One of the questions coming up in support now and then, is how to change expected or planned start dates in a project. Â I have to admit I was a bit puzzled the first time I was confronted to this question. Being someone who simply loves to use inspectors and palettes I could not understand why would anyone really try and edit the values in the columns ‘planned start’ or ‘expected start’, when there is the ‘plan’ tab of the inspector.
So I suggested  to simply use the plan inspector and define there the desired dates instead.
In the meanwhile I understand that editing the values in the columns could be sometimes quicker than clicking the row first, switch to the inspector, select a date, click on the next activity row, back in the inspector, next date, etc…
So if you prefer editing the starting dates for your activities simply enable the display of the column ‘Given Planned Earliest Start’ and define the dates there. The columns ‘Expected Start’ and ‘Planned Start’ are calculated values, therefor not editable by the user.
When changing the ‘Given Planned Earliest Start’ of a completed activity you move only its grey bar in the Gantt chart. The colored one (containing its actuals) will stay put.
If you want to move a completed activity to the new planned date, because its actuals were entered by mistake, select the activity and call
Edit > Clear Actual Values.
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I’m trying what you suggest, but no matter what date I put into ‘Given Planned Earliest Start’, the Expected Start date refuses to change. Infuriating!
I am having a problem with the Given Work tab in the Plan Inspector. When you change the percentage of work for one Resource to a specific number of hours it does not AUTOMATICALLY change the other Resources time to complete the project to a lesser or more percentage. Their estimated percentage stays the same and will not auto-populate. Is there a way to make this happen?
This is correct. In this case you would need to manually change the given work on the other resources as well.
Merlin won’t be able to adjust their work for you.
In response to my last post, I’m having another problem also dealing with the Given Work tab in the Plan Inspector. I’ve been doing some research and it does seem that Merlin does not auto-calculate the remaining percentages when you have manually changed a percentage for 1 resource in a project with 5 total resources. I understand why this happens – Merlin does not know what to change if there is more than one resource to change.
However, say there were three resources on a job and you change the Given Work for 1 resources to be less than 1/3 of the time. This would then make the total Given Work shorter than the inputted amount of time defined in the activity’s Given Planned Work. Is there a way to make Merlin highlight the activity’s Given Planned Work when this occurs – similar to when the project expected work exceeds the given value?
Also, once I have changed the percentage of 1 resource to be less than that originally assigned (either in percentage or days), if I delete that resource from the job, the two remaining resources do not recalculate back to 50% each. Is there a way to make this happen?
Hello Sara,
in this case, Merlin won’t recalculate the work percentages if you delete an assignment. It won’t know how to adjust them and what would be correct.
You may enable the columns “given planned work” and “expected work”. Now you see when the expected work in the group is less than this of the planned work and can assign more resources, or change the work % of the already assigned resources.
Best regards, Vicky
Vicky,
I tried what you suggested with enabling the “expected work” column and I’m finding that when I input amounts of time for the various resources – the Activity Expected Time doesn’t change to what the addition of the resources time adds up to. I still have to add up the individual resources and compare that to the Activity Expected Work. Instead of comparing the Activity Expected Work and the Project Expected Work – they are always the same, even when changing the resources amount of time.
The Expected Start date does not recalculate, even though all project start dates have changed. How do I fix this?
Macbook Air 1.7GHz i7 Quad Core, 8GB Ram, 500GB Hard Drive, running Mavericks
Hi,
I guess there are actual values in the project or the project start had not being changed accordingly. I would suggest you send your project to Merlin support, so they can advise more in detail.
Best regards, Vicky