by Paul Harris | Jul 17, 2024 | Microsoft Project
Tasks like “concrete curing” and “process testing” that take place 24 hours per day are sometimes referred to as “Elapsed Duration Tasks” and may be modeled in a number of different ways.
One option is to put the elapsed duration task on a 24 hour per day 7 day per week calendar but this is not recommended with Microsoft Project as this will result in incorrect calculation of the task and float durations in days.
Download a pdf of this article by clicking here>>>>>>
Microsoft Project users should consider using the “Elapsed Duration” function to model tasks working 24 hour per day if they wish to assign a 24×7 calendar to a task because the duration is days is displayed correctly, but this option will result in losing the critical path on the “elapsed” duration tasks.
The disadvantage of making a Microsoft Project task “Elapsed” is that if the predecessor ends at 17:00 then a 5-day curing activity will start and finish at 17:00 and will have float when the successor starts the following morning.
Managing Elapsed Duration Tasks in Microsoft Project
To reduce the loss of the critical path I recommend putting elapsed duration tasks on calendars with the same hours per day as the other work, but on a 7 day/week basis without weekends or non-workdays. Therefore, when the curing activity ends on Friday or Saturday evening, then it will normally still have Total Float when the successor may not start till the following Monday, so this technique will not solve the issue of losing a critical path in all circumstances.
Eastwood Harris Learning Resources
Accelerate your understanding of scheduling software to advance your scheduling career and be able to prepare better schedules with Eastwood Harris books, training courses and online videos on the following software packages:
- Microsoft Project,
- Oracle Primavera P6 and
- Elecosoft (Asta) Powerproject
Online video training is available through Udemy through following these links:
Please follow these links:
- Eastwood Harris books and training materials are available here https://www.eh.com.au.
- Eastwood Harris inhouse, one-to-one and public training courses are offered through Primaskills Pty Ltd, more details here>>>>.
- Resources for Oracle Primavera P6 users such as third party software that works with P6 and technical papers on Primavera P6 at https://primavera.com.au/.
Paul E Harris
Director Eastwood Harris Pty Ltd
11 December 2023
by Paul Harris | Jun 21, 2024 | Microsoft Project
Microsoft Project templates allow organizations to create standard project models containing default information applicable to the organization. In particular, a calendar with the local public holidays should be created along with Views with redefined headers and footers to suit your organization. Therefore, to save time when you create a new project, you should generate your own templates to suit the different types of projects your organization undertakes.
Please click on this link to download a full extract from my books to create and use Microsoft Project Templates>>>>>.
A Microsoft Project template has a *.mpt format and is a better option than using the normal *.mpp because the Microsoft Project inbuilt template function copies the *.mpt template file and there is no risk of overwriting your template with project data.
Unfortunately, the Microsoft Project inbuilt template function is not available or obvious to a user until a directory is assigned to Microsoft Project in the Options, Save form to save your templates into.
A project template has been loaded on the Eastwood Harris web site at www.eh.com.au Software Downloads page that has a number of the issues with Microsoft Project defaults, other settings and formatting issues resolved. You should consider downloading this file, edit as required and save this as your template. The web site outlines all the changes made to this template project.
A default load of Microsoft Project does not allow templates to be used unless the user creates a Template Directory and this is not obvious. Thus, to use Microsoft Project templates the following steps should be followed
- Setting the Personal Template Directory
- Creating a Personal Template
- Creating a New Project from a Template
Eastwood Harris Learning Resources
Accelerate your understanding of scheduling software to advance your scheduling career and be able to prepare better schedules with Eastwood Harris books, training courses and online videos on the following software packages:
- Microsoft Project,
- Oracle Primavera P6 and
- Elecosoft (Asta) Powerproject
Online video training is available through Udemy through following these links:
Please follow these links:
- Eastwood Harris books and training materials are available here https://www.eh.com.au.
- Eastwood Harris inhouse, one-to-one and public training courses are offered through Primaskills Pty Ltd, more details here>>>>.
- Resources for Oracle Primavera P6 users such as third party software that works with P6 and technical papers on Primavera P6 at https://primavera.com.au/.
Paul E Harris
Director Eastwood Harris Pty Ltd
21 June 2024
by Paul Harris | Jan 3, 2024 | Oracle Primavera P6 PPM
Oracle Primavera releases new updates most months, and this paper outlines the updates that Oracle has introduced in 2023.
Download a pdf of this paper by clicking here>>>>
This paper focuses on the changes that PPM users will use and to see a full list of updates please refer to the Oracle documentation, links below.
The information in this paper will be included in my new P6 PPM Version 23 books that will be released in the coming months.
Readers may find the following Oracle documents which include the upgrade information:
This is a list of the enhancements documented in this paper:
- Resource Analysis Role Limit Calculation Refinement
- Project Checker Improvement
- Paste Data From Excel Directly Into P6 Professional
- DOE – CPP Export Feature Enhanced
- Projects Window Column to Count the Number of Projects in a Group
- Add Curtains to Timescale Logic Diagrams and Gantt Layouts in P6 Visualizer
- Any User can Import Projects from Excel Spreadsheets
Eastwood Harris Learning Resources
Accelerate your understanding of scheduling software to advance your scheduling career and be able to prepare better schedules with Eastwood Harris books, training courses and online videos on the following software packages:
- Microsoft Project,
- Oracle Primavera P6 and
- Elecosoft (Asta) Powerproject
Online video training is available through Udemy through following these links:
Please follow these links:
- Eastwood Harris books and training materials are available here https://www.eh.com.au.
- Eastwood Harris inhouse, one-to-one and public training courses are offered through Primaskills Pty Ltd, more details here>>>>.
- Resources for Oracle Primavera P6 users such as third party software that works with P6 and technical papers on Primavera P6 at https://primavera.com.au/.
Paul E Harris
Director Eastwood Harris Pty Ltd
3 January 2023
by Paul Harris | Dec 29, 2023 | Elecosoft (Asta) Powerproject
Elecosoft Powerproject Version 17 was released in mid-December 2023, this article:
- Lists all the new features and
- Explains in detail the features used in a single project environment without resources.
Click here to download a pdf of the full article>>>
Features used in a single project environment without resources:
- A Timeline View which is similar to the Microsoft Project Timeline View is now available.
- Tabs may be assigned a colour enabling simpler identification of projects and Views that are applied to projects.
- Tasks may be broken down into smaller steps called Task Activities, similar to Steps in Primavera P6.
- Autosave in now available and operates in a similar way to Microsoft Project
- Specify Materials type when recording Task Work details.
The following are not covered in this paper:
- It is now possible to restrict who may schedule individual Charts in a portfolio of projects,
- Assign tasks a default allocation rate which overrides the permanent resource default work rate.
- Use a Permanent Resource Quantity (a resource used for materials) to calculate logistic requirements for Consumable Resources (for example mobile equipment numbers required).
- The work rate of multiple resources may be assigned the same work rate.
- Assign access to Print Profiles to prevent users deleting them.
The Elecosoft website has a complete list of all the features and some very good and detailed information on the features released in Version 16 and 17 here:
https://help.elecosoft.com/powerproject/english/17.1.01/Content/HTML_Topics/Conceptual/Whats_new/Whats_new.htm
Eastwood Harris Learning Resources
Accelerate your understanding of scheduling software to advance your scheduling career and be able to prepare better schedules with Eastwood Harris books, training courses and online videos on the following software packages:
- Microsoft Project,
- Oracle Primavera P6 and
- Elecosoft (Asta) Powerproject
Online video training is available through Udemy through following these links:
Please follow these links:
- Eastwood Harris books and training materials are available here https://www.eh.com.au.
- Eastwood Harris inhouse, one-to-one and public training courses are offered through Primaskills Pty Ltd, more details here>>>>.
- Resources for Oracle Primavera P6 users such as third party software that works with P6 and technical papers on Primavera P6 at https://primavera.com.au/.
Paul E Harris
Director Eastwood Harris Pty Ltd
29 December 2023
by Paul Harris | Dec 8, 2023 | Microsoft Project
There are many ways to assign task dependicies using Microsoft Project including:
- Graphically Adding a Dependency
- Using the Link and Unlink Icons
- Task Linking Using the Keyboard
- Adding and Deleting Predecessors with the Task Information Form
- Predecessor and Successor Details Forms
- Editing or Deleting Dependencies Using the Task Dependency Form
- Autolink New Inserted Tasks or Moved Tasks
- Editing Relationships Using the Predecessor or Successor Columns
Click on the link below to read an article abot these methods.
Download a pdf of this article by clicking on this link>>>>
Eastwood Harris Resources
Accelerate your understanding of scheduling software to advance your scheduling career and be able to prepare better schedules with Eastwood Harris books, training courses and online videos on the following software packages:
- Microsoft Project,
- Oracle Primavera P6 and
- Elecosoft (Asta) Powerproject
Online video training is available through Udemy through following these links:
Please follow these links:
- Eastwood Harris books and training materials are available here https://www.eh.com.au.
- Eastwood Harris inhouse, one-to-one and public training courses are offered through Primaskills Pty Ltd, more details here>>>>.
- Resources for Oracle Primavera P6 users such as third party software that works with P6 and technical papers on Primavera P6 at https://primavera.com.au/.
Paul E Harris
Director Eastwood Harris Pty Ltd
25 November 2023
