Why does the task total come up as a fraction of a day?

[alisondona]

I am entering durations of full hours per activity (4hr,8hr, etc.) for
subtasks, but the total of the taskes comes up including a fraction of a day,
such as 13.16 days. Where is this coming from? Is there a constraint hidden
in here (I picked up the format from someone else's project). If I am
entering round units, how can the total be a fraction?

I have been making schedules for years (using excel), but have just started
working with MS Project.

 

[JulieS]

Hi alisondona,

The duration of a summary task is not the sum of the durations of the
subtasks. The duration of the summary task is the amount of working time
from the start of the earliest of the subtasks to the finish of the latest
of the subtasks. Unless you have linked all of the subtasks in a
Finish-to-Start relationship without lag or lead the summary task duration
may show fractional days. It is common if you have added lead or lag to the
predecessor or successor relationship to see fractional durations.

I think you may also be seeing some issues related to how many hours are in
the definition of a day. You note that you are entering duration in hours
but seeing duration at the summary level in days. You can change the
display of duration to hours if that would help by going to Tools > Macro >
Macros and run the Format_Duration macro.

You may also like to take a look at FAQ #5 "Default Working Hours" at
http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm

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

Julie

 

[Alan]

There may be a difference in the project start time and your task start time.

One hour is 12.5% of an 8 hour day, hence the 0.13 difference. Set your
project start time to 8am. This may be accessed in the Project Information
dialogue box(/Project/Project Information/). You may have to change your
date format in order to view time information. This may be accessed under
/Tools/Options/View.