Re: Actual Work vs. Work vs. Duration

Hi Ron,
To keep your actual work from jumping to the estimated work when the task is
complete, reduce remaining work to zero rather than marking it 100% complete.
When you mark a task 100% Complete, Project assumes the initial start and
finish dates as well as estimated work. The most granular way to update a
task is through Tools -> Tracking -> Update Tasks...
--
Mike


"Dave" wrote:

Firstly you should create your plan. Duration and work are not the same
in Project. So, in order to estimate the work required to complete each
task, you should enter this in the work column (you do not say if you
are using a plan with resources assigned to tasks so I shall assume that
you are not).

The duration should measure the period over which that work is spread.
So your 12 hours of work could have a duration of a week, or 1.5 days
depending on how intensively or exclusively somebody works on it.

Once you have completed your plan, you should baseline it. This will
preserve a copy of the planned work and planned start/stop dates.
Tools/tracking/save baseline for this.

You don't say what view/columns you are using to mark the work 100%
complete, but after having set a task as complete, you can change the
work on it to represent the actual work. The original estimate is of
course saved in the baseline. Alternatively, set the work to be the
actual work before marking it 100% complete.

If you say whether or not you have resources in your plan and what
columns/views you are working with, we can give more precise help.

Hope this helps.

Dave

Ron West wrote:
I am relatively new to MS Project and I am working on a complicated
plan in which I would like to do the following:

1. Estimate out x numbers of hours for a bunch of tasks
2. Record the actual number of hours it took to complete the tasks
(without affecting the original estimate)
3. Mark a task as complete even if the actual hours were less then
estimated (again without affecting the original estimate)

I think that this would seem simple. I have done the following:

1. Used "duration" to track estimated hours (probably not correct but
I can't see where this would be better placed)
2. Used "actual work" to track actual hours

Problem is that when I make a tasks duration say 12 hours and it only
takes 8 (I put this value in Actual Work), and then I mark it complete
(%Complete) the value for Actual Work is converted to 12.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Actual Work vs. Work vs. Duration
    ... So, in order to estimate the work required to complete each task, you should enter this in the work column (you do not say if you are using a plan with resources assigned to tasks so I shall assume that you are not). ... The duration should measure the period over which that work is spread. ... You don't say what view/columns you are using to mark the work 100% complete, but after having set a task as complete, you can change the work on it to represent the actual work. ... The original estimate is of course saved in the baseline. ...
    (microsoft.public.project)
  • Re: help
    ... that "% Complete" refers to duration, not work performed and not the amount ... the date the schedule shows and your input percentage of the total duration ... clue how I, my company, or the customer have arrived at this point. ... hasn't been a valid plan all along), ...
    (microsoft.public.project)
  • Re: help
    ... that "% Complete" refers to duration, not work performed and not the amount ... the date the schedule shows and your input percentage of the total duration ... clue how I, my company, or the customer have arrived at this point. ... hasn't been a valid plan all along), ...
    (microsoft.public.project)
  • Re: Working with task durations of minutes
    ... Just tell me I'm responsible for updating the server, everything will be "go" for me to do it starting Tuesday afternoon, and then get out of my way and let me do my job. ... From a project managment perspective it's usually enough for the PM to say "Update Server with Module Package X, 5 hours duration, starting Tuesday 1pm" and leave it up to Joe how he organizaes the details. ... If I'm painting a room and the painter and his assistant will box up the computers in it, move the furniture out, remove fixtures from the wall, mix and apply the paint I'll just list it as one task "Paint the Room." ... On the plan there are about 250 tasks that need ...
    (microsoft.public.project)
  • Re: Dependencies and out of sequence scenario.
    ... If I mark task2 complete, ... Screwing up the whole plan. ... and marking tasks complete ahead of schedule does not impact the plan. ... The project plan was complete and we had all the dependencies set. ...
    (microsoft.public.project)