Forum Discussion
Removing subtask gaps from summary Task duration
Hello,
I am inputting actual start dates and durations that we have tracked for project tasks. We have skipped around a bit in the project and created gaps between certain tasks. I believe the summary task calculates the difference between the start date of the first subtask and the finish date of the last subtask. I am interested in only the working time for the summary task. How do I go about removing the gap from the summary task duration?
In the below example, 8/31-8/16 = 12 working days duration. However, the last subtask has a constraint to not start before 8/31. This creates a gap of 4 working days that we were not working on this summary task. Is there a way to remove this gap from the overall summary task duration such that it will calculate 8 working days for the summary task?
3 Replies
- Albladow --
You have gotten two excellent responses to your question. The short answer is that you cannot force Microsoft Project to calculation the Duration value the way you want for summary tasks. The software will always calculate the Duration of summary tasks from the Start date of the earliest starting subtasks to the Finish date of the latest finishing subtask, measured in working days. Hope this additional information helps. - Albladow,
Understand that a summary line is NOT a task, it is simply a summary of the performance tasks (i.e. subtasks with assigned resources) under it.
And as netmarcos noted, effort is work whereas duration is time span. The "working time" is noted in the Work field at summary level. Divide that by your calendar "Hours per day" and you have the "working days" you want.
John - What you have created is a gap in work, not duration. Duration is simply the network time between the start of the first task and the end of the last task.
