Drive "duration" from Start/End Date/Time? 1

[1oldfoxman]

I'm not a Project guru, so I'll apologize up front if this is a dumb question......

I need to lay out a fairly complex project for a go-live plan for a hospital information system migration. Establishing all the resource dependencies is an unnecessary effort and will take too much time. I'm really just needing to create the project, assign the start and end dates and times for the various task without MS Project recalculating all work and unit values. Ideally what I want is to enter the start and end dates and times and for Project to calc only the duration.

I've changed the base calendar for the project and all the automatically created resources to "24 hour", changed all the tasks to "fixed duration" and turned off "effort driven" on all tasks. All resources were auto created by Project based on the generic resource names I am entering into the Task Sheet/Gantt Chart views. Am I just coming at this from the totally wrong approach? I was wanting to take advantage of Project's formatting, charting and reporting tools, but perhaps it is the wrong tool for the job? Can I not just eliminate the dependencies on ANY resources across the project?

At this point I can enter start/end dates/times and Project applies the duration which it calculated previously, which is the opposite of what I'd like to accomplish.

I'm using Project 2007. But have 2010 available if that would help my problem. Any insights others can offer would be greatly appreciated.

 

[JulieInMaine]

If you want to enter all task data to create a Gantt chart like view, but not have project do any calculation, I'd suggest using Manually scheduled tasks in Project 2010. Otherwise, you will be fighting Project from the start.

Go to the Resource Sheet view and define your resources, giving them high maximum units to avoid the issue of overallocation.

However, to be honest with you -- how much value you'll get from the reports will be pretty much meaningless if I understand what you intend to do.

You are missing a large component of Project's power using your approach -- but certainly it can be done.

I hope this helps.

Julie

 

[1oldfoxman]

Thanks Julie, at least you've validated what I suspected. Perhaps the wrong tool for the job. I've used your suggestions though and continue to forge ahead.

 

[JulieInMaine]

You're welcome. Feel free to post back with more questions. As I said, it can be done -- but you're using a product that really wants to do the calculations for you.