This article highlights the differences between Milestone tasks and Task Assignments in MSP (Microsoft Project) type and Advanced scheduling type.
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Overview
To understand the MSP behavior differences in advanced scheduling the different contexts are Milestone task behavior, Actuals on Assignments, Impact on update dates of Assignment, and % Allocation behavior.
Milestone Task Behavior
In MSP,
- Milestone tasks can be of zero or more duration.
- A summary task can be made as a milestone.
- Milestone tasks can have assignments and those assignments can file actuals against them.
- Planned Start, Planned finish dates, Effort, Duration, % allocation all fields of assignments are editable and can impact milestone effort, duration, and other things.
In Advanced scheduling,
- Milestone task is compulsory of zero duration.
- The summary task can not be made a milestone task.
- Milestone tasks can not have assignments.
- If a normal task has assignments then it can not be converted into milestones.
- Planned Start, Planned finish dates only these scheduling fields are editable on milestone tasks.
Actuals on Assignments
When a Task has an actual start/actual finish then in Advance Scheduling, validations and behavior of the task are exactly the same as old Simple Scheduling. Here we have not done any modifications as per MSP behavior.
Impact on update dates of Assignments
In MSP,
a) If the user has not manually changed the assignment finish date and if a user tries to change the start date of the assignment greater than the task start date then the finish date of the assignment recomputes based on the duration of the assignment and the task new finish date becomes newly updated assignment finish date if it is greater than other assignment’s finish date.
b) If the user has changed the assignment finish date manually and if a user tries to change the start date of the assignment greater/less than the task start date then the effort of the assignment recomputes.
In Advance Scheduling, in above both cases, whenever the user tries to update task assignment dates then the effort of assignments will be recomputed based on updated dates.
% Allocation Column Behavior
In MSP, If a user has updated the % allocation of any of the task assignments manually then from the next field change on task/on assignments onwards % allocation of assignment stays intact and MSP changes hours resources work per day based on which field is changed and by 3 * 3 matrix formula. The peak column value is changed based on hours of resources work per day.
In Advance Scheduling, If a user has changed the % allocation of any of the task assignments manually then from the next field change on task/on assignments onwards, whenever there is a situation in the 3 * 3 matrix formula to change units of assignments, Advance Scheduling changes user manually updated % allocation value to new value. Basically, The value that the user will see in the Peak column of MSP in Advance Scheduling can be seen in the % allocation column.
3 * 3 matrix scenarios, when the above condition occurs,
In a Fixed work task, if the duration is updated.
In MSP, change the hour’s resources work per day but keep the same duration and MSP has 1 column ‘Peak’ which shows Resources actual allocation % based on Resources hours per day
In Advance Scheduling, change the % allocation of resources allocated per day but keep the same work.
In the Fixed duration task, if work is updated.
In MSP, change the hour’s resources work per day but keep the same duration and MSP has 1 column ‘Peak’ which shows Resources actual allocation % based on Resources hours per day
In Advance Scheduling, change the % allocation of resources allocated per day but keep the same work.
3 * 3 matrix for reference:
|
Current Task Type |
If you change units |
If you change the duration |
If you change work |
| Fixed Units | Duration is recalculated. | Work is recalculated. | Duration is recalculated. |
| Fixed Work | Duration is recalculated. | Units are recalculated. | Duration is recalculated. |
| Fixed Duration | Work is recalculated. | Work is recalculated. | Units are recalculated. |