects. If I find it
is necessary to revise the schedule, I will then re-baseline the project.
This method reduce the impact of the constant changing of project schedule.
It allow my team to focus on approved target dates.