Changing Values in Project Summary Tasks in MS PROJECT

Posted on November 5, 2018 by

Hi,

Today I am going to show you how to change Duration or Start/Finish date on Summary Task using MS PROJECT 2019.

I am going to create simple Project with tow Tasks under one Summary Task, and I’m going to assign two different Resources to those Tasks:

image

In summary Task I can change Duration, Start Date, finish date, but I can not change Work. So I will change Duration to 6 days, and I will get:

image

Notice that when Duration (or Start or Finish Date) is changed the Summary Task is switched to manually Scheduled mode. If I change Start date, or finish date that will be no constraint set like in “regular” task (like: Start no earlier then, Start no later then etc.)

Now the right question is: Why should we change those values? One reason is that you want to compare what you have plan, and what is really happening. I will now put 7 days in Duration for Task 1, and I will get:

image

You can see that now the Summary Task (e.g. phase) will be later that planned, and this is why this bar is red. If I “right” click on finish date:

image

I can see in Task inspector where exact is the problem:

image

Here I have two possibilities. I can move the finish date according to subtask calculation, or I can switch Summary Task back to Auto scheduled Task.

I never change any field in summary Task, but also, I want to set a deadline for it. Instead of changing duration or Start/Finish Date I put Deadline like:

image

and I get:

image

Now if I change Duration to 7 days for Task 1, I will get:

image

So, I have the same effect, but also I left to MS PROJECT to make all calculations with Auto scheduled Summary Task.

Regards.

Advertisements
Posted in MS PROJECT 2016, MS PROJECT 2019, PMI, PRoject Management | Tagged , | Leave a comment

How to reschedule Uncompleted Remaining Work for multiple Projects in MS PROJECT 2019

Posted on October 31, 2018 by

Hi,

today I will show you how to reschedule uncompleted remining work for multiple Project in one step using MS PROJECT 2019

To do that, of course we should have those project in one Master project. First I am going to create two separate projects:

image

and:

image

OK! Let’ say that for both Projects Task 1 is 50% completed, so I will mark them as that (I’m not going to show you the picture how to do that!). Now let’ say that Status date is 02.11.2018. Now I want to reschedule uncompleted work after that status date for both Projects at once!

Here is how I can do it for one single project:

image and then:

image

And I will get:

image

I can do the same thing for the Second Project, as well. But, what if I have 10 Projects? It will be waste of time to do that in this way.

So I will create Master Project:

image

DO NOT forget to check Link to the Project! If you do not, that Projects are just to be copied to Mater Project, and connections between Master and Subprojects are not established.

I will get:

image

If I repeat steps like I did with Project 1, NOTHING WILL happen! So I can not move all uncompleted Task for all projects after the status date as I did it with a single PROJECT.

BUT! There is a way.

SNAGHTML723333e

And after I select ALL Tasks for ALL Projects:

image

Important thing is that I have to Select in For: section – Selected tasks INSTEAD of Entire project!

Finally I will get:

image

As you can see, I’ve got what I wanted. Those rescheduled Tasks ae reflected in original Projects as well (Project 1, and Project 2).

Regards!

Posted in MS PROJECT 2019, PMI, PRoject Management | Tagged | Leave a comment

Fixed work with Resources in shifts with MS PROJECT

Posted on October 25, 2018 by

Hi,

last week I had great training with wonderful people in Oman, so this post is dedicated to all of them as a small THANK YOU.

I will show a case in MS PROJECT 2019.

Here is the Scenario. Factory has to be shutdown for three days, e.g. 72 hours for maintenance. In that time two shifts are going to do repairing each shift is 12 hours. And working time for Oman is from Sunday to Thursday. Start time is 07:00 each day.

OK! Now first thing is setup:

image

and then:

image

and finally:

image

Now, another setup:

image

Now, I am going to create two Calendars, Night and Day!

image

and:

image

Since Friday is non working day I’m going to make it as that:

image

On the same way I will make a night calendar with these working times:

image

Friday will be non working day as well.

Now I’m going to create two Resources:

SNAGHTML1a3d9674

I will set Project start date at Sunday 28.10.2018. DO NOT FORGET to put 07:00 as starting time, otherwise first Project Task will start at 08:00:

image

Let me create Task – Maintenance with 3 days, e.g. 36 hours Duration:

image

Do not worry because Start date and Time is not ax expected.

Now, Each worker has to work 36 hours, 12 hours per day, so I will assign them and the Task will be Fixed Duration type:

SNAGHTML1a4a0fb0

Finally I’ll get:

image

Now let’s see how much time will each Resource spend per day:

image

Let me explain the picture above:

Day worker will work:

  • Sunday 28.10. from 07:00 to 19:00 – 12 hours
  • Monday 29.10 from 07:00 to 19:00 – 12 hours
  • Tuesday 30.10 from 07:00 to 19:00 – 12 hours
  • Total work = 36 hours!

Night worker will work:

  • Sunday 28.10. from 19:00 to 00:00 – 5 hours
  • Monday 29.10 from 00:00 to 07:00 – 7 hours and from 19:00 to 00:00 – 5 hours = TOTAL 12 hours
  • Tuesday 30.10 from 00:00 to 07:00 – 7 hours and from 19:00 to 00:00 – 5 hours = TOTAL 12 hours
  • Wednesday 31.10 from 00:00 to 07:00 – 7 hours
  • Total work = 36 hours!

And yes the Factory is going to be close three days. From Sunday 28.10 07:00 to Wednesday 31.10 07:00

Best regards!

Posted in MS PROJECT 2019, PMI, PRoject Management | Tagged | Leave a comment

Baseline and additional Tasks in MS PROJECT 2019

Posted on October 13, 2018 by

Hi,

I have question form Blog reader:

“Let’s say you have 3 tasks, A, B, and C. And they are scheduled to happen in sequence one after the other. You set the baseline on these three tasks and then start tracking the schedule. Assuming task A had a delayed start and finished 3 or 4 days behind schedule.
Then you decide to add another task D as a successor to C (after the change has been approved). For that purpose, we need to add task D to the original baseline.
I selected Task D, Project->Set Baseline->For Selected Tasks->To All Summary Tasks.
It did add Task D to the baseline but not to the original baseline. It creates a new baseline with a delayed start for Task D (due to the delay in the start and finish of Task A).
I’m thinking this is because the predecessor on Task D was set after the delay.
Since the change was approved, it should now become part of the original baseline.
Can you please advise on how to do this?”

First I will create the scenario using MS PROJECT 2019:

image

Now, I’m going to save the Baseline:

image

and then:

image

OK! Now I will put Task A as finished but with start Date three days later:

imageand:

image

After that let’s look at Variance table:

SNAGHTML9fd6ced

and I will get:

image

No I will add Task D like this:

image

I will now save the Baseline for just this Task:

image

and I will get this:

image

As you can see, there in no difference from Actual and Baseline for Task D. But my reader  wants to make a scenario like this, and save the Baseline:

image What he wants to do is to add additional Task (change) to Original plan, before Task progress was in MS PROJECT. And that is impossible just by adding the Task D. what he should do? He should first undo progress to get the picture like above and then add the Task. Then he should save the Baseline, and THEN make a progress for the Task A like I did.

And this is real life case. If you make a progress (like I did for Task A), than it doesn’t make a sense to put Task D to the original plan, because it is obsolete anyway.

Hope this helps.

Regards

Posted in MS PROJECT 2019 | Tagged | Leave a comment

Resource replacement whit already assigned resource on Task in Progress–MS PROJECT!

Posted on September 30, 2018 by

Hi,

I’ve got a question from one of my blog readers: “Let’s suppose that I have a task “Task” with fixed work task type. Duration is 10 days. I assign 2 resource who work for 8hr per day. Total work is 160hr. After 6 days, found person2 is leaving. I expect MS PROJECT project to assign 64hr by default to existing 1 person and extend duration from 10 days to 14 days. Also I expect work 160hr remains same. Is MS PROJECT does it by itself as task is fixed work?”

I will explain this case using MS PROJECT 2016.

I will create a project, with the Task, and I will assign two resources to the Task. Task is Fixed Work type:

SNAGHTML489524d3

OK! In this case both John and Mary had finished their work after 6 days, so this is easy to track. I will make this Task as 60% finished (60% of 10 days is 6 days):

image

and:

image

Now, after I “setup the scene” suppose that Mary left the Project, and john should take over her Job.

With MS Project you can replace one resource with another, but not with the existing one. It means that I can replace Mary with Joanne for example, because  she is not assigned to the Task, but not with John.

I can delete Mary from the Task, but in that case I have to delete her work on that Task like on the picture below (it is shown after I delete Mary and click on OK button on Task Form:

image

If I click on OK button I will get:

image

So, now Total Work is 160 hours per John, Actual Work is 48 hours, and Remaining Work is 160-48=112 hours. Duration id 20 days (160 hours of total work / 8 hours per day = 20 days). Actual work is 48 hours because when john and Mary were together on the Task, they have 80 hours work each and I put 60% complete, so 60% of 80 hours is 48 hours.

This approach is wrong because I deleted the actual work done By Mary which is 48 hours. Why? Because if Mary leave the Project she cannot “undone2 the work already done in it.

So, how can I solve the problem. Let me show the status again before Mary has left.

image

I want to leave Mary on that Task but with no work remaining, and I want John to take over of her Job. For that I should follow next steps:

  1. For Mary the Remaining work should be set to 0 hours
  2. For john Total work should increase for 32 hours (that is how much work Mary left unfinished after she has gone), so the Total work will be 80 + 32 = 112 hours
  3. For John  Remaining work should increase for 32 hours (that is how much work Mary left unfinished after she has gone), so the Remaining  work will be 32 (John’s unfinished part) + 32 (Mary’s unfinished part) = 64 hours

When I do it I will get:

image

Finally, after I click on OK button I will get:

image

This is the right approach. a lot of work, but this is the way how to handle this situation.

Regards!

Posted in Micsrosoft Project 2016, MS PROJECT 2016, PMI | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Fixed cost for resource over the time period in MS PROJECT 2016

Posted on September 18, 2018 by

Hi,

I’ve got a question from one of my Blog readers:

“Mr. Nenad, I have a question please:
Let’s suppose that I have a human work resource assigned to different tasks within the project. It receive each month a fixed salary of 4000 dollars even if it has free days (without task assigned) during the month. How can I do that in MS Project ? If I create a work resource with a standard rate of 4000$/Month then I will not be able to solve the problem since MS Project will reduce this monthly salary to an hourly rate and the cost of the resource will be proportional to time consumed, which is not the case I speak about. I want for each month (January, February, ….December) a fixed salary for this resource.”

Well, the answer is: “It is NOT possible with MS PROJECT!”. Why? There are several reasons. The major one is that if you put a resource to the Task like this one:

image

then what is the real cost of the Resource who has $4000 salary per month. As you can see the Resource will work from 18.09.2018 to 30.09.2018, and from 01.10.2018 to 22.10.2018. Now those are two months but not full months. And rarely will you have task which started at the first day of the month, and finish at the last day of the month.

Another example is like this:

image

Now let’s say that resource will work 30% on the Task 1, and 50% on Task 2. What will be the cost on Task 1, and what on Task 2? Tasks have two different durations. And even worse, the resource will work only 80% of his time. What about rest of the 20%?

So no, this doesn’t make a sense. You should always have a rate per hour, week, month, and YES MS PROJECT should calculate costs according to effort (hours) which resource will spend on those tasks.

Regards.

Posted in MS PROJECT 2016, PMI, PRoject Management | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Resource detail form in MS PROJECT 2016

Posted on September 10, 2018 by

Hi,

as I wrote many times there is a very useful Task form in MS PROJECT 2016!

Here is one simple project:

image

With the Task form we have full control over the Task, like this:

image

In Task form we can choose what are we going to look at like:

image

All of this is about Tasks, one by one. But, is it something similar but for resources, one by on. for example I want to see for one resource all tasks, or somethin like that. The answer is – YES. To get that on the screen follow this steps:

SNAGHTML4d823672

As you can see for one Resource I have all information about all Tasks. If I right click on the Resource form I will get:

SNAGHTML4d83c03e

No matter on which Task is your cursor you can choose previous or next button and see all the necessary information for one resource for all tasks. and of course you can edit those information. So Let’s say that Reviewer has spent 16 hours on Task – Review the article. I will choose Work option form the screen above and I will:

image

and I will get:

image

So if you want to manage your Task Resource by Resource, this is the best and most efficient option in MS PROJECT!

Regards!

Posted in MS PROJECT 2016, PMI, PRoject Management | Tagged , | Leave a comment