Estimated (task field)

Data Type     Yes/No

Entry Type     Calculated or entered

Description    The Estimated field indicates whether the task's duration is flagged as an estimate. The Estimated field contains Yes if the task duration is an estimate and No if it is a set duration. You can change whether a duration is estimated or set by choosing Yes or No in the Estimated field.

How Calculated    By default, when you first add a new task, it is given an estimate of one day, and will appear in the Duration field as "1 day?". At any time, if you add a question mark (?) after any duration in the Duration field, the duration is an estimate. If you remove the question mark, the duration is considered set.

Best Uses    Add the Estimated field to a task sheet when you want to view or change whether a task duration is estimated. Add this field when you want to sort, filter, or group for whether tasks have estimated durations. Sorting, filtering, or grouping based on the Estimated field can be helpful when you want all the estimated duration tasks to be displayed together so you can change the estimates to set durations.

Example    You're building a new schedule using estimated task durations, and you've been entering set durations as you receive input from the resources. You want to see which of the tasks still have estimated durations. Add the Estimated field to the Entry table of the Gantt Chart view.

Remarks    You can also indicate whether a task has an estimated duration in the Task Information dialog box.

By default, when you first add a new task, it is given an estimate of one day. If you don't want this one-day duration to be an estimate, you can change this option in the Project Options dialog box.

Also by default, a question mark appears with any estimated duration in the Duration field. You can hide the question marks for estimated durations in the Project Options dialog box.

You can also filter for tasks with estimated durations by using the Tasks With Estimated Durations filter.