In this example, I simply change one task to a fixed work type task. Figure 6: Assigning a Resource to All the Tasks Figure 7: Resource Usage after Assigning John to all the Project Tasks Figure 8: Resource Usage after Assigning a Second Person (Luke) to the Project Tasks Figure 9: Project Duration with a Second Resource Assigned using Fixed Duration Task Types Fixed Work Example You will notice that the workload has been shared amongst John and Luke, however, the overall project duration and task dates have remained the same. I then assign a second person to the tasks called Luke. However, when you go into the resource usage sheet, John is clearly overloaded. Note – Nothing has changed in terms of the task duration. I’ve now assigned John to all of the tasks. Figure 5: Example Project for Task Types Fixed Duration Example All the tasks are set to fixed duration as I have set arbitrary dates. Starting with the simple project below, no resources have been assigned. Read more at MS Support: Effort Driven (task field)Īn Example of How Task Types Affect the ScheduleĪs a project manager, you want your schedule to reflect the true To keep the duration the same when additional resources are added, be sure to uncheck the ‘effort driven’ box when changing the task type.

Revise duration – Units are recalculated.

If a task is set to fixed work, the following changes: If a task is set to fixed duration, the following changes:

Revise units – Duration is recalculated.

If a task is set to fixed units, the following changes: Keeping this in mind will help you remember how the task types affect the other parameters when resources are added. MS Project schedules the project based on the following formula: Duration = Work/Unit or if you rearrange the equation Work = Duration x Units. This can be changed in the project settings. The default duration unit is days and the default work unit is hours. If the designer is only available for 50% of the time, the task will take 160 hours or 4 weeks. If the task takes 80 hours and one designer is available for 40 hours per week, then the task will take 2 weeks to complete, assuming 100% availability. Regardless of the number of people attending, the duration remains the same.įixed work tasks will depend on the hours required to get the task done. A classic example is a team meeting that is allocated for 2 hours each week.

The duration will not change regardless of how many resources are involved. The fixed duration tasks will be anything where the duration of the tasks remains the same. This article is complementary to a really detailed article available in Microsoft Help or the Support website: How MS Project schedules tasks. It is important to understand these three tasks types as they have an influence on how MS Project will schedule your project. These task types are only applicable to automatically scheduled tasks. Microsoft project has three types of tasks: fixed units, fixed duration and fixed work.

Ms project resource usage gantt chart