The interaction between various task attributes (type and assignees) and properties (planned work, duration and resource allocation units) control what happens in a project schedule. Understanding these interactions is important for project managers and others who are responsible for creating and/or maintaining a schedule.
Attributes
- Task Type—The determines how a change to duration, planned work or resource allocation units impacts the task. Task type is specified at task creation, but does not have an impact until assignees are added.
The default task type is Fixed Duration and if you do not change this when adding a task, this remains the default task type. If you change the type while adding a task, your change becomes the default task type until you change it again. For more information, see Task Types Overview.
- Assignees—Task do the work of a task. Adding assignees impacts the task planned work, duration or resource allocation units, depending on the Task Type and the hours the assignee can work on the task.
When assignees are added to a task, their workweek calendar and any calendar exceptions impact the time they can spend on the task. For more information, see Impact of Assignments to Tasks.
Properties
These three properties interact, based on task type and assignees.
- Planned Work—The number of hours of work required to complete the task. You can manually type a value for Planned Work. If you do not type a value, Planned Work is determined based on the task Duration, Type, and, once these are added, the number of assignees.
- Duration—The number of days the task will take to complete. Duration is set to the number of days from Planned Start to Planned Finish. If you manually change Duration, Planned Finish is adjusted accordingly.
Note: A task with a duration of 0 is by definition a .
- Assignment Units—The percentage of a resource's available time that will be used to work on a task. For scheduling purposes, total available time is determined by the Changepoint PPM workweek calendar and takes into account any applicable nonworking time.
How task properties are calculated
When you change a task property, the other properties are recalculated
using the equation:
Planned Work = Duration
x Units
where:
- Planned
Work = Estimated total number of hours of work to complete the
task
- Duration
= Difference between the task start and end dates
- Units
= The percentage of a resource’s time spent working on the task (Assignment Units)
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