Suggestion: Time spent => estimated time?

[Brendan T]

Hi guys,

another quick question.  In the case where the time tracking is not explicitly used but a task has been completed, is it possible to enter time spent as the estimated time?

thanks

Brendan

[Tony G]

There's no automatic calculation for that. You can apply time to a task via a keystroke. Ctrl-Alt-Shift-A might be the default. This opens the Log Task Time dialog.
What I'd do is to note the actual Estimate and current Spent, use the Log Task Time dialog to apply a negative amount for the current Spent time, save, then do that again and reapply the Estimate time. This creates two transactions in the log and makes it clear what has happened. The Comments field in the Log Task Time dialog can be used to document the credit/debit transactions for future reference.

HTH
T

[.dan.g.]

I think that's an excellent idea but it'll need a preference because I am quite strict about not modifying user data without express permission.

Dan

[Tony G]

I was curious about why this is an excellent idea. The notion of retrofitting the estimate to match the actual seemed awkward. As I thought about it I realized that when we complete a sub-task, it could be irrelevant what the original estimate was, the current estimate for the parent-level project should now reflect whatever the actual time was for completed tasks, so that the difference between the current estimate and the current actual can be used to assess the current estimated remaining time.

With that in mind might it be helpful to put the Est-Actual=Remaining value at the bottom of the window with other stats?

T

[.dan.g.]

The point of the request is that if the person doesn't enter any time (for whatever reason) they can elect to have the time estimate copied to the time spent as a 'better than nothing' guess.

Remember that not everyone is using TDL to produce billable time, someone people might be using it (like me) a lot more loosely and are happy with the time estimate as a best guesstimate of the time spent.

[Tony G]

Ah, I thought he wanted to go in the opposite direction: Set the Estimate, then log actual time, and then when a subtask is complete reset the estimate to be whatever the actual is. This results in a dynamic parent estimate that's refined as the task progresses. Compare that to what we do now, which is to create a static estimate which is used to compare with Actual over the lifetime of the project. It's a valid (and valuable) business case to have both mechanisms in place simultaneously.

T

[.dan.g.]

Further, the time spent would only be set to the time estimate if the time spent is zero at the time of completion.

[Brendan T]

Hi Dan,

yes, this was my meaning.

Brendan