Duration Types and Task Constraints

[JohnHo]

I have been playing around with task constraints and duration types for our staffing needs. It seems like effort driven works well in the sense that I put in the planned start date and the planned completion date and it calculates the planned hours. We only assign 1 resource per task. So if I wanted someone to work 100% on a project from 7/1 to 7/31, I can put in those dates and it calculated the planned hours automatically. Our other scenario is that same resource may be only 50% allocated to that project in that duration. I would love to put the in the start and end dates and have it calc the planned hours to 84 hours (50% of 21 days * 8 hours). I have tried a bunch of settings but no avail. My other option is to use simple or calculatured assignment put in the start and end dates and manually do the math on the hours and plug them in the planned hours field. John Hoebler Cross Country Consulting

[KatherineHa1]

We struggled with this as well, so we typically only use Simple Duration Type. We pretty much always have more than one assignee per task though. Katherine Haven, PMP VP, Director, Business Technologies - PMO FCB

[VicAl]

Hi John, You should be able to change the Duration Type to Calculated Work to accomplish that. If you put in the dates and use Calculated Work, then you just change the Allocation % on the Assignment and it'll change the Planned Hours. Let me know if I'm missing something.

[JohnHo]

Hi all - thanks for your response. This is what I am getting - I made the task name the use case What I was hoping for was I put in the planned start and end dates, it calcs the hours/duration and then I change the allocation of that resource on the task and it changes the hours to that John Hoebler Cross Country Consulting

[MelissaWo]

Hello, I am a new customer needing to do exactly what you described in this post. Did you find a way to accomplish this? I need to set the Task Constraints to Fixed Dates so that I can enter the Planned Start and Planned End Dates. I set the Duration Type to Calculated Work so that I could assign one or more workers and define the % allocation for each to something less than 100% for each. When I first created the task, I assigned it to a team and was able to set the Planned Start and Planned End Dates. Once I assigned the task to workers within the team and assigned % allocation, the Planned Start and Planned End Date fields were hidden. It appears I can still change the Planned End Date but there is no way to get back to the Planned Start Date, which I might want to do if the task gets delayed and gets a new start date. Any thoughts you can share from your experience would be helpful.

[MelissaWo]

UPDATE: I learned through customer support that the reason the Planned Start and End Dates were disappearing when I assigned the task was because the task had originally been created by me (considered a PERSONAL task) and then was assigned to a team (now considered a NORMAL task) and then assigned back to me (switching it back to a PERSONAL task). KEY NOTE: These tasks are not project tasks; they are request tasks originating from the Work List view.

[AnthonyIm]

I don't know if you can do that, this is how I understand it working (ignore the circle for simple, that is what we use and what we tell our new hires to use). So it sounds like you need to do the duration and the User % allocation before the system will give you the hours. Or you give it the hours and it tells you the percent allocation. Anthony Imgrund FCB

[VicAl]

Yeah I think the only way to do that would be to: Set the Duration Type to Effort Driven Enter Duration (Effort Driven will calc the Planned Hours) Then set the Duration Type to Calculated Work and set the Allocation % (which will change the Planned Hours) Personally I'd just use Calculated Work (of course set the Allocation % for the person) and key the Duration.