Hello,


In my schedule, for a facade repair, I have an activity for erecting a scaffold first. And then the repairs will start at a far future date. In between the scaffold will just sit there for a long time.

I have it as follows:

1)Build Scaffold

2)Scaffold rental period for the duration that scaffold remains in place

3)Do repairs repairs at facade (starts at a far future date, so has a constraint of start no earlier than 1/1/2015 for instance)

4)DIsmantle scaffold (as soon as 3 is done, this will take place)

My question is about activity #2 here. It is not an activity that involves any action, but it is to show a rental period for scaffold and therefore its cost. My problem is, I want to calculate its duration automatically, between finish of activity 1 and the finishing of activity 4. in other words it can only start after 1 is done, and can only finish after 4 is done. but its duration is to be calculated automatically dependent on when the other activities happen. how can i do it?

I believe what you need is a hammock task. see:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/141733

Julie

i followed the link and follwed the procedure described there, and thanks it seems to work. however one question... the duration of this new hammock activity remains with a question mark, which also makes the duration of the category it is under a question mark. can we get rid of this question mark and still keep the links? for instance it calculated duration as 149? days. i went to that cell and typed 149 but this caused the links for the hammock task not working anymore

You're welcome.

To turn off estimated duration markers (question marks) - Tools > Options, Schedule tab. Uncheck "show that tasks have estimated durations."

Julie

ok, now i want to assign a rental cost to this. i have a monthly cost. but when i went to resource sheet, it is listing as per hour costs. is there a way to change that per hour cost to a daily or montly cost?

Project calculates cost for work resources based upon work*standard rate. While you can express cost in daily or weekly units - Project will still calculate based upon work - so you will not get a monthly cost if the resource is assigned for more or less than a month's worth of work.

You may be better using a fixed cost and entering the estimate based upon manual calculations.

Julie