Microsoft Project tutorial: Duration and task types. If a resource’s workday is eight hours and he or she is assigned to work on a task at 100% Units (for eight hours of work), then the Duration is eight hours (one day by default). Now let’s say you change the Units to 50%. Then the Duration becomes 16 hours or two days.
What is Project, and what isn’t it?is a very misunderstood application. It is reminiscent of other applications, with menus and toolbars like Word, and tables and graphs like Excel, but when you get into it, you see it’s very different. In some ways, it seems to do things on its own.Project is the most narrowly focused of all the Office applications.
While the other Microsoft Office programs tend to be broad and general in their application, Microsoft Project is designed exclusively to manage resource usage and project scheduling.It will not manage your project for you. It will not stop you from giving your resources too much to do. It will not tell you what is going to happen, but it will let you know what might happen if nothing changed. Just like any other software, Project should be used as an informational system and not as a crystal ball.Project will help you keep track of the progress of your tasks.
Microsoft Project Spread Task Over Time Chart
It will help you figure out how much each of your resources is doing on your project. It will make it easier to communicate the status of your project.If you’re new to Project or considering this software as a solution, I’ll explain the basics of Microsoft Project over the next few articles.
- How to spread a task's duration (3hrs /day) evenly over time (6d) Discussion in 'Project General' started by kelyod, Oct 15, 2009. Take place over 6 days. 1st day through the 6th day, with just 3 hrs assigned per day. Start, finish, fields will not cooperate.
- You can set that in a number of ways but the easiest is via Task Information/Advanced tab. Once the task is set as fixed duration, then you can enter the estimated hours in the Work field and assign your resource(s). Project will automatically spread those hours linearly over the full task duration.
Microsoft Project Spread Task Over Time Sheet
Let’s begin with a look at how Microsoft Project calculates Work, Duration, and Units.Microsoft Project seriesThis is the first of four articles running in IT Consultant and IT Manager Republics designed to provide an introduction to this popular project-management solution. The next installment in this series will discuss entering tasks, making work estimates, deciding task types, and creating dependencies between tasks.Duration = Work/assignment UnitsThe calculation of Work, Duration, and Units is the single biggest trouble spot for new users of Project. This calculation is the core of what Project does and it cannot be turned off, so you must deal with it.Duration = Work/assignment Units: This equation is the E=MC² of Project. It means that, given the other settings in Project—like how many hours in a day, etc.—the assignment Duration (in hours) is equal to the assignment Work (in hours) divided by the assignment Units value. Units are the percentage of a resource’s workday, or the amount of the day the project team member is expected to work on a given assignment.
For example, if you want Joe to work half-time on a task, you would assign him at 50 percent Units.If a resource’s workday is eight hours and he or she is assigned to work on a task at 100% Units (for eight hours of work), then the Duration is eight hours (one day by default).Now let’s say you change the Units to 50%. Then the Duration becomes 16 hours or two days, because if a person is working half of an eight-hour day on this task, then it will take them 16 hours (two days) to complete eight hours of work.Lots of people will attempt to argue with this formula, but save your breath and time by just accepting it. It is a Microsoft Project truism, and even if you do not agree with it, this formula is what Project uses.Everything that Project does is based in some way on the calculations that this formula makes.Task typesThe way that Project gives you some control over how this formula affects your Project is through the task type function.The task type options are:. Fixed Units. Fixed Work.
Fixed DurationAs you might guess from the names, they allow you to “fix” one of the three elements of the equation in order to control what will be adjusted to make the two sides equate. The Advanced tab on the Task Information menu allows you to choose whether you’d like to fix the value of Units, Work, or Duration.As you’ll recall from junior-high algebra, if you have a three-element equation and you hold one value fixed, then if you change a second value, the third value must change to keep the equation true. For example:1 day Duration = 8 hours Work /100% UnitsIf we create this as a Fixed Duration task type and then change the Units to 50%, Project automatically will change the Work value to four hours.If we set the task to Fixed Work, then the same change in Units would cause Project to adjust the Duration value to two days.
And, if we set the task to Fixed Duration and edited Work to 16 hours, Project would adjust the Units value to 200% in order to keep the Duration value fixed yet still balance the equation.That said, the best way to become familiar with this function is to create a test Project, play with the settings, and see how Project reacts to changing data or adding actual work.
In most cases, the tasks in a project are related to each other, and the relationships between them drive the schedule for the project. The relationships between the tasks are called 'dependencies.' In Microsoft Office Project, you can create dependencies between tasks in the same project, and between tasks in different projects.What kinds of task dependencies are available?Project offers four kinds of task dependencies: finish-to-start, start-to-start, finish-to-finish, and start-to-finish.First, let's talk about finish-to-start (FS) dependencies. This is the most common type of dependency and is the default type of dependency that Project uses. In a finish-to-start dependency, the second task in the relationship can't begin until the first task finishes. So, for example, if you were planning a project to make a wedding cake, you might use a finish-to-start dependency between the 'Bake cake' and 'Decorate cake' tasks.
When the 'Bake cake' task is finished, the 'Decorate cake' task begins.Start-to-start (SS) dependencies are used when the second task in the relationship can't begin until after the first task in the relationship begins. Start-to-start dependencies don't require that both tasks start at the same time. They simply require that the first task has begun, in order for the second task to begin. Going back to the wedding cake example, let's say you had planned to make the icing for the cake while the cake is baking in the oven.
You can't start making the icing until the cake has started baking, so you might use a start-to-start dependency between the 'Bake cake' and 'Make icing' tasks.If one of your tasks can't finish until another one finishes, you can use a finish-to-finish (FF) dependency between them. Finish-to-finish dependencies don't require that both tasks be completed simultaneously. They simply require that the first task be finished, in order for the second task to finish.
The second task can finish any time after the first task finishes. In our wedding cake example, let's say there are some finishing touches to the decorations that you can't finish until the cake is delivered. You can use a finish-to-finish dependency between the 'Decorate cake' and 'Deliver cake' tasks. When the 'Decorate cake' task is finished, then the 'Deliver cake' task can be completed.Finally, the start-to-finish (SF) dependency is a little tricky. When you use this type of dependency, you are saying that the second task in the relationship can't finish until the first task starts. However, the second task can finish any time after the first task starts. Going back to our wedding cake example, let's say you have a task for billing the customer.
It begins when the customer requests the cake, but it can't be completed until after the cake delivery has begun.