Importing start date but project uses another date

[EISS]

All,

I have been trying to import very basic information into Project 2003 std edition. The excel sheet has the Start date for the main Task (which is a contract) and assigned an outline level 1 as 30-sep. Under this task there are sub task with different durations assigned outline level 2. I would think that Project would take the start date and add the hours of duration and using the Predecessors to give me a schedule. But it keeps on starting to schedule at the 13th of Sep instead of the 30th. There is a total of 86 hours. Thanks for you input.

Jay

 

[PDQBach]

Without actually seeing your data ... you may have set a Constraint Date and Constraint type on your main task or on one of the subtasks. There are a couple of ways of getting round this.

Here's the easiest (it assumes that all tasks have "As Soon As Possible" as the constraint type):

After doing the import, click on Project | Project Information... and set Start Date to Sep30.

 

[EISS]

ID Name Duration Start Finish Predecessors Outline Level
1 C13282-5501 10/3/2006 0:00 1
2 MODS - EA dept. 10h 2
3 Metal Shop 12h 2
4 Inventory 15h 2
5 Shell 5h 3,4 2
6 paint 6h 5 2
7 Sub Assy 2h 2,3,4 2
8 Final 20h 7 2
9 Crate 1h 8 2

 

[PDQBach]

It's not clear to me why only one line has a date. Shouldn't all lines have both a start and a finish date? Or, perhaps, no lines should have dates.

At any rate, it's not really important. As I said above, if all the imported lines have an ASAP constraint (and in the sample data you provided, none of them do) then you can easily set the project start date and that will create what you seem to require.