I encountered a strange problem with MS Project 2000, which I would like to discuss here. I have attached a sample mpp file to explain my point. Please open that prior to reading this further.
I have an activity called "coding modifications, if required". This activity is called for only when there are some bugs found during testing (activity id 3). Sequence of activities 2 to 5 are as follows: first 3, then 4 and then 2 & 5 Now, in case testing resulted in no bugs, activity 4 is not required at all. In that case, time booking for this activity is zero hrs and remaining is also made zero as it is not required to be performed. If both actual work and remaining work are made zero, the activity is automatically converted to milestone as now it is a zero duration activity ! Further, if we think of deleting this activity (since it has not been performed), the relationship breaks. Since predecessor of 4 is 3 and successors of 4 are 2 & 5, if 4 is deleted, logically predecessor of 2 & 5 should be 3, but it has no predecessor at all on deleting 4 !! Can anybody help me with how to tackle time booking for activities which do not get executed in the project? Saving Changes...
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George WhyteAirdrie, North Lanarkshire, United Kingdom
My recommendation would be leave the remaining work alone. Project will always (to my knowledge) assume 0 work as a milestone, unless you set up a custom task, but that's work for nothing in this case.
The only area I can see this causing a reporting issue is when looking at required hours or EV (BCWS). However, the ACWS will be fine as you have booked 0 hours against the task. The EAC will be the same as your baseline, for me that's be no big deal. If it's a resource issue, remove the assignment from the task and it won't appear in any "to do lists" if filtered by resource. Hope this helps! Saving Changes...
Dear George: Thank you for the response. I agree with what you say, but that too has some practical difficulties. If you do not book any time for that activity, that activity is always shown as 0% complete. I have a management report to be generated wherein I have to generate total planned & actual efforts spent on COMPLETED activities. Variances in efforts are analysed and appropriate preventive steps are taken for the next period. If actuals are left blank, then actual work value remains 0, planned (baseline) will have some value, % work complete will be shown as 0%, which is not the true picture of the project. Again, deletion of this activity is also not a good idea as it will reduce the total planned efforts. I am still not clear how to handle this. Any other idea? Saving Changes...
MS Project does automatically convert zero hour task to milestone. However, you can manually change them back. Double-click the activity that was changed to a milestone. In the Task information window, under the "Advanced" tab, uncheck the milestone checkbox (lower left). Click ok. Now it is a task again. Double-click the same task, and under the "General" tab, change the percent complete to 100%. Click ok. Now it is a completed task. Hope this is what you were looking for. Saving Changes...
Dear Mark: THank you for your response; however, I was not exactly looking for this. I have a MS Project file with over 1000 activities. I am using MS Project Central for time booking and tracking purposes. 1000 tasks have resulted in more than 3000 assignments. It is impossible to check which task has become milistone as a result of zero booking ! What I am looking for is that is there any way to mark a task 100% without having any actual booking, preferably through Project Central? Saving Changes...
This is an interesting issue. I have encountered it before. It's complex and doesn't have a simple solution. Let me ask some clarifying questions.
Is there a real problem with a task becoming a milestone on the schedule? Other than looks? Are you perhaps preparing a milestone chart and don't want the zero duration task showing up? If not, I see no reason to avoid the milestone problem. In reality a zero duration task is a milestone and it maintains the dependency link. No harm, no problem, in my mind.
I understand the desire to avoid deleting the task, however that may be doable if you are doing roll-up reporting and have built the right links. For one, if a task is optional, you'll need to have 2 dependency links, one to the optional task, and one to a non-optional task. That way, deleting the optional task will not create a "no dependency" situation. If you are doing summary reporting, then the summary task will retain the baseline costs and schedule, so deleting a detail task will not affect your earned value numbers at the summary level.
Finally, my recommendation, after using MSP in various versions for the last 10 years, is to avoid the "optional task" scenario altogether. I recommend combining the optioanl task (code modifications) with the non-optioanl task of Coding and Testing. That makes a 12 d and 176 h task. Maybe call it Code, Test and Modify. That way you avoid this problem altogether without sacrificing any accuracy. That's probably not practical for you at this moment, but maybe for future projects.
