Summary Task showing duration

[Cheryl]

Hello All,
I have my project files structured with an External
Dependencies section, activities sections, and a
deliverables section. The deliverables section of each
project file contains work products. The durations are
set to 0, however the summary task show duration times.
Example below:

External Dependencies 0 days 6/14/04
6/14/04
Task1 from ext proj file A 0 days 6/14/04 6/14/04
Task2 from ext proj file B 0 days 6/14/04 6/14/04
Activities 15 days 6/14/04 7/2/04
Define Schedule Structure 5 days 6/14/04 6/18/04 2
Manload Schedule 1 day 6/21/04 6/21/04 5
Create Test Plan 15 days 6/14/04 7/2/04
Deliverables 9 days 6/21/04 7/2/04
Manloaded Schedule 0 days 6/21/04 6/21/04 6
Test Plan 0 days 7/2/04 7/2/04 7

 

[Guest]

-----Original Message-----
Hello All,
I have my project files structured with an External
Dependencies section, activities sections, and a
deliverables section. The deliverables section of each
project file contains work products. The durations are
set to 0, however the summary task show duration times.
Example below:

External Dependencies 0 days 6/14/04 6/14/04
Task1 from ext proj file A 0 days 6/14/04 6/14/04
Task2 from ext proj file B 0 days 6/14/04 6/14/04

Activities 15 days 6/14/04 7/2/04

Define Schedule Structure 5 days 6/14/04 6/18/04 2
Manload Schedule 1 day 6/21/04 6/21/04 5
Create Test Plan 15 days 6/14/04 7/2/04

Deliverables 9 days 6/21/04 7/2/04

Manloaded Schedule 0 days 6/21/04 6/21/04 6
Test Plan 0 days 7/2/04 7/2/04 7

The deliverable is showing 9 days instead of 0. Can
someone tell me why?
Thanks,
Cheryl

 

[John]

Cheryl,
That's a simple one. There are 9 working days from 6/21/04 to 7/2/04.
The duration of a summary line is simply the difference in working time
between the earliest start date and the latest finish date of the
subtasks under the summary.

Hope this helps.
John

 

[Steve House]

The task list in Project should, IMO, *only* contain the items you have
included in you "Activities" section. The items in "external dependencies"
and "deliverables" don't belong there. If you want to see the deliverables
in the plan, represent them as milestones linked at the end of the chain of
tasks that create them, *NOT* as a separate set of entries indented under a
summary. That is what tasks are ... the physical activities required to
produce the project's deliverables. The summary tasks should represent
phases and subphases, drilling down from broad, ie "foundation phase", to
the specific "tie rebar." You are using them to represent categories of
items rather than phases of activity and as you've discovered that leads to
all sorts of screwy results.