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Duration changing when marking a task as complete

ResolvedVersion 2003

Thu 16 Jul 2009, 09:04 Delegate Samantha said...

Samantha has attended:
Project Intro Intermediate course
Project Advanced course

Duration changing when marking a task as complete

Sorry, me again! I wonder if you can help me?

I am working on a project where I have start, finish and I have recently added an actual finish column.

When I marked my milestones as being completed on the day they were scheduled to be completed it changed the duration from 0 days to 1 day. How can I ensure that this doesn't happen, I think it has something to do with setting timeframes but when I've looked in that area (Tools/Options) I can't work out what I'm supposed to do!

Thanks in advance.

Sam

Thu 16 Jul 2009, 10:04 Trainer Simon said...

RE: Duration changing when marking a task as complete

Hi Samantha,

Thank you for your question.

Are you marking the task complete by using the Actual Finish column?

If so, you can use the Actual Start and Actual Finish column to fill in actual dates when a task doesn't start or finish as scheduled. This is why it is changing the duration.

In future try adding the %complete column to mark tasks that are completed as scheduled. This should stop the milestones from changing their duration.

I hope this answers your question.

Regards

Simon

Thu 16 Jul 2009, 11:09 Delegate Samantha said...

RE: Duration changing when marking a task as complete

Thanks for your response Simon.

I've been told that for the purposes of setting up reports I need to have Scheduled Start, Scheduled Finish, Baseline Finish and Actual Finish.

My manager thinks that this is something to do with how the times are set up that MS Project is making my milestone 1 day instead of 0 and when I have a task scheduled to finish on 26/02 and actual finish is 27/02 it is saying that the task took 2 days rather than just 1... is there any way I can sort that out?

Thanks in advance

Sam

Wed 26 Aug 2009, 13:07 Trainer Andrew said...

RE: Duration changing when marking a task as complete

Hi Samantha

Just wanted to check to see how you are getting on with marking your tasks as complete. The simplest way would be to set the percentage complete to 100% (by double clicking on a task and setting the percentage on the general tab to 100). This should leave the duration unchanged.

Let us know if you are still having problems.

Kind regards,
Andrew

Wed 2 Sep 2009: Automatically marked as resolved.

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Training information:

MS Project tip:

Set default task type - Project 2010

a. In Project, click on the File tab
b. Select Options from left hand side
c. Click on Schedule to set the scheduling options
d. Set the Default Task type box to your chosen option
i. Generally if you plan/estimate your projects using durations you should use fixed duration, and untick the box New tasks are effort driven, if you plan/estimate with person hours use fixed work, or for plans estimated with the proportion of resources time use fixed units, and untick the box New tasks are effort driven)
e. Click OK to apply your changes

View all MS Project hints and tips

Duration changing when marking a task as complete

Duration changing when marking a task as complete

RE: Duration changing when marking a task as complete

RE: Duration changing when marking a task as complete

RE: Duration changing when marking a task as complete

MS Project articles

MS Project tip:

Set default task type - Project 2010