Defining Task Duration

This article will help you understand how best to use Duration, Start Date and Finish Date columns.  Start with the video below:

What is Duration?

Duration refers to the length of time a project task is expected to take.

Inspire Planner supports the following Duration units:

• hours (h)
• days (d) - default
• weeks (w)
• months (mo)
   

To define the Duration unit, simply append the letter that represents your desired duration unit. For example, '1w' to represent 1 week or '2h' to represent 2 hours. The default Duration unit is in days so if you simply enter a number without a unit, Inspire Planner will interpret the duration in days.

Define Task Duration

You can define the Duration of a task by simply entering a value under the Duration column along with your desired duration unit. Double click on the blank cell beside the task under the Duration column and enter the duration. You can use the up and down arrows to increase or decrease duration.

When you define a task duration, you will notice that the Finish Date automatically adjusts according to the Start Date and the Duration you specified.

Alternatively, if you define a Start Date and Finish Date, the Duration automatically populates based on the number of days between the Start and Finish Dates. 

If the duration unit is set to hours (h), the Finish Date will adjust to the following day based on the number of working hours defined in Project Settings (Project Settings can be accessed using the Gear Icon in the Gantt Chart toolbar). The Define Start and End Time of Workday in Project Settings determines the working hours within a workday.
 

To create Milestones, set the task duration to 0 days. Milestones display in Portfolios.

When working with parent and child tasks, the Duration, Start Date, Finish Date of parent tasks will be auto-calculated as the summary of all child tasks.  Since these values are calculated from child tasks, they are not editable. 

Please note the following: 

• You need to define the Task Start Date, Finish Date and Duration for child tasks in order for the roll-up on the Parent Task to work properly.
   
• Milestones account for 1% of the % Complete of a Parent Task. This means that if you have 5 child tasks and 1 is a milestone, when you mark 4 out of the 5 complete but the milestone task is still open, the % Complete at the Parent Task will display at 99%. Even if you have multiple milestones under the same Parent Task, they all only account for 1%.
   
• Milestones are not included when % Complete is calculated at the Project Level since it only includes tasks with a duration.