Impacts of Assignments to Tasks

When you begin assigning tasks in your project schedule to team members, the schedule can change significantly. This is because task characteristics are interrelated and changing one can result in changes to others.

When a schedule is initially created, tasks are scheduled based on the dates and inter-task dependencies provided.

When you begin assigning tasks to team members, task schedules are adjusted based on a number of factors, including:

Workweek Calendar—The Workweek Calendar defines the days and hours a team member can perform task work and are used for task duration calculations. For more details, see Workweek Calendar
Nonworking Time—Nonworking time is a calendar exception designed to adjust the hours team members can be assigned to tasks due to specific events or occurrences. If you assign a task to a resource during a period when they have nonworking time scheduled, the task is adjusted based on their available working hours. For more details, see Nonworking Time Overview.
Dependencies—Some tasks cannot start until related tasks have started or finished. These tasks can be linked by creating dependencies between predecessor and successor tasks, with lag or lead time built in where an overlap or delay is required between dependent tasks. For more details, see Task Dependencies Overview and About Lag and Lead Time.
Constraints—Constraints can be applied to tasks to force them to start or end on a specific date. Constraints can override normal task scheduling. The default constraint is ASAP. For more information, see Task Constraints.
Task Type—Task type determines which task property (duration, resource allocation units or planned work) remains fixed when other properties change. With effort driven tasks, duration is automatically adjusted as team members are assigned or removed from a task.

PPM supports 5 task types: Fixed Units, Fixed Units - Effort Driven, Fixed Duration, Fixed Duration - Effort Driven, Fixed Work - Effort Driven. For more information about how task types affect scheduling, see Task Types.