Nenad Trajkovski

Manually scheduled Tasks and Dependencies when changing Duration in MS PROJECT 2016!

Posted on December 4, 2015 by Nenad Trajkovski

Hi,

today I’m going to show you what happens when you establish dependencies between manually scheduled Tasks in MS PROJECT 2016, and then change Duration.

First I’m going create simple Project:

Now I’m going to put Duration for each Task:

Now I will connect them:

Everything looks Perfect. But, suppose that for some reasons Task 1 now has 2 days Duration, and Task 2 has 4 days duration. I will get:

As you can see Task 2 did not move it’s Start Date, and Task 3 did not move it’s Start and Finish date. Why? Because Tasks are Manually Scheduled. Once you change anything, the rest is your concern (like dependencies). If you want MS PROJECT to handle this for you, use Auto Scheduled Tasks. If you still want to “fix” this “issue” you can do it like this:

and you will get:

and if you do the same for the Task 3, you will get what you want:

Remember this: If you use manually scheduled tasks, you are in charge for any change on them!

Posted in MICROSOFT PROJECT, Micsrosoft Project 2016, MS PROJECT 2016, PMI, PRoject Management | Tagged MS PROJECT 2016 - Manually Scheduled Tasks | Leave a comment

Replacing Generic Resources with Human Resources and overallocation!

Posted on November 26, 2015 by Nenad Trajkovski

Hi,

I’ve got a question from one of my Blog readers: “When I assign Generic Resource to a Task and then replace it with human resource how can I decrease availability of generic Resource?”

I will show you that in MS PROJECT 2016! Suppose that we have a simple project with two Tasks:

We have John and Mary as resources, but we do not know who will work on which Tasks, so we create a Generic Resource with 200% Units (Because John has 100%, and Mary has 100% as well):

Now, because we do not know who will work on which Task, we will assign Generic resource to both Tasks:

If we have third Task on this Project at the same time as previous two, and if we assign Generic Resource to the that Task, Resource will be over allocated:

OK! Lets get back to our Project with Two Tasks. Now we are going to replace Generic Resource with John in Task 1, and with Mary in Task 2:

and we will get:

OK! Now suppose that we have on additional Task at the same time, and we assign Generic Resource to that Task:

As you can see, Generic Resource is NOT over allocated. Yes, you know that Generic Resource is Mary + John, and they are suppose to work from 23.11.2015 till 27.11.2015 on Task 1 and Task 2 respectively, but still Generic Resource in not over allocated because MS PROJECT does not know that Generic Resources is John + Mary.

What to do? Hard to tell. You can for example put Availability for Generic resource during the time like this:

and you will get:

or if only John works at that period on Task 1, and you did not assign Mary to the Task 2 you can decrease Availability for Generic Resource from 200% to 100% for that period, and after you assign Mary to the Task 2, decrease it to zero.

But it is a tricky and hard work, especially if you have project with many Tasks, and Many Generic Resources.

Regards!

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

“Keep task on nearest working day when changing to automatically scheduled mode” option in MS PROJECT 2016

Posted on November 17, 2015 by Nenad Trajkovski

Hi,

a lot of my Blog readers asked me about “keep task on nearest working day when changing to automatically scheduled mode” option in MS PROJECT! I will show you what is it, and how does it work in MS PROJECT 2016!

First I am going to crate simple Project with two Tasks, one Automatically Scheduled, and other Manually Scheduled:

As you can see, I manually put Start Date for Manually Task to Saturday, 21.11.2015.

Now, where can I change “keep task on nearest working day when changing to automatically scheduled mode” option?

then:

and then:

Now, I will change Manually Task (second Task), to Auto Mode, with this option unchecked, and I will get:

You can see that Start Date for this Task is changed to Wednesday, 18.11.2015, immediately after Finish date of first Task. But, what if I check “Keep task on nearest working day when changing to automatically scheduled mode” option?

and then I change Manually Task (second Task), to Auto Mode? I will get:

As you can see, Start Date for Second Task is now Monday, 23.11.2015 (the nearest working day to previous date, which was 21.11.2015), and this Task has Start No Earlier Than constraint.

So, if you want that your Task remain with same (or nearest) Start Date when you change it from Manually to Automatically scheduled mode, this option should be checked. On the other hand, if you want that MS PROJECT recalculate Start Date according to its predecessors when you change it from Manually to Automatically scheduled mode, leave this option unchecked. It’s up to you. As simple as that.

Regards!

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

Fixed duration Task and Resource Calendar

Posted on November 10, 2015 by Nenad Trajkovski

Hi,

today I will explain how is Work field Calculated when you have Fixed Duration Task Type, and Resource Calendar.

Of, course I will use MS PROJECT 2016!

First, as I always do, I will create new Project with a single Task:

I will create John as Work Resource:

Now suppose that John has day off at Wednesday 11.11.2015, and Friday 13.11.2015. I will change his Standard Calendar:

Now I am going to make Task as a Fixed Duration:

Now I’m going ta Assign john to the Task:

and I will get:

As you can see, Work = 24 hours! and Duration is fixed, and it is 5 days (from Tuesday 10.11.2015 to Monday, 16.11.2015). Why is that so? Because when you have a Fixed Duration Task, and you assign Resource to that Task, Duration, and Start and Finish date will not change, no matter if Resource is available or not through that period. MS Project simply assign that Resource to working days, and then calculate work as a sum of available work during working days through Fixed Duration period, and that is 24 hours in my case.

That is how MS PROJECT works!

Regards!

Posted in MICROSOFT PROJECT, Microsoft PRoject 2010, Microsoft Project 2013, MS PROJECT 2016 | Tagged MS PROJECT - Schedule and Calendar | Leave a comment

Extended duration when Successor has been started in MS PROJECT 2016

Posted on November 3, 2015 by Nenad Trajkovski

Hi,

my Blog reader has a problem:

“So what if we aren’t moving the project, just adding time to a task where a dependent task was able to start early. As an example
Task A 10 days
Task B 2 days
Task C 5 days

A is a predecessor of B. B is a predecessor of C.
Work is started on B, 50% complete
It is determined that A is going to take longer, 15 days

The Problem: Changing A to 15 days doesn’t cause the times to recalculate for B and C because of the work percentage for B being 50%. Is there an elegant way around this?

The only way I’ve been able to do this is to delete out the percentage, add the days to A, then re-enter the percentages. That isn’t hard on such a small example. But in real life, with larger projects, it just doesn’t work. Suggestions?”

Well, this need an brief explanation, and I will do it in MS PROJECT 2016!

First I’m create Project with schedule as was described by my blog Reader:

As you can see, this is Finish to Start relation. Now, let’s say that Task B is 50% completed, as planned:

and I will get:

Now, let’s suppose that Task A will have 15 days Duration instead of 10:

As you can see, Finish date of the Project is moved to Thursday 26.11.2015. BUT! 50% of previous finished Task 2 is not moved. And that make sense, because MS PROJECT is not supposed to move finished Tasks, or piece od partially Finished Tasks anywhere! If something is done, it is done! No matter of other Tasks! And as you can see the remaining part of Task B is rescheduled to the first working day after Task A is supposed to be finished. For example, if Task A has 12 days duration, the remaining part of Task B will start at Wednesday, 18.11.2015.

The question which really matters here is: “Do we have a right schedule for this Project?” Why is this question so important? As you can see, Task A is Predecessor of Task B, with Finish-to-Start Relationship. And, Task B has been started before Task A has been 100% finished. Something is wrong with that. So if this is case, and Task B should be started before Task A is 100% finished we should consider different relationship (Start-to-Start, for example).

Hope this helps!

Regards.

Posted in MICROSOFT PROJECT, Microsoft Project 2013, Micsrosoft Project 2016, PMI, PRoject Management | Tagged MICROSOFT PROJECT 2016. MICROSOFT PROJECT 2016 - Schedule | Leave a comment

Material Resources with new Resource assigned to the Tasks in MS PROJECT 2016

Posted on October 29, 2015 by Nenad Trajkovski

Hi,

today I’m going to show you what is going to happen with Material resources when you assign additional Work resources to the Task which has already started and have some actuals. I will use Microsoft Project 2016!

First I’m going to create a single Task in my Project:

and two Work, and one Material Resources:

Now I am going to use Task Form, an I will assign John to the Task, and 100 Bricks as well. I will use in upper part of the screen Task Usage View, and I will show Actuals on the right part of the Screen:

and, after I click on the OK button, I will get:

Now, let’s say, that we are at the end of Day 2 and everything went well, so John has spent 16 hours, and 40 bricks. I will put that in Actuals:

Again, after I click on the OK button I will get:

Now suppose that for some reason I need Mary to finish that Task, and the Task is not effort driven:

As you can see, Mary has to spend the same amount of hours as John has, e.g. 24 hours (three days), and they will have to spend 20 bricks per day. So everything looks fine. But, what if Mary has Day off, for example, at Wednesday, 4.11.2015?:

If I assign Mary to the Task now, I will get:

Because Mary has a day off, Duration is now 6 days, and that mean that the Rest of work will be done in 4 not 3 days! That means that the Rest of Material resource should be split among these 4 days, and it will be 60/4 days = 15 bricks per day!

What If I assign Mary but the Task is effort driven?

As you can see, remaining hours (40 Total work – 16 Actual work for John) is 24 hours. Task is effort driven so those hours will be split among John, and Mary (12 hours each of them). John will work 8 hours at Wednesday, and remaining 4 hours at Thursday. Mary has a day off at Wednesday, and she will work 8 hours at Thursday, and remaining 4 hours at Friday.

What about Material Resource, e.g. Brick? Since the new duration is 4,5 days, and actual duration is 2 days, it means that remaining duration is 2,5 days. Remaining Material Resource to spend is 60 Bricks, so it is 60 /2,5 = 24 bricks per day no matter who will work and how much per day. That means that at Wednesday and Thursday 24 bricks are going to be spend, and at Friday (half day), only 12 bricks are going to be spend.

So be careful when you assigning additional Work resources to Task which already has been started and have some actuals.

Regards!

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

Fixed Work and Manually scheduled Tasks in Microsoft Project 2016

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Nenad Trajkovski

Hi,

I’ve got a question from one of my Blog Readers: “Dear Nenad, I have a problem with Fixed Work Task Type in MS PROJECT. When I add resource to a Fixed Work Task Type, and Task is Manually Scheduled, I get a wrong result! Is this a Bug, or what?”

No, this is not a Bug. I will show you how does it work in MS PROJECT 2016!

First I am going to create two Tasks, and both of them will be Fixed Work.

and then:

and I will get:

Now I am going to make them as a Fixed Work Type (I will show you how to do it in Task 1):

I will create two Resources:

Now I am going to assign John to Task 1, and Task 2, as well:

John is overallocated, but this is not important for this scenario. Now I am going to change Task 2 to Manually Scheduled mode:

I will now assign Mary to Task 1:

and I will get:

As you can see, 24 hours work from John is split among John and Mary equally, because they are both 100% assigned for the Task. Since John and Mary are going to work 12 hours each, Duration is now shorter, and it is 1,5 days instead of previous 3 days.

I will do the same thing (assign Mary) to Task 2, which is manually scheduled Task, and I will get:

It seems like a bug because work is not split among Mary and John, and it acts like this Task is not effort driven. But this is not a bug. When you are using Manually Scheduled Tasks, you can not choose (it is dimmed) Task Type. Why? Because formula DURATION * UNITS = WORK doesn’t work, because Duration field in Manually Scheduled mode is not numeric, but it is text type in this case. I will show you that. I am going to change Duration field from 3 Days to BLABLABLA:

To conclude, Task Type make sense with Auto Scheduled Tasks, because in that case Duration field is numeric, and magic formula (DURATION * UNITS = WORK) can work. And, logically, choosing Task Type is only valuable when you let Project to make calculation for you, and that is only possible with Auto Scheduled Tasks.

Regards!

Posted in MICROSOFT PROJECT, Microsoft Project 2013, Micsrosoft Project 2016 | Tagged Scheduling - Microsoft Project 2016, Task Types - Microsoft Project 2016 | Leave a comment

Baseline and deleted Tasks in MS PROJECT 2013, what if I do not have Inactive button?

Posted on September 29, 2015 by Nenad Trajkovski

Hi,

my last Blog post is here: https://ntrajkovski.com/2015/09/22/baseline-and-deleted-tasks-in-ms-project-2013/

But, I have a question about that. That question is: “Hi Nenad, do all versions of project have the deactivate function? If not, is there a workaround? “

The answer is, older versions do not have this feature, and Yes, I know the workaround. Let me show that workaround in MS PROJECT 2013!

First, I will create very Simple Project:

and some Resources:

which I will assign to Tasks:

OK! I will save the Baseline now:

and:

Now I will choose the Cost Table:

As you can see Total Cost is equal to Baseline Cost, because there is no difference between Planned (Baseline), and Actual Costs!

Let’s say that I do not need Task 2, any more, and I have to create new Schedule like this:

As you can see I have deleted Task 2! Let’s look at the Cost Table:

As you can see, Total Cost is $3.200 (Task 1 = 1 day e.g. 8 hours * $100 = $ 800, and Task 3 = 3 days e.g. 24 hours * $100 = $2.400! 800 + 2.400 = $3.200). But Baseline cost is $4.800 (Task 1 = 1 day e.g. 8 hours * $100 = $ 800, Task 2 was = 2 days e.g. 16 hours * $100 = $1.600, and Task 3 = 3 days e.g. 24 hours * $100 = $2.400! 800 + 1.600 + 2.400 = $4.800). Variance is, logically, –$1.600.

That is easy to explain whit such a simple example when only one Task was deleted, and only one Resource was suppose to work on that Task. But, what if you delete, for example, 34 Tasks, with a lot of Resources assigned to them with different pay rate? Yes, you can save the new Baseline, but what if you want to keep track of those deleted Tasks? In that case you will find yourself lost! But, there is much better solution. Inactive Tasks button.

Let’s see my previous example:

I will create new Schedule like this:

and I will not deactivate Task 2, but I will put 0 in a duration field, and mark it as a 100% completed:

Let’s look at the Cost Table, again:

Now, everyone can see where the differences are coming from. I will suggest to put the note in the Task 2:

and you will get:

To conclude again, when you create Baseline, do not delete Tasks after that. Make them Inactive instead, or if you are working on older Versions of MS PROJECT, put zero in Duration field, and mark it as Completed!

Regards!

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

Baseline and deleted Tasks in MS PROJECT 2013

Posted on September 22, 2015 by Nenad Trajkovski

Hi,

I got a lot of questions about differences, for example, in Task Table when Project has Baseline, and The Task is deleted. I will show you what do in MS PROJECT 2013!

First, I will crate very Simple Project:

and some Resources:

which I will assign to Tasks:

OK! I will save the Baseline now:

and:

Now I will choose the Cost Table:

As you can see Total Cost is equal to Baseline Cost, because there is no difference between Planned (Baseline), and Actual Costs!

Let’s say that I do not need Task 2, any more, and I have to create new Schedule like this:

As you can see I have deleted Task 2! Let’s look at the Cost Table:

Let’s see my previous example:

I will create new Schedule like this:

and I will deactivate Task 2:

and I will get:

Let’s look at the Cost Table, again:

Now, everyone can see where the differences are coming from.

To conclude, when you create Baseline, do not delete Tasks after that. Make them Inactive instead!

Regards!

Posted in MICROSOFT PROJECT, Microsoft PRoject 2010, Microsoft Project 2013, MS PROJECT 2010, PMI, PRoject Management | Tagged MS PROJECT 2013 - Baseline, MS PROJECT 2013 - deleted Tasks | 3 Comments

Baseline and Calendars in MS PROJECT 2013

Posted on August 31, 2015 by Nenad Trajkovski

Hi,

I got a question from my Blog Reader: “Dear Nenad, I have a problem. I set up Base Calendar with exceptions. I create a Schedule, assign Resources, and I save the Baseline. But after some time I notice that we have to work on this “exception” days! But I can’t find anywhere how to save this “old” Calendar to Baseline! Please Help!”

I will show you how to do this in MS PROJECT 2013!

OK. First I’m going to set up Base Calendar in My Project:

As you can see, Week from 07.09.2015 to 11.09.2015 is Non Working week. Now I’m going to create the Schedule:

I will add some resources to the Project:

and I will assign them to the Tasks:

Now, let’s say that this is my Project Plan. I will save it, as a Baseline:

and:

Now back to the Problem. When you save a Baseline, MY PROJECT doesn’t save the Calendar, but it saves data to the, so called, Baseline fields. I will show Variance Calendar, and just, some of those fields:

and:

In Variance Table, you can see by Default, Baseline Start, and Baseline Finish fields, but you can add other, as well.

So, let’s say that we are going to work on the Non working week. I will erase this exception:

and I will get:

As you can see, Task 3 is supposed to be done at 07.09.2017 (instead of 14.09.2015), and Task 4 is supposed to be done at 11.09.2015 (instead of 15.09)

So there is no such a thing like Baseline Calendars in MS PROJECT. All Variances are calculated according to Baseline fields.

Hope this helps.

Regards!

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

Nenad Trajkovski

Manually scheduled Tasks and Dependencies when changing Duration in MS PROJECT 2016!

Replacing Generic Resources with Human Resources and overallocation!

“Keep task on nearest working day when changing to automatically scheduled mode” option in MS PROJECT 2016

Fixed duration Task and Resource Calendar

Extended duration when Successor has been started in MS PROJECT 2016

Material Resources with new Resource assigned to the Tasks in MS PROJECT 2016

Fixed Work and Manually scheduled Tasks in Microsoft Project 2016

Baseline and deleted Tasks in MS PROJECT 2013, what if I do not have Inactive button?

Baseline and deleted Tasks in MS PROJECT 2013

Baseline and Calendars in MS PROJECT 2013

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