Remaining work in a Project Plan can not be zeroed out?

[Mike]

I have an issue with MSP 2k3 SP2 (Enterprise) and I'm not quite sure
if it's actually a technical bug or just something I'm doing wrong.

I am the administrator for a large corporation. I have many cases
where people will leave the company and the project plan owner will
leave remaining work hours for a resource I deactivated, causing a
typical spooler error, etc. This situation happens frequently and is
obviously easily resolved by removing the remaining hours and setting
the resource to proposed.

However, this particular plan, something odd is going on. I have a
resource that is inactive that has 1 remaining hour on a single task
on one plan. The plan owner said he was getting a spooler error. I
walked to his desk and started to coach him on how to remove the time,
etc. I had him save the plan after the time was removed and exit.
The next time he opened the plan, MSP said "Your actuals may be out of
synch with the server's, do you wish to synch?" After he
synchronized, the *remaining* hour returned to that resource.

I have tried everything I can think of to remove this hour. I
reactivated the resource, opened their timesheet and checked for any
oddities or time that may have been stuck out in limbo. I had the
owner accept all time and fully update the plan. etc, etc.

Each and every time I remove this remaining hour, it somehow ends up
back in the plan when you synchronize actuals from the server, ergo
the spooler error returns.

Has anyone seen this? Let me know if you need more data.

Kind regards,
Mike H,

 

[ahelp]

Hi Mike,
We have also seen that, and I may be confusing it with another issue, but
make sure the assignment is not on a summary task.

 

[Mike]

Mike,

Thank you for the reply. I have seen what you are referring to, and
this is indeed a normal task, not a summary task. Any other ideas?

Kind regards,
Mike H.

 

[ahelp]

I think I assumed you did this, but it's not quite clear in the initial
description: After zeroing out the remaining work, publish the project
without synching. That should push the zero remaining work out to the
timesheet. Then you should be able to allow it to synch and keep the zero
remaining work in the project. If that doesn't work, and I have a vague
feeling I've seen times where it didn't, I'm out of ideas.

 

[Gérard Ducouret]

Hello Mike,

If you enter the zero value for Remaining Work in Project Pro 2003, do you
publish the project by:
Collaborate / Publish / Republish Assignments, select the "Overwrite actual
work entered by resources" option.
If you are using the Managed Timesheet Periods you may have to disable
temporarily this feature.

Gérard Ducouret

 

[Mike]

Gérard,

You nailed it right on. As a summary/followup, it appears that the
MSP database wanted to believe there was an hour of remaining work no
matter what the resource OR the project plan owner entered on either
side. The only way to "overwrite" that remaining hour was essentially
to turn off the Managed Periods (switch to "Non Managed Periods") and
then open the plan, change the hours and save/publish.

Thank you to everyone for your replies.

Mike H.

 

[Mike]

Gérard,

You nailed it right on. As a summary/followup, it appears that the
MSP database wanted to believe there was an hour of remaining work no
matter what the resource OR the project plan owner entered on either
side. The only way to "overwrite" that remaining hour was essentially
to turn off the Managed Periods (switch to "Non Managed Periods") and
then open the plan, change the hours and save/publish.

Thank you to everyone for your replies.

Mike H.

 

[Gérard Ducouret]

Mike,

You are welcome. Thanks for your feedback!

Gérard Ducouret

"Mike" <[email protected]> a écrit dans le message de (e-mail address removed)...
Gérard,

You nailed it right on. As a summary/followup, it appears that the
MSP database wanted to believe there was an hour of remaining work no
matter what the resource OR the project plan owner entered on either
side. The only way to "overwrite" that remaining hour was essentially
to turn off the Managed Periods (switch to "Non Managed Periods") and
then open the plan, change the hours and save/publish.

Thank you to everyone for your replies.

Mike H.