Work fields

The Work field shows the total amount of time scheduled on a task for all assigned resources, the total amount of time to which a resource is scheduled on all assigned tasks, or the total amount of time scheduled for a resource on a task. The timephased versions of these fields show values distributed over time.

There are several categories of Work fields.

Data Type    Duration

Work (task field)

Entry Type    Calculated or entered

How Calculated    Microsoft Office Project calculates total task work as the sum of the work that all assigned resources are to perform on a task. This is based on the assignment span, the number of resources assigned, and the assignment units for the assigned resources. Work includes actual work and remaining work, as well as overtime work.

Best Uses    Edit the Work field for a task when you want to change the amount of work needed to complete a task.

Example    The "Write proposal" task has 40 hours of work assigned to Chris. Of these total work hours, 8 hours are actual work and 32 hours are remaining work.

Remarks    If you type a value in the Work field for a task, Project divides the work you enter among the assigned resources.

Work (resource field)

Entry Type    Calculated

How Calculated    Microsoft Office Project calculates resource work as the sum of all work the resource is scheduled for on all assigned tasks.

Best Uses    In any resource sheet, add the Work field for a resource when you want to review or filter for the total amount of work that a resource is assigned. This field can be particularly useful when comparing workloads among resources or estimating resource costs.

Example    You notice that Sean seems to be continuously overworked while Chris seems to be underutilized in the project. You want to analyze whether the workloads are really uneven so that you can improve the balance of assignments. You add the Work field to the Resource Sheet view to compare the total workloads of the two resources.

Work (assignment field)

Entry Type    Calculated or entered

How Calculated    Microsoft Office Project calculates total assignment work based on the assignment span and the assignment units for the assigned resource. Work includes actual work and remaining work, as well as overtime work.

Best Uses    Edit the Work field for an assignment when you want to change the amount of time a resource works on a task. Add the Work field to the Task Usage or Resource Usage view when you want to edit, display, or filter for assignment work information.

Example    The "Write proposal" task has 32 hours of actual work and 8 hours of remaining work assigned to Chris. There are 40 hours of total work on this task assigned to Chris.

Remarks    The amount of work calculated by Project also depends on the assignment units for the assigned resource. The span of an assignment is multiplied by the assignment units to calculate the amount of work. For example, if a resource with a 100 percent assignment unit is assigned to a task with a one-day duration, the amount of work is eight hours. If a resource with a 50 percent assignment unit is assigned to the same task, the amount of work is four hours. And if a resource with a 200 percent assignment unit is assigned to the same task, the amount of work is 16 hours.

Work (task-timephased field)

Entry Type    Calculated or entered

How Calculated    Microsoft Office Project calculates the timephased work on a task as the sum of the work for all assigned resources. This is based on the assignment span, the number of resources assigned, and the assignment units for the assigned resources. Work includes actual work and remaining work, as well as overtime work, distributed over time.

Best Uses    Add the Work field to the timephased portion of the Task Usage view when you want to display or edit work information for a task over time.

Example    The "Write proposal" task has 40 hours of work assigned to Chris. Of these total work hours, 8 hours are actual work and 32 hours are remaining work. The timephased fields show this work distributed as 10 hours each for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Remarks    If you type a value in the Work field for a task, Project divides the work you enter among the assigned resources.

Work (resource-timephased field)

Entry Type    Calculated

How Calculated    Microsoft Office Project calculates the sum of all work for which the resource is scheduled on all assigned tasks, distributed over time.

Best Uses    In the timephased portion of the Resource Usage view, add the Work field when you want to review resources' total work on all assigned tasks over a period of time. This field can be particularly useful when comparing workloads among resources.

Example    You notice that Sean seems to be continuously overworked while Chris seems to be underutilized in the project. You want to analyze whether the workloads are uneven so that you can improve the balance of assignments. You add the Work field to the timephased portion of the Resource Usage view to compare workloads for the two resources. You see that Sean has 12 hours of work scheduled each day for the next 2 weeks, while Chris has 6 hours of work each day.

Work (assignment-timephased field)

Entry Type    Calculated or entered

How Calculated    Microsoft Office Project calculates the timephased work based on the assignment span and the assignment units for the assigned resource. Work includes actual work and remaining work, as well as overtime work, distributed over time.

Best Uses    Add the Work field to the timephased portion of the Task Usage or Resource Usage view when you want to display or edit work information for assignments over days, weeks, or months, for example.

Example    The "Write proposal" task has 32 hours of actual work and 8 hours of remaining work assigned to Chris. There are 40 hours of total work on this task assigned to Chris. The timephased fields show this work distributed as 10 hours each for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Remarks    The amount of work calculated by Project also depends on the assignment units for the assigned resource. The span of the resource is multiplied by the assignment units to calculate the amount of work. For example, if a resource with a 100 percent assignment unit is assigned to a task with a one-day duration, the amount of work is eight hours. If a resource with a 50 percent assignment unit is assigned to the same task, the amount of work is four hours. And if a resource with a 200 percent assignment unit is assigned to the same task, the amount of work is 16 hours.