I have a quick question. I’m currently using Project 2013 and would like to display both summary tasks and task in duration units of months. I have inherited a project in progress that was setup in days. I have set file > options > schedule > duration entered in: months. The summary tasks now appear in months, but the tasks remain in days. Is there a way to change the existing tasks to duration units of months rather than days?
Hey Steven;
To the best of my knowledge, there is no easy way to switch the original duration display units to a new duration units. When a task is created, Project remembers the duration type used and always displays that task in that duration. Even if you change the schedule default in the Options window, project still displays the duration used when the task was created. For example, I created a schedule with hours as the default and added 10 tasks. All tasks show hours as duration. When I change the default duration to Months, the Summary displays in months, but the pre-existing tasks show as hours. If I change the duration on a task and just enter a number value, project still remembers the original entry units and in this example, the value is interpreted as hours. If I enter a new duration number and a new duration type, project remembers that on the task. For example, when I entered 6W, that task is now displaying in weeks. If I create a new task however, it creates the new task with a duration type based on the default.
As a thought, you might be able to create a custom calculated field to convert the duration into your new monthly value, display the new calculated monthly duration in a column next to the Duration field, and then manually copy the values over. You may need to do this multiple times, to convert durations currently in hours, days, weeks, and so on, into the desired Monthly duration type.
Hey Steven, I stumbled across an old MPUG article about consistent duration formatting in Project. Apparently MS used to provide a macro to do this exact function but in their infinite wisdom, stopped providing it with 2010 and later versions. I did however find a location where a version can be downloaded. I didn’t down load it and I haven’t tried it, so please research it well to make sure it can work on your version of project.
