Durations and Resource Planner

[LaurenMc2]

I am noticing that it seems that if we have a 0 duration for a task (needs to be done the same day) that the planned hours for the work are not showing up in the resource planner for the person assigned to them. Have you all noticed this before? Do you know what is going on? Lauren McCollim, M.B.A, PMP Advertising Project Manager Pensacola Christian College

[DavidCo3]

Hi @Lauren McCollim - that looks like bug to me. I can see the task in the Team Working On calendar if it has 0 duration, but the hours show as 0 even though they are set as 8. Once the task as a duration greater than 0 then its planned hours show up. Please log this with Support and let me know the number and I'll do the same and link to it. Regards, David. David Cornwell

[Exp_-_VazgenBa]

Hi Lauren, David This is actually working as designed since Resource Planner uses duration to calculate the hours per period information. We take the hour value and use the duration as a denominator and as a result skip 0 duration items. If the duration is anything greater than 0, the hours will appear there. Vazgen Babayan Product Manager Workfront

[LauraO_1]

This happens to us as well, but we assumed it was just something we needed to work around (e.g. using .5 day durations). If this in fact a bug that would be GREAT so we can go back to having 0 day duration tasks!! LAURA O'MALLEY

[LaurenMc2]

Really? It seems like a bug to me...What are we supposed to do for tasks that we want to finish the same day? What is the duration supposed to be? Lauren McCollim, M.B.A, PMP Advertising Project Manager Pensacola Christian College

[LaurenMc2]

Here is my support number: 00176751. Hopefully we can get this figured out... I'm a little concerned that there is a lot of work that is not showing up for the resource planning area when it should be. Lauren McCollim, M.B.A, PMP Advertising Project Manager Pensacola Christian College

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Hi Lauren and Laura, As Vazgen mentioned, any duration other than zero should suffice, so as workarounds, I invite you to consider choosing (and perhaps even bulk-updating) such same-day Tasks to a Duration Type that will automatically drive out a non-zero duration, and (same idea) also bulk updating your zero Duration Tasks hours to something near zero (eg 0.1 Hour) so the resulting duration is also non-zero and therefor registers Regards, Doug Den Hoed - AtAppStore

[LauraO_1]

Hello - Only (sometimes major) downside of having .1 or similar durations is that ultimately, another task that you have set to 1 day will then cause it to push into a second day because of the .1 listed in the other task. We've found that, while frustrating, it's best to include .25 somewhere and immediately recoup that by doing 2.75 in the next task or shortly next task. Additionally, we've changed the date format to include times so we can see how those miscellaneous decimal days impact the schedule, why tasks are now spanning two days, etc. so we can more easily adjust it. Not ideal but we've found it as a decent workaround. LAURA O'MALLEY

[DavidWh1]

Hey Lauren, We ran into a similar confusion on zero day vs 1 day tasks when PMs were editing tasks to have planned start and end of a single day and it would show 0 day duration instead of 1 day and thus the percent completes weren't updating as they expected (different than your resource planner but might be related). The tasks have both a date and a time on them and what would happen is a PM would enter the start/end date fields in the task list view expecting a 1 day duration but it would show as 0 day. What was happening is that the time would be the same for start and end and thus 0 duration that wasn't getting any time calculated against it for the single day. Task start 5/24/2019 13:00 and task end 5/24/2019 13:00 - 0 duration. The communication was to add duration as hours (3hr) or edit the time on the task itself unless it really was a zero duration tracking task (or other variations depending on the task settings for time calculation). Thought this might help with the conversation as I don't think it's necessarily a bug - just a quirk. David White Centene Corporation

[TaraKr]

Hello. Take a look at the time on that task. If it's one day duration you can get the hours to show up in the resource planner if the start time is 8am and end time is 5pm (or some variation of that). Let me know if this helps? Tara Krause Aspire Tech

[LaurenMc2]

I'll give it a try and see if that helps. Thanks :) Lauren McCollim, M.B.A, PMP Advertising Project Manager Pensacola Christian College

[LaurenMc2]

So what seems to be working is if i match the duration to the planned hours - if it's 0.08 hours of work, then i make it a duration of 0.08 hours. Lauren McCollim, M.B.A, PMP Advertising Project Manager Pensacola Christian College

[Heather_Kulbacki]

We ran into that quite awhile ago and were told it's working as designed - although I don't know the specific reasoning, someone else on my team worked on that ticket. Our workaround is to duplicate whatever is in the planned hours column in the duration column, so if it's 0 days and 1.5 hours, we change the duration to 1.5 H as well.

[LaurenMc2]

Heather, I think that is what we are going to do here. It seems like that is working from the testing i have done. Thanks for much for letting me know! It gives me confidence knowing what I'm thinking is what you all have tried and had success with. Thanks again! Lauren McCollim, M.B.A, PMP Advertising Project Manager Pensacola Christian College