Milestone and Finish to Finish relationship in MS PROJECT 2016

Posted on May 2, 2016 by Nenad Trajkovski

Hi,

I’ve got an interesting question form one of my blog reader. He’s got a problem. I will show you what kind of Problem does he has with MS PROJECT 2016!

Firs I will create new Project:

image

Everything looks perfect. Now, suppose that after the milestone has been finished, I have plan to do Next Task, for example, with 1 day Duration (1 Day Duration is from example of my blog Reader):

image

My Blog Reader did this:

image

He ask me: “Why is Start Date of Next Task, same as Milestone completed date (End Date)?”.  And he asks: “If I put that Next Task to be driven of Task 2, I get what I want!”

The problem lies here: If you want Next Task to start after Milestone is finished DO NOT PUT finish to finish relationship, like this:

image

As you can see Start date of Next Task is 05.05.2016, which is expected. With Finish to Finish Relationship you are telling to MS PROJECT: “I do not care when my Task will be started, but it has to be finished at the same task as my Predecessor!”. To show you that I will make finish to Finish relationship with Next Task, and Milestone, but I will change Duration of Next Task to 3 days, and I will get:

image

Now, you can see that Next Task will start earlier, at 02.05.2016, and that is exactly what I told to MS PROJECT: “Next Task should have 3 days duration, and it should be finished at the same time as Milestone, which is 04.05.2016”, and MS PROJECT has calculated Start date = Finish date – 3 days = 02.05.2016

So, be careful with task relations other than Finish to Start

Hope this helps!

Regards Smile

Posted in MICROSOFT PROJECT, Microsoft Project 2013, Micsrosoft Project 2016, MS PROJECT 2010, MS PROJECT 2016, PMI, PRoject Management | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Is it possible to make a Project plan without Project Start Date in MS Project 2016!

Posted on April 18, 2016 by Nenad Trajkovski

 

Hi,

I’ve got very interesting question from one of my blog readers: “Is it possible to create project plan without Start date, and the let MS PROJECT 2016 to calculate finish like t0 + ndays?”

I will show you an example in MS PROJECT 2016, but first I have to give an answer. NO! you can not do it.

When you open a brand new Project you will get something like this:

image

I will add some Tasks to it:

image

As you can see I’ve got end date = 29.04.2016, Friday, because all days are working days, there is no Resources with their Calendars, or any other exceptions other than Weekend (Saturday and Sunday). Microsoft Project will always calculate End date (if your Project is scheduled from Project Start Date), or Start date (if your Project is scheduled from Project End Date).

It must be that way because when you have (and you always will), a lot of exceptions like, for example:

  1. Specific Exceptions for all Tasks (National holidays for example)
  2. Specific Exceptions for Resources (Vacation period for them)
  3. Various Task Types (e.g. Fixed Units, fixed Work, and Fixed Duration)

all of this must be taken into consideration when calculations. So, without dates (e.g. Start Date) it will be impossible for Project for making right Schedule.

So, what can you do if you do not know specific or right Start Date. Pick one, and make your schedule. After you will find out right Start date, do this:

image

and move whole Project to new Start Date (like, in my example, to 25.04.2016). But be aware that you enter all exceptions before that (for example if you have Holiday at 26.04.2016, put it in exceptions)! then you will get your right Schedule!

More about exceptions and Task Types you can se in my previous Blog Posts.

 

Regards!

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

Task type and Resource Calendars in MS PROJECT 2016

Posted on April 4, 2016 by Nenad Trajkovski

Hi,

I’ve got very specific question from one of my blog Reader, and I’m going to answer this step by step using MS PROJECT 2016

Here is Scenario from my Blog Reader (Italic font represent his questions, and Normal font represent my answer)

First, I created three tasks – Fixed Units, Fixed Work and Fixed Duration, Task1, Task2 and Task3 accordingly. Then I gave 5-day duration to each task and added a resource Bob to the project. I gave him a 100% of Assignments Units for each tasks (disregarding overallocation). Also Bob doesn’t work on Mondays (his calendar is modified accordingly).

OK, I will create tasks:

image

Now I’m going to create Bob as Resource, and his working time (without Mondays):

image

and:

image

“Next, I assigned Bob at his maximum capacity to each task. Project did the calculations:
The Work For Task 1 (Fixed Units) and Task 2 (Fixed Work) was calculated as 40 hrs (W = D x U = 5d x 100%), but Task3 (Fixed Duration) got Work of 32 Hours while its Duration was fixed at 5 days and didn’t change. So on one hand Project when it calculated the Work for Task3 reduced its Duration by one day to account for Monday off (03/28/16) , that is, W = D x U= (5d-1d)*100%= 32 hrd of Work, but on the other hand it showed that Monday as a working day on Gantt chart while not showing in on Task Usage View. This is very confusing.”

OK, I will do that:

image¸

and Task usage View:

image

Well it might be confusing but this is LOGICAL! Since we put 5 days duration in a FIXED DURATION TASK TYPE, it will have 5 days no matter of Resource availability. So, because Start date for the Task is 04.04.2016 (Monday), and Bob will not work at that Monday,  MS PROJECT will not move this task to end at Tuesday 12.04.2016. This is an easy example. But what if we have Mary as resource and she doesn’t work at Wednesday? Does it mean that Mary will works at Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and next Monday, and Bob will work at Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and next Tuesday? So the Task will start at Monday, 04.04.2016, and end at Tuesday, 12.04.2016? NO! Because in that case duration will be 7 instead of 5 days! So, no matter of Resource availability, duration remains the same!

Now, my Blog reader has another problem:

“Now I change Task2 type from Fixed Work to Fixed Duration. Project recalculated Task2 components as follows:
Task2 Work was not changed (40 hours), but the Duration increased to 7 days which included both non-working Mondays, even though logically speaking the Duration of 5 day should have been changed for a Fixed Duration task. It’s also very confusing.”

So, when I will do it, I will get:

image

and in Task usage View:

image

First, this task was fixed work, and it was calculated that for 5 days duration it will be 40 hours of work for Bob! And Start date was Tuesday, 05.04.2016, and End date was Tuesday, 12.04.2016. That was logical, because Bob doesn’t work at Mondays. But, after changing Task Type from fixed Work to Fixed Duration, calculation was made like this:

  • I have 40 hours to work
  • The earliest possible start date (no matter of Bob’s availability, since this is Fixed Duration Task now)  is Monday 04.04.2016
  • To fulfill this 40 hours Bob will work on from Tuesday 05.04.2016 till Tuesday 12.04.2016.
  • No matter that Monday is not working day for Bob, those two Mondays are calculated in Duration, no matter that work will be 0 hours! So, Duration is 7 days!

I hope that I helped with clarifying this odd situation.

Regards!

Posted in MICROSOFT PROJECT, MS PROJECT 2010, MS PROJECT 2016, PMI, PRoject Management | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Importing Resources from Excel into MS PROJECT 2013 and PROJECT 2016–VIDEO IS HERE!

Posted on March 21, 2016 by Nenad Trajkovski

I’m proudly announce that Webucator (www.webucator.com) recorder the Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mniDdkKxgpM&feature=youtu.be of my Blog Post which you  can Find here: https://ntrajkovski.com/2015/02/27/importing-resources-from-excel-into-ms-project-2013/.

If you want learn a lot about MS PROJECT, I strongly recommend that you visit their site https://www.webucator.com/microsoft-training/project.cfm, and you will find a lot of valuable trainings there.

Thank you Lee, and Webucator.

Regards!

Posted in MICROSOFT PROJECT, Microsoft Project 2013, MS PROJECT 2016 | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Resource calendar vs. Task Calendar, and weekends in MDS PROJECT 2016

Posted on March 18, 2016 by Nenad Trajkovski

Hi,

Again, I have a question from one of my Blog readers, which is related to my previous post:

“Hi Nenad,¸

Thank you very mush. But can you please explain the following inconsistency in MSP behavior:

If in the example you just presented you change a task default calendar’s option None to Standard (Task Information>Advanced<Calendar), the resource John will no longer be scheduled to work on the weekend days 12/03/16 and 13/03/16, and the task will be scheduled as if no exception in John’s calendar for these 2 days making them working for John was made at all, and the task will be finished on 17/03/16 instead 15/03/16.

Why? In my understanding the default task’s calendar option None is referenced to a default Standard Project calendar, so why MSP behaves differently when you leave a default None for the task’s calendar and when you select a Standard calendar instead, even though the two are exactly the same calendar- Standard Project Calendar?

Thank you,
Alex”

First I’m going to create Scenario for this Case in MS PROJECT 2016, and then I will explain it. I will repeat whole previous post, and I will add the explanation for this particular question!

I will create brand new Project with one Task:

image

As you can see Task will start at Friday 11.03.2016, and since duration is 5 days it will end at Thursday 17.03.2016, because Standard Calendar is used, and weekend is non working time. You can see that here:

image

If you click on Saturday or Sunday, you will find that From and To field are empty, because those are non working days.

Now I will create John as Resource, and I will assign him to the Task:

image

and:

image

As you can see nothing has changed in Start and finish date. Now suppose that John is hard worker and he is supposed to work at Saturday, 12.03.2016, and Sunday 13.03.2016:

image

Now let’s see Task Usage View:

image

as you can see Finish date is now Tuesday, 15.03.2016, and John will work during the weekend.

Now, the question from my blog Reader is: WHY? Yes, Standard Calendar is set in a way that each and every Saturday and Sunday are non working days. BUT! If you create Resource in MS PROJECT, and you set a calendar for it (like I did, or in any other possible way), then RESOURCE CALENDAR has higher priority that Project Calendar. And it does make a sense. So, in my example, Project calendar says: “During weekend, work on Tasks will not be performed!”, but since John will work on the Task with exception (he can work on this particular weekend), MS PROJECT Says: “No matter on Project Calendar which says that during weekend  work will not be performed on Tasks, for this particular Task John will work at weekend, because that is written in his instance of Project Calendar, and Task will end sooner!”

Remember: Resource calendar setup has higher Priority than Project calendar setup.

BUT! Now I will assign Standard Calendar to the Task:

image

and I will get:

image

as you can see, John will not work during this weekend. The question was: “Why? In my understanding the default task’s calendar option None is referenced to a default Standard Project calendar, so why MSP behaves differently when you leave a default None for the task’s calendar and when you select a Standard calendar instead, even though the two are exactly the same calendar- Standard Project Calendar? “

First of all those Calendars are not same. When I put exception for John, this exception is valid only for John. So, for example if I put Mary on this Task, instead of John, and Mary doesn’t have this exception she is not supposed to work during this particular weekend.

On the other hand when I put Standard calendar (or any other calendar) to the Task it has the highest priority. And, all other exceptions for any particular resources are ignored. you can see that Task has Calendar assigned to it here:

image

If I want to force that this particular Task should be done during this weekend I must put this exception for the whole calendar, and not only for John’s instance of it:

image

and I will get the same result as I have got when I changed this for John’s instance of Standard Calendar:

image

So, where is difference? For example if I have a Task and John will work during the weekend, and Mary will not, and if assign only John to this Task it will take shorter (because he will work during the weekend), than if I assign Mary to it. But if I declare to the whole Standard Calendar that this weekend is working weekend it will apply to all resources (John and Mary, as well) because Task Calendar has the top priority.

I hope that everything is clear now.

Regards.

Posted in MICROSOFT PROJECT, Microsoft PRoject 2010, Micsrosoft Project 2016, MS PROJECT 2016, PMI, PRoject Management | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Resource Calendar and weekend!

Posted on March 11, 2016 by Nenad Trajkovski

 

Hi,

Again, I have a question from one of my Blog readers:

“Nenad,

I’m new to MS Project and really appreciate information on this site. I have a question regarding your post “Resource vs. Task Calendar in MS PROJECT 2013” posted on July 10, 2013.
Please explain how were you able to schedule the Task for your resource Nenad for Sat. 10/13 and Sunday, 10/14 even though both of those days were his working days?
Isn’t the MSP scheduling rule states that in order to schedule a task for an assigned resource, the task and the resource should have COMMON working days, unless the option to ignore resource calendar is selected.
In this case Saturday and Sunday of 10/13 and 10/14 respectively were set as working days for Nenad, bot set as non-working days for the task as it was using a Standard calendar with non-working Saturdays and Sundays.

Thank you,
Alex”

First I’m going to create Scenario for this Case in MS PROJECT 2016, and then I will explain it.

I will create brand new Project with one Task:

image

As you can see Task will start at Friday 11.03.2016, and since duration is 5 days it will end at Thursday 17.03.2016, because Standard Calendar is used, and weekend is non working time. You can see that here:

image

If you click on Saturday or Sunday, you will find that From and To field are empty, because those are non working days.

Now I will create John as Resource, and I will assign him to the Task:

image

and:

image

As you can see nothing has changed in Start and finish date. Now suppose that John is hard worker and he is supposed to work at Saturday, 12.03.2016, and Sunday 13.03.2016:

image

Now let’s see Task Usage View:

image

as you can see Finish date is now Tuesday, 15.03.2016, and John will work during the weekend.

Now, the question from my blog Reader is: WHY? Yes, Standard Calendar is set in a way that each and every Saturday and Sunday are non working days. BUT! If you create Resource in MS PROJECT, and you set a calendar for it (like I did, or in any other possible way), then RESOURCE CALENDAR has higher priority that Project Calendar. And it does make a sense. So, in my example, Project calendar says: “During weekend, work on Tasks will not be performed!”, but since John will work on the Task with exception (he can work on this particular weekend), MS PROJECT Says: “No matter on Project Calendar which says that during weekend  work will not be performed on Tasks, for this particular Task John will work at weekend, because that is written in his instance of Project Calendar, and Task will end sooner!”

Remember: Resource calendar setup has higher Priority than Project calendar setup.

Hope this helps.

Regards Smile

Posted in MICROSOFT PROJECT, Microsoft Project 2013, Micsrosoft Project 2016, MS PROJECT 2016, PMI, PRoject Management | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Task 0 in MS PROJECT 2016

Posted on February 29, 2016 by Nenad Trajkovski

 

Hi,

This post will be short, but very useful. I have a question from one of my Blog Readers: “Hi Nenad,
I discovered hat my task number usually starts from 1 instead of 0.
Kindly assist on this.”

I will show the Solution using MS PROJECT 2016.

Very often when you open MS PROJECT you will se this screen:

image

Well, blank screen is not user friendly at all. I will put three simple Tasks and I will get:

image

I see my Tasks, but I do not see Project Summary Tasks. To see this Task (and it as always Task with ID = 0), I can choose:

image

When I check this Checkbox, I will get:

image

So, at Task 0 (Project Summary Task) I can see Total Duration of my Project, Start date, End date, Total work (if I add this column in my view etc.). So I strongly recommend that you always have this Task turned on. And to avoid clicking to the Checkbox about over and over again you can follow this steps:

image

and then:

image

and finally:

image

With that option you will always have Task 0 displayed when you open new Project.

And, remember, keep this option, always on!

Regards!

Posted in MICROSOFT PROJECT, Microsoft Project 2013, Micsrosoft Project 2016, MS PROJECT 2010, MS PROJECT 2016, PMI, PRoject Management | Tagged | 4 Comments

Work assigned to Tasks vs. Work assigned to resources and Task Types in MS PROJECT 2016

Posted on February 23, 2016 by Nenad Trajkovski

Hi.

Today I will show you what happens when you put work in hours to the Tasks, and then assign Resources to the Task, using MS PROJECT 2016. Firs II ‘m going to create new Project:

image

As you can see, I have modified the Gantt Chart View in a way that I added Type, and Work fields. For all three Tasks I know that 40 hours are needed to complete this work.

I have three Resources in My Project:

image

Now I will switch to Task Usage View:

image

I have modified this View too, and I added Resource Names field. Now I am going to assign Resources to each Task:

image

As you can see, now the Magic Formula takes a place: Work = Duration * Units, e.g. Duration = Work / Units.

Fixed Units Task Type, and Fixed Work Task Type has Duration 5 days, because Duration = 40 / 100% (8 hours per day) = 5 days. But, Fixed Duration remains 1 day, because it is Fixed, and Mary should work 40 hours in one day which is impossible. So, when you have Fixed Duration Task Type DO NOT put hours in Task, but in Resource assignment. Why? Because when you have Fixed Duration, you should tell MS PROJECT how many hours in that duration should each Resource work, and in a Task put Duration instead of work. Then MS PROJECT knows Duration for that Task you want. It doesn’t make a sense to have Fixed Duration Task Type, and do not put that Duration in Task, does it?

Regards.

Posted in Microsoft Project 2013, Micsrosoft Project 2016, MS PROJECT 2010, MS PROJECT 2016, PMI, PRoject Management | Tagged | 2 Comments

Duration, Work and Units relation with no Resources assigned

Posted on February 18, 2016 by Nenad Trajkovski

Hi,

I have a question from my Blog Reader: “If you are not using resources in the scheduling, should you always just leave the Effort Driven box unchecked?”

I will answer this question right away: “”It doesn’t matter. Effort driven is always about :”More hands less work!”. Since you do not have resources you will get same results with effort and non effort Tasks.

But, I’m going to show you what will happens if you enter Work and Duration for The Task, and you do not assign Resources to them.

I will use MS PROJECT 2016, and I will create a simple Project with three resources:

image

As you can see, I put two extra Columns: Work and Type, and I have created three Tasks with different Types. All of them have 5 days Duration.

Now I am going to put 16 hours for Task 1, 32 hours for Task 2, and 8 hours for Task 3 in work field:

image

As you can see, Duration remains same for all three Tasks, no matter of their Type, and Work is spread equally through Duration.

Now I will put 3 days in Duration field for all three Tasks, and I will get:

image

As you can see Finish date is changed, but work remains same for all three Tasks, no matter of their Type, and it is spread equally through Duration.

To conclude, Magic formula: WORK = DURATION * UNITS does not work here because UNITS are zero. And they are zero because we do not have Resources assigned to Tasks.

So, when you have work and Duration in Tasks with no Resources assigned to them it doesn’t matter what kind of Task Type you have, nor if the Task is or is not effort driven.

Regards!

Posted in Microsoft Project 2013, MS PROJECT 2010, MS PROJECT 2016, PMI, PRoject Management | Tagged | 4 Comments

How to calculate work, and then fix it in IN MS PROJECT 2016

Posted on February 8, 2016 by Nenad Trajkovski

Hi,

friend of mine has a Specific problem. He wants MS PROJECT. I will show you this problem with MS PROJECT 2016!

Project has one Task:

image

Resources are:

image

As you can see there are Workers with 800% capacity, Laborers with 200% capacity, and Crane and Concrete mixer with 100% capacity.

Workers are supposed to work 300 hours, Laborers 50 hours, Crane 10 hours, and Concrete mixer  20 hours.

Duration of this Task should be calculated by MS PROJECT using workers. SO I will assign Workers to the Task, and I will put 800% for Units, and 300 hours to get Duration:

image

and I will get:

image

Now I want to assign remaining Resources like this:

  • Laborers 200% 50 hours
  • Crane 100 % 10 hours
  • Concrete mixer 100% 20 hours

but I want to spread the work during all days of Duration.

First I will assign them as-is:

image

and I will get:

image

As you can see, I didn’t get what I wanted. Laborers will work only fist four days, Crane only first two days, and Concrete mixer only first three days. What Can I do? Well, before assign those resources I will switch Task to the Fixed duration mode:

image 

Now I am going to assign those resources in the same way:

image

Finally, I will get:

image

As you can see, all resources are used all days (Duration days). Of course they will not spend same amount of hours, as expected.

To conclude, if you want to calculate duration according to one Resource, and then spread the work through duration for rest Resources, follow this steps:

  1. Use fixed units or Fixed work and assign first resource. Duration will be calculated.
  2. Switch the Task to Fixed Duration Type
  3. Assign remaining resources to Task.

Regards.

Posted in Microsoft Project 2013, Micsrosoft Project 2016, MS PROJECT 2010, PMI, PRoject Management | Tagged | Leave a comment