Hi all



I think my project file has somehow become corrupted, but hoping someone can give me some indication of what is happening in the vain hope that it's not!

I have created a new project plan in 2010 this week. I've done lots of linking by filtering on deadline dates and then by resource. Have sanity checked it all in the normal gant view and all is fine.

I baselined at 5pm today confident that it was ready to go. I then started to enter actual hours. I went to the task sheet from the main entry table by clicking on the gantt buttom (top right) and selecting task sheet. Once into the task sheet I noticed straight away that it didn't look right as the actual, remaining and other fields were not visible. In a rush to get things done I simply inserted the columns mentioned above and entered the actuals accordingly. All the sums added up, the remaining tallied with the actuals versus the planned etc so I assumed all was ok.

I then started to look at creating my work to lists (which I do in the resource usage view with the date range filter applied, and it's always worked fine in all my other schedules), and things were not right.

Tasks I had entered actuals against were correct. However tasks that I had not even touched and therefore not reported ANY progress against were now at 100%. This had rippled throughout the entire schedule, but on seemingly random tasks.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks for your time, I need to get this sorted before Monday morning!

Hi,
Sorry I didn't see you post until Monday afternoon :-(

The Task Sheet view normally has the Entry table applied - not the Tracking table which has the % complete, actual start, actual finish etc - so that in and of itself is not sign of corruption.

However, wWhat you describe is not normal and I have never known Project to spontaneously set % complete. Is it possible you accidentally hit the Update Project Command? Are the completed tasks in the future? When you are looking at the resource usage view, what you see underneath the resource's name are assignments - not tasks.

If you updated % complete on tasks with multiple resources assigned, Project will automatically update all assignments.

Julie

Hi Julie

Thanks for getting back to me. I think the confusion from the Task sheet point of view for me was in every other project file I have created/used I apply the task sheet and the table is set to work. I don't have to select this table it seems to default to the work table view as soon as I enter the task sheet. This new file didn't do this. Can you explain why in all other files it defaults to the work table when I enter the task sheet?

When I entered the progress, I entered actual work. I didn't use % complete. Once I had entered all my actual hours, I then went through and double checked my entries ( I always do a sanity check against the time sheets). I then used the Update Project command, selected reschedule uncompleted work to start after the status date and selected for the entire project. So all the uncompleted work was scheduled from the status date. The jobs that had gone to 100% were not in the future because I had updated the project.

Whilst reviewing the update I noticed the jobs at 100%, that I had entered no actual hours against.

You mention above that if updating % complete against a task with multiple resources assigned, project will automatically update all assignments. I wasn't aware of this. However my schedule only has two tasks with multiple resource and these were not updated, so in this case this cannot be the reason for this behaviour.

Yesterday morning I actually deleted all the progress I had entered and started again. It seemed ok but then I noticed again several tasks had been put to 100% without any input from me. Since then I have created a new file and rebuilt the schedule, have entered the progress and updated the project and all seem's fine. I would however like any thoughts on the above?

Thanks for your help

Jo

Julie

Just to let you know, I have selected the Task sheet in my new schedule and then manually selected the work table. Have come out of it and re-entered the task sheet and the work table is still applied. I must have done this on past schedules and project remembers for the next time. So point one of my reply is sorted now.

Thanks

Hi Jo,

I'm sorry you had to re-create the project file but from your more detailed descriptions and the information about view settings not being saved, it sounds likely that your project file did develop some corruption.

I know you've resolved the issue, but you could try a test. Save the project as an XML file and then re-import (open) the XML file as a new project. Then see if you can save the view changes to the Task Sheet.

Julie