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Is the duration types - Simple and Calculated Assignment practically the same?

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Level 2
Is the duration types - Simple and Calculated Assignment practically the same? Can someone please break down the differences between the two.
4 Replies

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Level 10
Hi: Nope, not the same. https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/218111737-Task-Duration-Type-Formulas Here is my summary: · Simple - you tell it how many planned hours each resource gets, and you set the difference between the start and completion date using Duration - they aren’t related; · Calculated Assignment - You tell it the total planned hours and duration for the task. WorkFront calculates the percentage allocation for each resource assigned; · If I have a task that needs 60 hours of work with a duration of one week, and put two people on it, WorkFront will calculate the percentage of their time that will be spent on the task (60 hours / 2 people = 30 hours/person, (30 hours/person) / (40 hours scheduled availability/person) = WorkFront calculates a 75% allocation for each person. · If I change that task to have three people, the planned hours and duration do not change, but WorkFront will calculate (20 hours/person) / (40 hours scheduled availability/person) = 50% allocation to the task for each of the three people; · If I have someone working ten hours on a task, I use Simple. If I adjust the duration, the planned hours for that resource do not change. I generally recommend that people use Simple, unless the work scales up or down with the duration. If it scales up or down, you might consider using Calculated Work. We never use Calculated Assignment, because we have no tasks such that one person can do it in 60, two can do it in 30 each, three can do it in 20 each, 6 can do it in ten each. That is ditch-digging work - the more shovels you have, the less work each laborer does. Our work is more like: it takes one boy four hours to paint a fence. It takes two boys six hours to paint a fence. Three boys never finish painting the fence. That’s what our work is like ☺ Does that help? Eric

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Level 10
Hi Gopinath. In the past I made the attached summary to more easily remind myself (and others) the difference between the various Duration Types. Hope this may be of help.

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Level 3
Nice summary David. Thanks for that.