Thanks Julie

yes, you're right - I don't want the summary task to inherit the duration, I would like it to show the total time allocation for all subtasks it contains. Do I have to do that, as you say, by allocating 'work' to each subtask?

Also, my issue of adding summary tasks but only one <new task> appearing below it .... is there an easy way to have summary task and multiple subtasks? (I may actually be getting these simply by indenting the subtasks, but I've managed to confuse myself that they're not 'working' because of the issue with duration vs planned time (above).

Ann