Forum Discussion
Combining 2 duration columns to get one Finish date
Well, it will report that plumbing was starting 10 days later but that's Start Variance, not Duration Variance.
Sorry but you can't add something to the finish date without increasing the Duration field, unless you also change the Start field. Duration is the difference in working days between the start of a task and the finish of a task, unless there is a split, then task duration only tracks the scheduled working days where the span of the split is excluded. For example, in the screen shot below, framing for building one was going along swimmingly for the first three days, then over the weekend a storm blew in and delayed further framing for 3 days. That 3 days is entered into a custom Duration field (Duration1 renamed as "Delays") and a split is applied to the framing task. Note the task Duration field still shows the original 20 days but the split delay shifted the schedule to the right by those 3 long rainy wet days (yuck). If other delays occur, additional splits can be applied. The advantage here is the the delay is graphically very apparent but you could, as Dale suggested, make an entry in the Task Notes field why the split occurred.
So how do you do a split? It can be done manually via Task > Schedule group > Split task icon and then hovering your mouse over the start of the split and pulling it over the 3 days. Or, it could be done programmatically with VBA, enter the delay, run the macro and boom! there it is.
Is you head spinning yet?
John
No, not really, but let's play along. After reading your explanation a few times it seems you want to have a separate custom field where you can manually enter delays and then have that delay modify the plan, a kind of "after the fact" scheduling approach. Okay, let's try it.
In your roofing example it rained for 2 days so you enter that value in Duration1 and that ups the task duration to 5 days. What happens if on day 4 you discover the supplier is short 10 bundles of shingles and it will take a day to get them shipped in from another warehouse. Will you then enter that delay into another Duration field or will you change the entered value in the Duration1 field so it now shows 3 days (original 2 for rain delay and new 1 day delay for shingles)?
You say you want to easily see the amount of delay and that's exactly what the Duration Variance field supplies. But for some reason you want to take the extra step to separately enter the delay into a custom field which is then used to update the task Duration when you could just as easily enter a new task duration directly into the task Duration field, saving the extra field and step. The delay visibility is still available via Duration Variance.
For reference, VBA stands for Visual Basic for Applications and it is an integral part of most Microsoft applications. It allows a user the ability to create application functionality that is not available "out of the box"
John
I more or less want to track the delay for each individual task item. Say I have a project that is 11 different buildings. Over the span of a year the framing delays could be say 60 working days by the time we get to building 11. The framers have 20 days to frame a building. The duration variance will show they are 60 days behind according to the original baseline. However, they may get the building done in 18 days which puts them ahead of schedule on that specific task item.
So I guess I'm saying all that to say that yes I would like to do an after the fact adjustment so I can track delays on every specific task that is delayed. To put it in excel terms I want to be able to add Column A(Duration) and Column B(Duration1) to equal my finish date. I am not very well versed in MS Project but is there not a custom fields formula that would allow me to do this?
Thanks
- MSprojecthelpme,
I'm not sure we're on the same page but at least I know the book you are reading. I'm just reading a different book.
Let me answer your last question first and then let's talk about your example. Excel is an open format, any cell can interact with any other cell via formulas. Project is a strictly defined format with several base fields, of which Duration is one, that cannot be changed with a formula (other than through VBA). The only fields in Project that can be customized with a formula are the extra fields (e.g. Duration1, Duration2, Text1, Text2, etc.) and the customization can only apply to data on the same task/resource line..
Now with regard to your framing example. You say you want to track all delays for each specific task. How exactly then does that translate to the total 60 days delay for framing what I assume is all 11 buildings? And if on a specific building the time span allotted for framing is 20 days but the framers do it in 18, then how does the -2 days of Duration Variance factor into the 60 days? Was the total framing delay for all buildings actually 62 days but because the framers "beat the clock" by two days, they are "credited" with those two days so the overall total framing delay is 60 days?
Perhaps a simple example showing your intent via screen shot would help.
I can easily write a VBA macro to do what I think you want but there are more things to consider than what you have presented so I need more specifics.
JohnSorry, there is no picture or screen shot. Did you use the little camera icon to upload a picture? If not, you can also include a link to an readily accessible page that has your picture.
John
OK on the project above we will say framing has been going on for 5 days, then they hit a 10 day working delay. What I want to show is that framing, since they have started their task, is now 10 days past they're original duration after they had started. So instead of finishing on 6-28-22 they will now be finishing on 7-12-22(12 days+10 days). This in turn will bump back all successors back 10 days as well. However, since "Doors and Windows" haven't started yet this task technically doesn't have any weather and/or material delays so they should still be able to complete their task in 2 days still (+ 10 day adjustment to start date due to framing delay.)
So my ultimate goal is to only track individual task items that are going to be affected by delays, as they happen, not track the overall project delays like the Duration Variance does.
MSprojecthelpme,
Keep in mind that what you want to do is probably all very clear in your mind but we can't read your mind so you have to think like you are explaining it to a third party because that's what we are.
Your latest example of the 10 day delay on a started framing task seems to play with your latest stated goal of tracking individual tasks that are delayed. But what happened to your previous example of the 60 day delay on framing? And what about the framing where the framers finished two days early? You only want to track the bad things and not track good things?I don't understand your comment about tracking delays "as they happen" and not track overall project delays like duration variance. The Duration Variance field tracks delays as they happen. When a user becomes aware of a delay and needs to change a task duration, as soon as the user enters a new Duration, the Duration Variance field is updated. Are you saying your intended manual entry of a delay into the Duration1 field is more of a "as it happens"?
Just curious, what are you going to do with the "delay" metric (i.e.. the big picture)?
John