Work vs. Duration

[Charles]

Since everyone has been so helpful, I thought I'd post
another question that has us stumped.

We have a project plan in which we have a number of tasks
that have a certain duration, generally a day, that need
to be completed within a certain time frame, generally a
particular week. In order to properly track these tasks,
should we make these tasks "Fixed Work" so that we can
enter a duration of 1 day but be able to enter Start and
Finish dates that reflect the week in which the task must
be completed?

As an example, we have a task that must be completed
sometime during the week of 09/28 - 10/04, but will only
require 1 day of effort.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again,

Charles

 

[Kasper Ovi]

Charles, if I understand you correctly, this could be one way to solve the
problem (a general resource/planning issue):

Make the task "Fixed duration" (and set the duration 5 days) because this
value should NOT be altered by Project. Then set the constraints to "Must
start on" and select 09/28
If the working hours are of importance, set the Work and Units so these
settings reflects how much time actually being used by the task.

If you set units to 20% you'll have one days work that is planned to take
place from 09/28 - 10/04.

Did this help?

Kasper

 

[Charles]

Kasper -

Thank you for the quick reply. I'm not sure this
addresses my issue, only because I still don't have
direct visibility to the amount of work being performed.
That's why I asked if setting the task to "Fixed Work"
and then setting the duration would satisfy my
requirements. It seems to, but I'm not sure if this is
the correct approach.

Thanks,

Charles

-----Original Message-----
Charles, if I understand you correctly, this could be one
way to solve the problem (a general resource/planning
issue):

Make the task "Fixed duration" (and set the duration 5
days) because this value should NOT be altered by
Project. Then set the constraints to "Must start on" and
select 09/28. If the working hours are of importance, set
the Work and Units so these settings reflects how much
time actually being used by the task.

If you set units to 20% you'll have one days work that is
planned to take place from 09/28 - 10/04.

Did this help?

Kasper

-----Original Message-----
Since everyone has been so helpful, I thought I'd post
another question that has us stumped.

We have a project plan in which we have a number of tasks
that have a certain duration, generally a day, that need
to be completed within a certain time frame, generally a
particular week. In order to properly track these tasks,
should we make these tasks "Fixed Work" so that we can
enter a duration of 1 day but be able to enter Start and
Finish dates that reflect the week in which the task must
be completed?

As an example, we have a task that must be completed
sometime during the week of 09/28 - 10/04, but will only
require 1 day of effort.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again,

Charles

 

[Kasper Ovi]

Thank you for the quick reply. I'm not sure this

addresses my issue, only because I still don't have
direct visibility to the amount of work being performed.
That's why I asked if setting the task to "Fixed Work"
and then setting the duration would satisfy my
requirements. It seems to, but I'm not sure if this is
the correct approach.

If you want visibility (a gantt bar showing the task at one specific date),
you could use the Fixed Work, and then use the "Finish no later
than"-constraint.

My point was that since you didn't know when the task actually was done, you
had a 5day period with a resource only allocated 20% of the time.

Well, I think it's a matter of taste - decide for yourself which solution
suits your needs, and let us know what solution suitet your needs

Kasper

 

[Charles]

Kasper -

I've moved forward using your suggested approach. Based
on our dicussion it seems to be the most appropriate
method for tracking our tasks and resources.

I do have one other question, I want to include a column
that shows how much work a resource will perform for a
given task, but I haven't been able to find the
appropriate column that will allow me to display the
amount of work scheduled to be performed for a given
task. Can you suggest what I might use?

Thanks very much,

Charles

-----Original Message-----
Thank you for the quick reply. I'm not sure this
addresses my issue, only because I still don't have
direct visibility to the amount of work being performed.
That's why I asked if setting the task to "Fixed Work"
and then setting the duration would satisfy my
requirements. It seems to, but I'm not sure if this is
the correct approach.

If you want visibility (a gantt bar showing the task at
one specific date), you could use the Fixed Work, and
then use the "Finish no later than"-constraint.

My point was that since you didn't know when the task
actually was done, you had a 5day period with a resource
only allocated 20% of the time.

Well, I think it's a matter of taste - decide for
yourself which solution suits your needs, and let us know
what solution suitet your needs

Kasper

 

[Dale Howard]

Charles --

The Baseline Work column for tasks will contain this information. When you
are ready to begin work on the project, remember to save a Baseline before
you begin to enter actuals (Tools - Tracking - Save Baseline). Hope this
helps.

 

[Charles]

Dale -

This works for our requirements. I'm using it in
conjunction with the Actual Work column to allow us to
view how much work has been assigned for a given period
and how much has actually been completed.

Thanks again,

Charles