Hi,

I saw very interesting discussion in LinkedIn, about making Task Inactive if it has actuals.

First let me show the “issue”. I will create brand new Project in MS PROJECT 2016:

and I will create John as Resource with $100 / hour rate:

Finally, I will assign John as Resource to the Task:

Now, let’s say that I do not need this Task any more, but I want to keep it shown in my Project. I will try to make it as Inactive, like this:

and I will get:

So, the Task is Inactive now. But let’s say that Joh has done some work at this Task before I decided to make it Inactive (for example, Task is finished 50%):

Now, I will try to make it Inactive:

Is this a bug? No it is not. Why? Let me show you, for example, the Cost Table:

As you can see, since John had worked 20 hours, it had spent $2000. Of course he had spent 2,5 days at work at this Task, as well. So it is not reasonable to make this Task inactive. Inactive means – I do not need this Task, nor someone is going to work at it – ever. But, if someone had already spent some time on that particular Task, than you can’t consider it as not needed. But, on the other hand, let’s say that noone will work on that Task anymore, but 20 hours are already spent, and you want to finish id with no further work. In that case you can do this (I am going to use Task usage View):

and I will get:

Now the Task is finished! The other solution is to put erase all actuals from Task, and then make it Inactive, but I will not recommend it. Why? Because, in that case you are hiding actual work spent on that Task and actual costs, and that is something which is not very professional in Project management, is it?

Regards¨