Duration vs. Actual Work

I have a task with a 5d duration and 5d of work. If I complete only part of
my work each day, then my duration and/or finish date should grow accordingly.

In Tools->Options->Calculate, I check both Move check boxes. There are
actually 4 move check boxes but I checked just the 2 that are at the top
level.

In day 1, I complete only 0.5d of work. This moves my completion date 0.5d
ahead. I next set my current date and status date in Project->Information to
the next calendar date. On my second day, I complete only 0.5d of work and
my completion date pushes the duration of the task ahead another 0.5d which
should make my duration field equal to 6d but the duration field remains at
5d.

If I do only 0.5d of work each day, my task duration should grow from 5d to
10d. Instead my duration field remains at 5d and my final SV is 0.

Can anyone tell me why my duration does not grow and my SV does not reflect
a blown schedule?

I think if you look at your Gantt chart, you'll see your task has
been split several times. Project is assuming you only worked 4
hours (8:00 - 12:00) and has moved the remaining work to recommence
the next morning at 8:00.

Have you tried recording actual work per day in either the Task
Usage or Resource Usage view? That method will do what I think you
are seeking. By the end of day 3 with only 12 hours of work
recorded, I show a 6.5 day duration and a negative SV. The
assignment units for the portion of the task with actual work
recorded has dropped to 50% and the actual 4 hours of work has been
spread evenly throughout the entire 8 hour (1day) duration.

Adding to Julie's answer, why should Project assume that if you only did 4
hours worth of work on the first day when 8 was originally scheduled, that
you'll continue doing only 4 hours a day on subsequent days? What if you
original task was Mon thru Fri 8 to 5 - wouldn't it make equal sense to
assume that you only got 4 man-hours of work done on Mon because something
unexpected came up that took time away from the task in question but you got
it cleared off your plate by the end of the day and are now able to work
full-bore on the task now? In that case you'd do Mon 4 hours between 8 and
5, then Tuesday 8 and so forth with the finish only needed to be extended by
half a day on the backside.

My scenario of a task, planned to take 5 days that instead takes 10 days, is
arbitrary. My point is that if, for whatever reason, I only do half what I
plan to do each day, that my 5 day task will take 10 days. Given this, the
duration should move from being 5 days to 10 days and my SV should be hugely
negative and anything but 0.

I should not have to enter anthing manually if all my options are set in
advance and I prefer to only work from my task sheet.

Here's my list of steps:

1) Task set to Fixed Units with a duration of 5 days
2) Tools->Options->Calc has both Move checkboxes checked
3) I have one resource assigned at $125/hr or $1,000/day
4) I set my baseline
5) Each day I set % Work Complete equal to 10% which is only half of what
I planned to do for the day
6) I now see a split task with the planned finish date moving ahead by
half a day.
7) Each day I go to Project->Info and advance the current day and status
day ahead by one day and then I add another 10% of work complete once again
moving the finish day ahead by half a day.

After doing only a half days work for 10 days, I have finally finished my 5
days of work but my duration shows only 5 days whereas my gantt chart shows
duration to be 10 days.

Also, if I am 5 days late why is my SV equal to 0 since I am late by 5 days.

Is the checkbox on the calculation page "Updating Task Status Updates
Resource Status" on or off? For convenience assume the task in your
scenario started Monday, was to end Friday and the default Standard calendar
is in charge. An the first day, when you entered 10% work complete, with it
on it, Project also sets the Actual Duration to 4 hours, 10% of the total.
The resource is 100% so that means he worked 8am to 12 noon, then stopped.
The task splits with the unworked portion moving to restart Tuesday 8am.
When you enter 10% for Tuesday, work again proceeds from 8am to 12 noon and
then stops. (Resource is 100%, remember, so there's a 1:1 correspondence
between work accomplished and time passed.) As of the end of the day
Tuesday Actual Duration is 1 day (not 2 days because at 4 hours working time
per day it takes 2 calendar days to burn-up 1 duration day) and remaining
Duration is 4 days; the remaining work is scheduled to resume Wednesday at
8am. The result is that work is done in the mornings and the afternoons
become non-working time (times inside splits are non-working - the task goes
on 'vacation.') Non-working time does not count for duration so although
the task elapsed time extends for another 5 days plus weekend, the
non-working afternoons are backed out of the duration and so the duration
remains at 5 days, 10 weekdays at 4 working time hours per day.

My "Updating Task Status Updates Resource Status" is checked on.

Again my duration=5d and my single resource at 100% is set at $125/hr or
$1,000/day. My baseline is set. On day one, my BCWS=$1,000, BCWP=0 and
ACWP=0.

I am testing a single task in a new project just to see how things work.

My question here really revolves around SV. If on day one, I set my Actual
Work to 100%, I finish 4 days ahead of schedule with SV being positive
meaning I finished ahead of schedule.

What I want to know is how I can complete only partial work each day, or in
my previous scenario of completing only half of what I need to do for each
day which leaves me finishing 5 days late, where my SV should be negative.
Currently this scenario leaves me with SV=0 at completion which is not true
as I finish 5 days late.

What's happening here?

True. However when you status date = end of day 5 (as
scheduled) you'll see SV = 0. You will still show a Finish Variance
of -4days, but your SV = 0.

Given your scenario above, here's what I see:

End of Day 1:
Actual Work = 4 hours
Status date = end of Day 1
SV = ($500)

End of Day 2:
Actual Work = 8 hours
Status date = end of Day 2
SV = ($1000)

End of Day 3:
Actual Work = 12 hours
Status date = end of Day 3
SV = ($1500)

End of Day 4:
Actual Work = 16 hours
Status date = end of Day 4
SV = ($2000)

End of Day 5:
Actual Work = 20 hours
Status Date = end of Day 5
SV ($2500)

So, at the end of the original duration of 5 days you have a
negative SV, a Finish Variance of 2.5 days.

If you continue on in the same method, each day doing 1/2 of the
original scheduled work and pushing your finish date out, your
schedule variance start to shrink because as you extend the finish
date of the task, you are not increasing the amount of scheduled
work -- therefore your BCWS stays at $5000 while your BCWP continues
to increase as you continue to record work on the task. Again, your
finish variance continues to grow.

"Duration" means something different to Project than it does to you
and me. To project, it's part of a mathematical relation that is
always CONSISTENT for a concrete task:
Duration = Work * Units
This is not the same as the "elapsed time between the start and finish
dates". To complicate things, however, a SUMMARY task will use the
"elapsed time" definition.

To illustrate, add the "BCWS", "BCWP", and "SV" columns to your
table. After I set the Status Date to the first day, I see that the
BCWS = $1000 and the BCWP = $0. After I enter %WorkComplete = 10%, I
see that BCWP = $500 and the schedule variance SV = ($500). The bar
splits and the new elapsed time is 5.5 days. The Duration field is 5
days. Everything seems in order.

One of your notes above said that you see BCWS = $1000 before entering
the work. That's indicative that the baseline is accurate. The fact
that you don't see BCWP = $500 after entering %WorkComplete = 10%
greatly puzzles me. It should work.

I guess SV = 0 in all cases when work for a task is fully complete.

Is there a means of tracking how late (or early) tasks are completed? In my
example, the task was five days later than planned. The task had planned to
take 5 days when it ended up taking 10 days.

For some reason MSP's field named "Actual Duration" was listed as being 5
days when the task took 10 days to complete. The meaning of all of the
fields are most often found to be contrary to what one might find to be in
any way logical.

The "Actual Duration" was 10 days. Is there another field that will give me
the full amount of time that the task took to be completed?

Maybe it's just me, but this seems to be just too hard.

I just shifted my "earned value method" from % Complete to Physical %
Complete and that changed my Actual Duration to the correct amount of extra
time the task took to complete - less time for the split tasks where the
gantt bar jumped ahead when I completed only part of what I planned to
complete for a day. As such, the Actual Duration still does not equal the
difference between the Actual Start and the Actual Finish dates.

If we are talking about the same scenario the actual duration is not
10 days, it's 5. It spanned 10 days but each day was only counted
as 4 hours so still 40 hours = 5 days. You can view start and
finish variance in the Variance table. You can always calculated
difference the actual start and actual finish through a formula in
one of the additional duration fields (Duration1) but the Actual
duration will show 5 days.

That's not the correct actual duration. Actual Duration at completion in
your scenario is 5 days, not 10. Duration is not simply the difference
between Actual Start and Actual Finish as measured by clocks and stationary
store calendars. It's the number of working time MINUTES between start and
end but ONLY those minutes defined as working time count. At 4 hours
working time per day, the resource has to come to work on 10 working days to
work for 5 duration days. Do not confuse duration with elapssed time - they
are not even close to measuring the same thing.

Summary tasks do NOT always report elapsed time correctly. See the thread
starting on 2/6/2009 where I originally asked about work occurring on
weekend tasks. You will see that I solved my particular problem of
displaying the elapsed time by using a formula and a text field. (Sorry I
don't know how to give you a clickable reference to the exchange.)

[mattg1958]

I'm trying to determine how Actual Duration is derived. and this explanation doesn't match what I am seeing.

I have a Task with three Resource.

Task Start
03/30/2010
Task Finish
05/20/2010
Actual Work
21h
Actual Duration
1d

The timephase Actual Work for the Resources, starting on 3/30 is:

Res1 0 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 3 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 3
Res2 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1
Res3 (no Actual Work)

If the Actual Duration is the actual work hours, I would expect that it would be 2.6d. If it were the working days from the start, I would expect it to be 8d.

How is Actual Duration 1d?