Steve
Wed Apr 27 13:33:02 CDT 2005
There really is no way to do that that I can see. There is no automated
process that would allow Project to know the true finish date of a task -
you are ALWAYS going to be dependent on the honesty and reliability of the
people inputting the data. Even if there was some way to get it to pick up
the status date and use it for the actual finish, there's nothing that would
stop someone of changing the status date to whatever they wanted it to be
prior to entering their task updates. Even if it picked up the system date
from the computer itself, one of the first things anyone learns in computer
basics is how to set its clock and calendar. It boils down to you either
trust the engineers to be honest with you when they enter their completions
or you take away their ability to enter data and assign the responsibility
to collect and enter progress information over to someone whom you can
trust. There's always going to be some way anyone who has write access to
the file will be able to fudge their data.
One of the problems is that you may be making project management too low
level a function in your organization. The engineers out doing the jobs are
not project managers even though they may have supervisory duties on the job
site. Even their supervisors may not be the project managers. Project
planning, managment, and monitoring is more appropriately the role of the
supervisor's supervisor. That's the person, or his/her assistant, is who
should be creating and maintaining the project plans IMHO and nothing should
ever enter that data file without their prior knowledge and sign-off.
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit
http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs
"jhalterm" <jhalterm@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:F191F001-E44E-4A60-A799-FAC16A89B365@microsoft.com...
> Hello Steve,
>
> Thanks for the answer and kind of stinks that it won't at least give you
> the
> option of doing it that way. I work for a door company who gives out
> incentives to the door engineers if the work is completed on time as
> scheduled and without errors. The problem I have is that if we allow all
> the
> project managers to update actual finish dates that can put any date they
> want in that field and then they are always on schedule. Does that make
> sense? We are using professional with the web access and server and I'm
> trying to figure out how I can do this so that when they complete a task
> and
> update the project they are not skewing the dates to get the incentive.
>
> Baselines won't work either because we have too many tasks that rely on
> customers to get information back to us and the longer or shorter time
> they
> take will completely re-adjust the schedule for the remaining part of the
> project. Plus you can save baselines over previous baselines to fix
> dates.
>
> The only other thing I can think of is to not give them write access to
> the
> files and just update the % complete on web access and make the supervisor
> update the files but again the bad thing about that is that we have 3 or
> more
> dozen door jobs going at one time so the supervisor would be spending all
> his
> time updating plans instead of doing his supervisor work.
>
> If you have any other ideas I am open for suggestions.
>
> Thanks!
>
> "Steve House [Project MVP]" wrote:
>
>> All durations in MS Project are estimates until the work is actually
>> done -
>> you're not unique in that.
>>
>> You have task that was estimated to finish the 25th but actually finished
>> the 27th but the person responsible for updating the data slacks off and
>> doesn't get around to updating the files until the 1st of May - what
>> then?
>> What you're asking to do would have the Actual Finish showing May 1st,
>> not
>> the real finish of the 27th of April. At any rate, there's no way to do
>> what you want automatically, at least not wity signifigant VBA
>> development.
>> The check boxes you're referring to don't have any effect on that
>> behavior -
>> it simply doesn't exist in vanilla Project. You need to train the people
>> posting progress into the plan in the correct way to do it - if the work
>> was
>> completed as estimated and took the same amount of time and work to
>> complete
>> as originally estimated, they can just mark it 100% complete and be done
>> with it. But if it deviates from the scheduled plan they MUST manually
>> input the actual dates work and ended and the work they put in, or actual
>> start date and actual duration while setting the remaining duration to
>> zero
>> if it's done. Simply checking 100% complete won't cut it.
>>
>> This is one of the big reasons that I don't like the idea of resources
>> having write access to the plan, BTW. Leave them to do whatever they do
>> best and then report their hours to your office to report progress.
>> Someone
>> whose job includes direct project management and oversight
>> responsibilities
>> should be the one who actually updates the plan. And a spin-off of that
>> approach, if the actual dates work was done causes problems downline due
>> to
>> delays or what not, you see it right then and there and with that early
>> warning you may be able to head off developing problems before they
>> become
>> severe. Project is best used as a tool for proactive managment instead
>> of
>> simply passively documenting what has happened and keeping everything
>> that
>> affects the plan as it unfolds front-and-centre in the eyes of the
>> manager
>> helps make sure potential problems don't fall through the cracks.
>>
>> --
>> Steve House [MVP]
>> MS Project Trainer & Consultant
>> Visit
http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs
>>
>>
>> "jhalterm" <jhalterm@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> news:4041D1C3-0B39-4607-87A8-A41914984B13@microsoft.com...
>> >I have tried and tried and tried the four different check boxes but
>> >still
>> > doesn't seem to work for me. Let me explain. My company has lots of
>> > estimated durations and most of the time when we mark a task to be 100%
>> > complete the "actual finish" date is not the date it was scheduled to
>> > finish.
>> > In order for us to maintain actuals, we can not trust the resources to
>> > update that finish date, so we need the "actual finish" date to be the
>> > date
>> > it was entered.
>> >
>> > Ex: If I have a task sheduled to end 04/25/05 but actually ended on
>> > 04/27/05, I need the "actual finish" date to be marked 04/27/05
>> > automatically
>> > when I enter 100% in the "% Complete column. Can someone tell me in
>> > what
>> > configuration I need to have those 4 check boxes marked. I can not
>> > make
>> > it
>> > work. Also the status date in project information is marked with N/A.
>> >
>> > The remaining schedule depends on the dates put in "actual finish" and
>> > if
>> > it
>> > doesn't work right we loose all reliablitly of MS Project.
>> >
>> > "Haris Rashid" wrote:
>> >
>> >> hi,
>> >> you can use the "Actual Finish" column, this field shows the date and
>> >> time
>> >> when a task or assignment was actually completed. The Actual Finish
>> >> field
>> >> contains "NA" until there is zero remaining work or you set the task's
>> >> %
>> >> Complete field or the task or assignment's % Work Complete field to
>> >> 100.
>> >> When
>> >> the work complete reaches 100 percent, Microsoft Office Project sets
>> >> the
>> >> Actual Finish field to the status date or scheduled finish date.
>> >>
>> >> When you specify that a task is 100 percent complete, Project
>> >> automatically
>> >> adjusts the actual finish date based on either the current status date
>> >> or
>> >> the
>> >> scheduled finish date. The date that is used depends on your
>> >> calculation
>> >> preferences. To examine and set these preferences, click Options on
>> >> the
>> >> Tools
>> >> menu, and then click the Calculation tab. Based on your calculation
>> >> preferences for this project, select or clear the four check boxes
>> >> starting
>> >> with the Move end of completed parts after status date back to status
>> >> date
>> >> check box.
>> >>
>> >> Regards,
>> >>
>> >> Haris
>> >>
>> >> "DMW" wrote:
>> >>
>> >> > Can MS Project automatically update the finish date to the date 100%
>> >> > completion was entered or approved?
>> >> > --
>> >> > DMW
>>
>>