Sub Task showing Days and Question Mark

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Tom --

Did you turn off the Estimated Duration options as I indicated in my last
post?

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Tom --

You are more than welcome, my friend!

 

[tshad]

I have a Summary Task that has no tasks under it. Just other Summary Tasks:

Project Summary "36 Days?"
Design "3.5 Days"
Development "18 Days"
Testing "10 Days"
Deployment "4.5 Days"

The Project Summary tasks is showing the Duration as "36 Days?" - what is
the "?" for? The duration total is correct.

Thanks,

Tom

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Tom --

The question marks indicate an "Estimated" task. This indicates a task
whose Duration you did not manually enter, but which was calculated by the
software by entering Units and Work. To remove the question marks from all
tasks, do the following:

1. Click Tools - Options.
2. Click the Schedule tab.
3. Deselect the last two checkboxes, as these two options generate the
question marks (you see "estimated durations" in the option name).
4. Click the Set as Default button.
5. Click OK.

You will need to do these steps for each project you currently manage. Any
new projects you create will not show the question marks automatically.
Hope this helps.

 

[John]

I have a Summary Task that has no tasks under it. Just other Summary Tasks:

Project Summary "36 Days?"
Design "3.5 Days"
Development "18 Days"
Testing "10 Days"
Deployment "4.5 Days"

The Project Summary tasks is showing the Duration as "36 Days?" - what is
the "?" for? The duration total is correct.

Thanks,

Tom

Tom,
The question mark means that the duration is an estimate. Actually when
developing a plan, durations are always estimates, unless perhaps you
are counting the number of seconds in a minute.

To "turn off" the question mark, go to Tools/Options/Schedule tab and
uncheck the option to "show that tasks have estimated durations".
However the question mark automatically disappear from the duration when
subtask durations are no longer estimates (i.e. a discrete value has
been entered by the user or Project has calculated duration based on
work hours and resource assignments). The fact that your top level
summary line still has a question mark indicates that at least one
subtask or summary under it is still an estimate.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

 

[tshad]

Tom --

The question marks indicate an "Estimated" task. This indicates a task
whose Duration you did not manually enter, but which was calculated by the
software by entering Units and Work.

But I have a Summary task with multiple Summary tasks below it. Only the
top level Summary task shows the question mark. The Summary task below
don't show it and their durations are also calculated. Why doesn't theirs
have question marks?

Thanks,

Tom

 

[tshad]

Tom,
The question mark means that the duration is an estimate. Actually when
developing a plan, durations are always estimates, unless perhaps you
are counting the number of seconds in a minute.

To "turn off" the question mark, go to Tools/Options/Schedule tab and
uncheck the option to "show that tasks have estimated durations".
However the question mark automatically disappear from the duration when
subtask durations are no longer estimates (i.e. a discrete value has
been entered by the user or Project has calculated duration based on
work hours and resource assignments). The fact that your top level
summary line still has a question mark indicates that at least one
subtask or summary under it is still an estimate.

You're right.

That was the problem. My last Summary task had a couple of tasks that I
hadn't added in the duration yet and that also had a question mark. Didn't
notice it until you mentioned it.

Thanks,

Tom

 

[John]

You're right.

That was the problem. My last Summary task had a couple of tasks that I
hadn't added in the duration yet and that also had a question mark. Didn't
notice it until you mentioned it.

Thanks,

Tom

Tom,
You're welcome and thanks for the feedback.
John

 

[tshad]

Tom --

Did you turn off the Estimated Duration options as I indicated in my last
post?

That would have done it.

But in my case, it was another Summary task that had 2 tasks with estimated
Durations of 1 in them and also had a question mark on it. When I put
actual durations the question marks in both Summary Tasks disappeared.

Thanks,

Tom