Updating the Finish Date on the Assignment Information Dialog Box does not change the resource assignment units (for a Fixed Work task)

[The MPUG Community]

Hi all,

I hope someone will be able to clarify this for me:

I am using Project to track work and schedule.

Let’s say I have a task (type = Fixed work) that has 8 hours of work and the 1 resource allocated at 100% units and the calendar working time is 8hours per day. Let’s say the resource has spent 8 hours, but still has 4 more hours of work, and that he tells me he will be able to finish it only 2 days from today.

What I do then is update the actual hours with 8, and update the remaining hours with 4. Then, since my resource is 100% allocated, Ms Project calculates that it would finish the work tomorrow. However, I know the resource won’t be able to finish it only the day after. So, what I do is update the Finish Date to after tomorrow for my task using the Assignment Information Dialog Box (Task Usage > Uncollapse the task > Double-click on the resource Name).

In this situation, I would expect to see the Units for my resource automatically get recalculated by Ms Project. However, what I see now, is a resource that is 100% allocated, even though the amount of work scheduled for each day is less than 8 hours.

Anyone could please help clarify why I am seeing such behavior, is it expected? If so, how should I update my project plan in that scenario? Would updating the units instead of Finish date, until I reach the finish date I am expecting be the solution?

Thanks for your help,

Zi.

[The MPUG Community]

Hi Zi. The first thing is that you are probably looking at assignment units. Assignment units are the units originally assigned to the resource. The timephased % Allocation will give you allocation % for the individual time ranges (100% for that first day and something smaller for the remaining days).Another option is to use the Resume column. This is a task level field that can move the remaining work to a future date. In that case he would retain the 100% allocation for the 4 remaining hours but it will be done three days later.There are always many options and I don’t want to complicate the situation or assume that one option is better than another. Feel free to respond if you still have questions.

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