Resource Availability & Completed Tasks

[Proj_Admin]

Hi,

My company holds weekly resource allocation and project prioritization
meetings utilizing Project Web Access 2003. Recently, there has been
increased pressure on project managers to figure out the following problem;
I have researched thoroughly but to no avail...

The resource availability, as represented in the bar graph, does not seem to
take into account completed tasks. We had a resource who recently submitted
a 100% complete update for a task [task A] in his timesheet. This task
update was accepted and saved. However, task A was not due to start or be
completed until April 10th. Now that task A is completed ahead of schedule,
my managers expected the resource availability view to account for this extra
time allotted to the resource. However, his availability for 4/10 still
shows him as working on task A, which has already been completed.

As you can imagine, this created quite a headache in the meeting, with
people questioning the integrity of Microsoft Project. I have faith that the
application is working correctly and that perhaps we are not utilizing the
correct feature settings. I'd love to be able to provide a resolution by our
next weekly meeting, on Monday. Any/all advice would be tremendously
appreciated!

Proj_Admin

 

[JulieS]

Hi Proj_Admin,

Most of the server guru's spend their time and effort on the Project
Server newsgroup, so I suggest re-posting your question to the server
newsgroup.

In the meantime, you may find the follow article from the Project Server
Experts to be helpful.

http://www.projectserverexperts.com/Shared Documents/TrackingUpdatingBestPractices.htm

Again, I'm not a server expert by any means, but what I note from your
description is that you didn't mention publishing the updated
assignments.

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie
Project MVP

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for the FAQs and additional information
about Microsoft Project

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

If you haven't already switched to the Server NG: this is something that
also will occur in plain project Standard or Professional.
Simply telling Project that a task or assignment is 100% done without any
other indication will make project turn all planned work into actual work AS
SUCH.
So it cannot "free up time" to the contrary it more like "freezes" the
planned work data into actual work data.
That's not a matter of integrity, that's just how it is programmed.

Just better not use % done for ANY reporting, it means a different thing to
different people and software.
With the Server timesheet system, better use actual work by time slice.

Hope this helps,

 

[Steve House]

Just guessing if this is what has happened to you but you're probably seeing
the effect of marking a task as 'X % Complete' without explicitly entering
the dates when the work actually took place. When you update a task by
simply entering a % Complete number, Project assumes the work took place on
the dates the present schedule calls for, scheduled work dates and durations
are NOT revised by that entry. So if I have a task scheduled for 5 days
starting 10 April and it has been done early, if I simply mark it complete
Project will show the work as having taken place for 5 days beginning 10
Apr. For future tasks like this, this is clearly impossible without a time
machine. And of course this means that the resources assigned to the task
will still show as being allocated on those dates and the time will not have
been freed up and returned to the 'availabe resource pool' for those dates
by virtue of the early finish. The solution is simple - rather than using
the shortcuts, insure that you explicitly enter the start date in the Actual
Start field of the Tracking table. Best practice calls for you to avoid
entering percent complete altogether and instead enter Actual Start, Actual
Duration, and Remaining Duration during each update cycle and let Project
calculate the % Complete for you. When the task is complete, enter the
Actual Duration it took and set the Remaining Duration field to zero. Be
sure to follow each update with "Reschedule remaining work to start
after..." the current or some future date so that work that was supposed to
take place in the past but was somehow missed gets moved forward and
rescheduled to a time when it can resume.

Also, remember '% Complete' refers strictly to the passage of time and is
independent of the remaining work or the progress towards creation of the
task's deliverables.

HTH
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Hi,

My company holds weekly resource allocation and project prioritization
meetings utilizing Project Web Access 2003. Recently, there has been
increased pressure on project managers to figure out the following
problem;
I have researched thoroughly but to no avail...

The resource availability, as represented in the bar graph, does not seem
to
take into account completed tasks. We had a resource who recently
submitted
a 100% complete update for a task [task A] in his timesheet. This task
update was accepted and saved. However, task A was not due to start or be
completed until April 10th. Now that task A is completed ahead of
schedule,
my managers expected the resource availability view to account for this
extra
time allotted to the resource. However, his availability for 4/10 still
shows him as working on task A, which has already been completed.

As you can imagine, this created quite a headache in the meeting, with
people questioning the integrity of Microsoft Project. I have faith that
the
application is working correctly and that perhaps we are not utilizing the
correct feature settings. I'd love to be able to provide a resolution by
our
next weekly meeting, on Monday. Any/all advice would be tremendously
appreciated!

Proj_Admin