Project 2013 Introduction

Lesson 3 – Working with Tasks

Project 2013

When you create a recurring task, you enter the recurring task name, the recurring task duration (the length of time it takes for each occurrence), the time increment (daily, weekly, monthly, etc.), and the frequency within each time increment (every, every other, etc.). You can also indicate how many occurrences of the task you want to schedule, or allow Microsoft Project to default and schedule the recurring task throughout the project. In addition, you can choose a calendar to use when scheduling the task. If you attempt to schedule a recurring task on a nonworking day, Microsoft Project will prompt you to change it to the next working day.

Since a recurring task may appear throughout the length of a project, you can place it anywhere in the task list. You may want to enter all recurring tasks at the end of the project if they are meetings and similar types of tasks, or you can insert your recurring tasks where they are appropriate.

After you create a recurring task, Microsoft Project calculates the total duration of all subtasks and displays that figure in the Duration field for the recurring task. The duration of a recurring task is the span of time between the earliest start date and the latest finish date of all its subtasks. This can be deceiving and you need to remember this.

The Recurring Task Information dialog box

NOTE If you later add or edit tasks resulting in a change in the project duration, you will need to edit the recurring task(s) to correspond with the new duration. Microsoft Project does not automatically increase the number of occurrences of a recurring task to include a new duration.

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