Project: Planned Duration Changes to 0 if New Task Added
  
PSS ID Number: Q103394
Article last modified on 03-15-1995
 
3.00 3.00a | 3.00
 
WINDOWS    | MACINTOSH
 

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The information in this article applies to:
 
 - Microsoft Project for Windows, versions 3.0, 3.0a
 - Microsoft Project for the Macintosh, version 3.0
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SUMMARY
=======
 
Planned duration is a field in the Project Status dialog box. This
field will be changed to 0 when a new task is added to the project and
the Plan is not set for that task.
 
NOTE: This behaviour does not occur in later versions of Microsoft Project.
 
MORE INFORMATION
================
 
Planned duration is a measure of the duration between the planned
start date and the planned finish date for the project. When a new
task is added, and the plan is not set for that task, the planned
finish date in the project status dialog box becomes NA. This causes
the calculation of planned duration to become 0.
 
This effect is similar to the way start and finish dates are handled
in summary tasks. The planned start date that is rolled up to become
the planned start date for the summary task is the earliest date of
any task subordinated to the summary task. Even if only one
subordinate task has a planned start date and all others have NA as
their planned start date, the one date will be rolled up to the
summary. Finish dates are handled differently. The planned finish for
the summary task will remain NA until all of the tasks subordinate to
it have a planned finish date other than NA. Even if only one of the
tasks has NA as the planned finish the summary will have NA as its
planned finish date.
 
In the case of the Project Status dialog box, when a new task is
inserted without the plan being set, the planned start date in the
dialog box will remain the earliest planned start date of any task in
the file, but the planned finish date will become NA because at least
one task in the file has NA as its planned finish. This causes Planned
duration, which is again measuring the duration between planned start
and planned finish, to go to 0 because there is no duration between a
date and NA.
 
For more information about this topic, query on the following words in
the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
 
   subordinate and na and finish(1-5)
 
KBCategory: kbusage
KBSubcategory:
 
Additional reference words: 3.00 3.00a
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Copyright Microsoft Corporation 1995.
