Project 2016 - Introduction

Project 2016

Lesson – Working with Tasks

Inactive Tasks allows you store critical information that can be valuable for archival purposes (actuals and cost information for example) and allows for what-if analysis (for example, to experiment with different combinations of adds or cuts). Inactivate certain parts of the project without losing the original data. Inactive tasks are not taken into account by the scheduling engine nor affect resource availability.

Top-Down Summary allows you to create a project from the top down by listing summary tasks with all their information such as duration and dates. These values can be different from the rollup value, this way you can see easily the differences between the high level and the subtasks.

Examples of User Defined Scheduling

In the above example, Tasks 1, 3, and 4 are user controlled scheduled. In the Gantt Chart, each is represented by a different formatted bar. Task 1 is a Top-Down Summary task that allows the user to store information about the project phases without being tied to the information of the subtasks. Task 3 is a manually- scheduled task. This type of task allows the user to add a task without having to provide detailed information which gives some flexibility for adding information. Task 6 is an inactive task. This type can be used to store information without affecting the rest of the project.

 Procedures for adding user defined tasks

1. Enter tasks as usual. 2. Select the task definition, Manual or Automatic . 3. Change task to Inactive or Summary , as necessary.

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