Summary tasks

[bgriffwork]

If I have a published task that an associate has submitted time against, is
it a good practice to make that task a summary? Can additional time be
submitted against it once it has been made a summary? Is there a way to
"remove" the time from the summary and allocate it to a detail task?

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

briffwork --

No, it is definitely NOT a good practice to promote a task with actuals to a
summary task. Instead, simply create a new task and make it a summary task
by indenting other tasks below it. This way you will preserver your actuals
on the task in question. Hope this helps.

 

[bgriffwork]

Unfortunately, I am mentoring PMs who have done this. Do you suggest
anything to recover from this? Our local braintrust here has suggested that
the summaries can be "demoted" back to the detailed status, and placed
underneath a newly created summary. Do you have any thoughts on this method?

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

briffwork --

Bad news, my friend. Your mentorees have started down the wrong path and
there is no easy way to recover from this. Your braintrust people are also
wrong. You cannot demote the summary task and get things back the way they
used to be when the summary task contains an Actual Start and/or Actual
Finish date. I would recommend that you and your PM's stop this process
immediately and follow the practice I recommended in my last post. Hope
this helps.

 

[bgriffwork]

That's what I was afraid of. Thanks for your help.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

bgriffwork --

You are more than welcome for the help, my friend! Sorry for the bad news.