Task costs based on elapsed time and not on completion percentage

glad-alone,

You're welcome and thanks for the feedback.

One thing we both forgot to mention is the concept of a baseline. In Project the way to keep track of the original parameters (i.e. dates, work, cost, etc.) is to set a baseline as soon as the plan is ready to execute but before it is actually started.

Baseline work represents what I believe you are calling "estimated work". Once set, the baseline does not change, unless you re-baseline. What you see in the Work field is the scheduled work. As the plan is executed and you enter values into the Actual Work field, Project will automatically update the scheduled work to equal the actual work. Project is simply updating the plan with reality. The Remaining Work field shows the work that is left based on the original scheduled work minus the actual work. The user can increase or decrease the remaining work as necessary.

I'm guessing you did not set a baseline. If you had, all the work and cost parameters (estimated, scheduled and actual) are readily available by task and by resource via the Task Usage and Resource Usage views.

Trevor will likely jump in with his ideas. Meanwhile I hope this helps.

John

John, it DOES help, thanks a lot. Please do not believe that I'm posing questions without having "studied": I saw baseline variables (many of them) and now I know how to use them. Honestly I was hoping to use something less complex but may be it's only a matter of practicing.

Let me play with MSP and, if the case, I'll show-up here again: I know that I can count on (at least) two unparalleled teachers!

Trevor and John,

thanks a lot for your support, I really appreciate it and you both are helping me to improve the command of MSP.

Following Trevor's example, I would like not only to modify the estimated work with the actual work but also to keep track of the scheduled work, i.e. to have in a table for Bob

actual 8,7,6,5,4,8

estimated 8,8,8,8,8,8

and for each task actual work (in day3=8+7+6+(8*7), in day4=8+7+6+5+(8*6) ) and estimated work (always 8*10=80). I also would like to have exactly the same information referred to costs.

Is that possible ?

glad-alone,

I think Trevor did a good job of laying out the process. Let me add one more bit of information that perhaps will help solidify how Project works. I sense a misunderstanding based on the last sentence of your post (i.e. "...has to be calculated based on time elapsed and not on the completion percentage").

Do not confuse duration and work. Duration is the time span during which a task is executed. Work is the effort one or more resources will expend on the task. If you have a single resource working full time, then duration hours and work hours will be the same. However, if a single resource is only working part time on a task then the work hours will be less than the duration. Likewise, if you have multiple resources working on a task, the work hours will most likely be greater than the duration hours.

In Project percent complete is duration based. When you enter a value in the % Complete field it is in reference to the actual time span, not on how much work has been completed. The % Work Complete field on the other hand is in reference to the actual work performed.

Hopefully this helps to clarify how Project works. Follow Trevor's example and you will get what you need.

John

Suppose you have a task that has actually started and has some actual duration, and it also has a remaining duration and a scheduled finish date/time.

Any actual work and actual cost must have occurred on the days of actual duration.

Deal with the facts in the order in which they occur. That's actual start then actual duration.

MSP will assume, because it must, that the work on those actual days was as scheduled.

But you know it wasn't so. So you go to the task usage view and input the actual work that occurred on those days of actual duration.

Suppose it was a 10 day task, and Bob was scheduled to work 8 hours on each day. After 6 days you have 6 days of actual duration, and 6 x 8 hours of actual work. But you know that Bob worked 8,7,6,5,4,8 =38. Go to the task usage view, display actual work and overtype the default.

As for the remaining duration and the remaining work, you must estimate them. It says 4 days, and 4 x 8 hours of work, but you can decide it should be more or less, and input that.

Use the tracking table when recording actuals. There is never any need to type in a % complete, or even to read what it is.

Can you provide a specific example, say for a 10 day task with 80 hours of work scheduled?