Task Delegation Error using PWA

[Rachel]

We are experiencing a strange error when delegating a task
using Project Web Access.

The task is created in Project Professional and assigned
directly to the Team Lead. The plan is then published and
the TL receives the task assignment in PWA. The Lead then
delegates the task to the appropriate team member. We
expected 100% of the assigned work to be delegated to the
team member. However, the tool is delegating, for
example, 98% of the work to the team member and assigning
2% to the Team Lead. We are unable to acheive 100%
delegation to the team member. Even if we access the task
in Project Pro and zero out the units assignment for the
team lead and increase the units for the team member from
98% to 100%, as soon as we republish, the same error
reappears - the work is partially assigned to the lead.

Has anyone experienced this or successfully resolved it??

Please help!
Thanks.
Rachel

 

[Dale Howard]

Rachel --

We just observed this behavior today at a client site, and I can assure you
that Project Web Access is not broken. The behavior you are describing is
what happens when the Team Lead has done a small amount of Actual Work on
the task, in your case this would be about 2% of the planned work. The
default behavior of Microsoft Project 2002 is to preserve the Actual Work
that was completed by the original resource, which is done to maintain the
historical record on the project, and to assign ONLY the Remaining Work to
the new resource.

To confirm this behavior, do the following:

1. Create a task with a default Duration of 1 day
2. Click Window - Split to apply the Task Entry view, and then select the
original task in the upper viewing pane
3. In the Task Form (lower viewing pane), assign any resource at 100% Units
and 40 hours of work and then click OK
4. Right-click in the lower viewing pane, and select the "Resource Work"
details from the shortcut menu
5. In the lower viewing pane, enter 2 hours of Actual Work for the assigned
resource and then click OK
6. Click Window - Remove Split
7. Make sure the original task is selected, then click the Assign Resources
button to open the Assign Resources dialog box
8. Click the assigned resource, then click the Replace... button
9. Select a new resource, then click OK
10. Click the Close button
11. Click Window - Split again

In the Task Form, notice that TWO resources are assigned to the task: the
original resource (whose Actual Work of 2 hours is preserved for historical
purposes) and the new resource who is assigned the Remaining Work of 38
hours. This is the default behavior of the tool, and it is performing the
way it is supposed to work. That is why you could not set the Units for the
Team Lead down to 0%, because Actual Work has already been performed.

Is this the type of behavior you have seen? If so, I'll bet that if you
examine the offending task in your project plan, you will see that a slight
amount of Actual Work is listed as performed for this task. Let me know.
Hope this helps.

 

[Rachel]

Hi Dale -

Thanks very much for your response. The situation you
have outlined may very well be the case. However, we do
have a number of newly created tasks that are assigned to
the lead and then published to Web Access. The team lead
performs no work against the task, but instead only
interacts with the task in PWA in order to delegate it to
the team member. We are seeing the the same retention of
units for the team lead in these cases as well. Any idea
why?

Additionally, is there anyway to remove the actual work
captured for the team lead in cases in which they have
performed a few hours of work before delegating it out to
a team member?

Much appreciated.
Rachel

 

[Dale Howard]

Rachel --

Not sure what is going on with your system, but I can tell you how to remove
the Actual Work values. If the Actual Work information is irrelevant to
you, you can set the Actual Work value for each assignment to 0 hours. Do
so in the Task Form (Window - Split) with the Resource Work details applied.
The steps to apply this View are detailed in my previous post. Hope this
helps. Perhaps someone else will have an idea what is going on with the
retention of Units problem.