Work Calculation

[DrSimon]

Like many people I tend to play with MS Project without really understanding it. Can someone please help me understand how Work is calculated. I have been provided a plan where the the outline parent task contains 2 x resources of 50% and the sub tasks work adds up to 6 days of work. When I enter these tasks into another plan (and also calculate as Duration x Units) I get a total of 64 (58+6) days, the plan provided gives me 62. Can anyone explain what may be happening?

Provided Plan
Task Work Duration Resources Type
Outline 3 [blue]62[/blue] days 58 days 2 * 50% Fixed Duration
Outline 4a 1.5 days 16 days 1 * 9% Fixed Work
Outline 4b 1.5 days 16 days 1 * 9% Fixed Work
Outline 4c 1.5 days 16 days 1 * 9% Fixed Work
Outline 4d 1.5 days 16 days 1 * 9% Fixed Work

My Version:
Task Work Duration Resources Type
Outline 3 [red]64[/red] days 58 days 2 * 50% Fixed Duration
Outline 4a 1.5 days 16 days 1 * 9% Fixed Work
Outline 4b 1.5 days 16 days 1 * 9% Fixed Work
Outline 4c 1.5 days 16 days 1 * 9% Fixed Work
Outline 4d 1.5 days 16 days 1 * 9% Fixed Work

Many Thanks
Simon Rouse

 

[PDQBach]

Outline 3 "work" should be 6 days (1.5 + 1.5 + 1.5 +1.5). You have assigned a resource and work to the summary task which you should never do.

 

[DrSimon]

Thanks PPQBach (there's a name I haven't heard for a very long time!). I quite agree with you - that work shouldn't have been assigned to a summary task, but I have been given a plan that has I, and I suspect others will too.
I am writing some VBA code which extracts work at different outline levels. It's these tasks that are giving me the 'wrong' answer or alternatively the right one (according to my calculations). Do you think this is just one of those situations where MS Project just can't cope?

Many Thanks
Simon Rouse

 

[PDQBach]

It's been a while since I had to do something like that.

Shouldn't be a biggie (haven't tested this but it should get you started)

dim tsk as task
dim asgn as assignment
for each tsk in activeproject.tasks
if not tsk is nothing then
if tsk.summary then
if tsk.assignments.count > 0 then
for each asgn in tsk.assignments
debug.print tsk.id, asgn.resourcename, asgn.work/60
asgn.delete
next
end if
end if
end if
next

Watch out for linewrap.

 

[DrSimon]

Thanks PDQ. I should have made myself clearer. I have actually written the code and that's actually how I found the problem as the code (and subsequent logic check) gives me 64days for the Outline 4 task, but the actual plan I ran the code on gave me 62 days as shown above
Simon