Cannot change Task Planned Duration

[HelenaWa1]

Hello,

I'm working with a project with several tasks that have 10,000 Days as a Planned Duration.  The project is set to Complete with a Planned Start Date of 8/4/17 and a Planned Completion Date of 1/1/20.  The Task Settings are: Task Constraint= ASAP, Commit Date = 1/1/20, Planned Completion Date=9/30/24, Act. Start Date=1/1/20, Actual Completion Date =9/30/24, Duration Type = Calculated Assignment with a Duration of 1960 Days and 650 hours. The Projected Completion Date is 2/22/2063.   The task is a parent task.  There are no predecessors assigned to the task.  

Could someone tell me how to change the task's planned duration to something less than 10,000 days?  I cannot update the field. 

[Alex_Di]

Hi @HelenaWa1 

Have you tried changing the Project status to something other than Complete? 

[HelenaWa1]

Hi, 

Thanks for the suggestion.  I tried changing the status to Idea, Planning and In Flight but it still would not allow me to change the duration.  I also tried changing the task's percentage complete to <100% while in the other statuses and then changing the task's Planned Duration but again, it keeps reverting to 10,000 days.  

[DeniseMoore]

Do I understand correctly that this is a parent task? If so, typically a parent task is a summary so to speak of the child tasks. A parent task's duration, planned hours, etc., is a summary of the child tasks and not editable themselves but when you edit the child tasks it will auto update based on those revisions.

[HelenaWa1]

Sorry, I meant to say this is not a Parent task.  

[ChloeWY]

@HelenaWa1 , this is a bit of a guess, but I see your column says "Pln Dur".  By default, the column says "Duration".  Is this what the column is called on your other projects?  I wonder if it's a custom field and not the actual duration Workfront uses.

[HelenaWa1]

Thanks - yes, this is the actual duration WF uses. 

[Daniel_Clarke]

Have you tried changing the duration type to SIMPLE? That should allow you to change it but will have an effect on the rest of the project, not sure what else is attached in there... 

Check out more info on duration types here: Overview of Task Duration and Duration Type

[HelenaWa1]

Thanks - I used Calculated Assignment which worked after I recalculated the Timeline.  

[skyehansen]

I'm wondering why you would ever want to change the planned duration.

Also, have you recalculated the project timeline recently? 

[HelenaWa1]

Thanks so much.  When I recalculated the timeline, the project duration changed.  

[kautuk_sahni]

@HelenaWa1 Just checking in — were you able to resolve your issue?
We’d love to hear how things worked out. If the suggestions above helped, marking a response as correct can guide others with similar questions. And if you found another solution, feel free to share it — your insights could really benefit the community. Thanks again for being part of the conversation!