Rescheduling incomplete work should NOT change finish date ?

[Ram]

Hi,
Here's what I would like to do:

I have a task that runs from 26 Feb 2007 to 16 Mar 2007, 40 hours Work and
one resource assigned to it. The task type is set as Fixed Work.
Now the resource assigned to this task worked on it on 23rd Feb for 1 hour
and then did NOT work the rest of the month in February.

Now, I want to remove the residual hours for February and reschedule the
incomplete work to March but retain finish date as 16th March.

Using - Tools\Tracking\Update Project 'Reschedule uncompleted work to start
after', I set the new start date as 1 March. Now, finish date goes beyond my
desired date of 16th March. I understand that Project recalculates the
duration from the new start date and thus comes up with a new finish date.

Is there a way to configure/setup this task such that when I reschedule the
incomplete work from Feb - the total Work(40 hours) and Finish Date(Duration)
for the task remain same but resource assignment units changes ? I tried
making the task type to be Fixed Duration, but that didn't help.

Please advise.

 

[Steve House]

The behaviour you describe is exactly what you would expect with Fixed
Duration. Think about it a sec. I had a 1-week (5-day) task scheduled that
was supposed to start last Monday. It turns out I was sick all last week.
Whenver I get back to work, I'll be able to start the task. But it still
still take me 5 days to do it, with the counting starting whenever I manage
to get to work and the finish will be 5 days later than that. No matter
when I start, the duration doesn't change. The reschedule uncompleted work
simply slides the incomplete portion along the timeline like that. It will
never recalculate the assignment because Project assumes that the only
reason you would assign your resource at less than 100% is because there was
some reason it was impossible for him to be assigned to work at full
capacity. It will never second guess you on that - if the resource is
scheduled to do only 40 hours of work between 26 Feb and 16 Mar, you've
assigned him at 33% and Project will take the worst-case assumpion that the
only reason you assigned him that low is because it's impossible for him to
work at a higher assigment level. (Otherwise you'd of started off with him
assigned 100% in order to git 'er done as quickly as possible). The only
way to override that assumption is by manually changing the assignment
information.