Recalculation of actual duration and actual work (Project prof. 2016 stand alone

[Roger Heirbaut]

Let’s say I have a task A, with a planned duration of 5 days, assigned to resource X, so it has a workload of 40 hours.
Now suppose that resource X has finished this task in 4 days, but still worked the planned 40 hours and is paid for 40 hours.
When I try to fill this in in the Tracking table, MSP always recalculates either into 5 days, or in 40 hours, I cannot fill in both.
How can I do this?

[Jigs Gaton]

Not sure I grasp the problem here, but I think it’s important to understand that Work and Duration are two different beasts in MSP. You can make the distinction in several ways within MSP. I’d first turn on the Work Column so you can see it, and then identify work done in the task details, as such:
https://www.projectplan365.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Screenshot-2019-11-20-08.01.46.png

[Roger Heirbaut]

Dear Jigs, thanks for your answer, but my problem is not about the difference between duration and work, I know it very well.
I’ll clarify my problem: Task A is planned with a duration of 5 days, I assign resource X, then it has a work value of 40 hours.
Later, when the task is finished, I ask resource X all details. He says: I did the job in 4 days, but I still spent 40 hours on it. Now that is something that cannot enter in MS Project Tracking table: when I modify ‘actual duration’ in 4 days, it recalculates ‘actual work’ to 32 hours, when I modify ‘actual work’ back to 40 hours, it recalculates ‘actual duration’ back to 5 days, etc… So I just want to enter the correct values for actual duration: 4 days and for actual work: 40 hours. I cannot see how.

[Thomas Boyle]

Roger,
Jigs makes the important points. Still, I think this is as-designed behavior for Fixed Units tasks (which is the default task type). If you change the task to Fixed Work, then you should be able to subdue the numbers after a short struggle.
Good luck, tom

[Roger Heirbaut]

Whatever tasktype I use (fixed work, fixed duration, fixed units), MSP always recalculates actual work when I modify actual duration and vice versa. Also tried making the task manually scheduled, same problem. I do not succeed filling in the exact values for the finished job: 4 days, 40 hours instead of the originally planned 5 days, 40 hours.

[Jigs Gaton]

Hi Roger, one last thought: use calendaring to solve the abnormal work week for the resource?

[Roger Heirbaut]

Yes, I tried to fill in the actual work of the resource on a day by day base in the calendar form on the right side of the task usage or resource usage view. Setting 0 hours in one of the days and increasing the number of hours in the other days makes MSP calculate the actual duration correctly (4 days in my example). This works fine for fixed unit type and fixed work type (not fixed duration which is normal), effort-driven or not does not impact here. This is a work around and takes much more time to complete. Not sure if I should modify actual work or work because it copies the value immediately into the other field.

[Fabian Mesa M]

Hi Roger, Could you solve the issue? I have the same problem and looking for a solution…

[Jim Donovan]

Roger, I did a test on your scenario. The only way you can see the Actual Work of 40Hrs and Duration of 4 Days is to use the Daily Hour Entry on the Task Usage Screen. Even if you enter 11 hours on the first day, 10 on the rest, you will get 41 hours worked in a 4 day duration. Remember to then indicate the task is 100% complete. You can enter in 100% or you can indicate the Remaining Hours is 0. Good Luck.

[Frank]

You have o go to file/options/schedule, at the end you will find the Calculation Options for this project, here you have to unmark the updating task status updates resource status and actual costs are always calculated by project options.

then you can update the project moving forward I this way.

good look

Best Regards…
Frank

[Author]

Posts