Export to MS Project - Durations all 1 Day

[robbp]

Hi,

I am trying to export an amode project to MS Project however all durations are exported as 1 day. The start dates are all correct, however the finish dates are not.

In amode I have manually set the start and finish dates to reflect required task durations, however I have not assigned resources (not worried about them for this project - the timeline is most important). The durations are shown correctily in the amode gantt view, just not in the MS project file. My guess is that when exporting to MS Project, the finish date is calculated using the "Work Time" data in amode, which appears to default to 8 hours, rather than the entered finish dates. Is there anyway I can force the export to MS project to use the entered finish dates or do I have to enter a "Work Time" which refects the required duration (lucky I have not problem multiplying things by 8 )?

cheers,
Rob.

[John England]

Hi

Could you please send me a file which is causing you problems? Naturally please remove any sensitive information. I can then get our technical people to look at the problem as I cannot personally answer it. Please send to my personal email: jce@mindsystems.com.au

[robbp]

Hi again,

had a quick play with Amode V2 to see if this had been resolved - doesn't look like it has and, even worse, it looks like relationships are no longer being exported . Is anyone else having problems exporting to MS Project?

(PS: I am using MS Project 2007 on Windows 7 64bit).

cheers,
Rob.

[Uli]

Just a quick observation related to this topic:

I imported an MS project file into Amode with the result that the project end date changed.
This is scary and I am afraid that I can not use Amode for pre/post-processing of MS Project Files.
The test file included a real project with more than 350 lines and a significant number of FS dependencies.

Here the results, note that I did not introduce any changes between import and export :

1. Initial MS Project file Test.mpp:
Project Start Date: 05/06/2009
Project End Date: 20/10/2009

2. Import into Amode:
Project Start Date: 05/06/2009
Project End Date: 16/09/2009

3. After export to MS Project file Test1.mpp:
Project Start Date: 05/06/2009
Project End Date: 12/10/2009

[Uli]

Just a quick observation related to this topic:

I imported an MS project file into Amode with the result that the project end date changed.
This is scary and I am afraid that I can not use Amode for pre/post-processing of MS Project Files.
The test file included a real project with more than 350 lines and a significant number of FS dependencies.

Here the results, note that I did not introduce any changes between import and export :

1. Initial MS Project file Test.mpp:
Project Start Date: 05/06/2009
Project End Date: 20/10/2009

2. Import into Amode:
Project Start Date: 05/06/2009
Project End Date: 16/09/2009

3. After export to MS Project file Test1.mpp:
Project Start Date: 05/06/2009
Project End Date: 12/10/2009

[John England]

This was the answer I received from our technical department:

This was raised some time ago.

This issue relates mostly how project works, not Amode. In Project's Import API, the amount of work time in a project determines the start and end. The concept of having a work time different in size to the actual start and end time is something not many project management tools support. In Amode, the work time for a project and start and ends today may well be 8 hours, but we also give the option of changing that in case you need to indicate more or less effort (perhaps 2 people are involved and the actual work time is 12 hours but you plan to get it done in just one day).

The Project API has a problem with recognising this under 8 hours. So we need to remember that while we support exports to Project, like any other export it is just a utility, not a core function. The program is never designed to work in tandem with competing products, and in such cases as these, when there is a clash in agreeable logic, of course the core logic in our project management module will prevail.

[Uli]

Thanks for the reply which is disappointing for me.
I checked and could confirm that importing and exporting data between MS Project files and Mindmanager works perfectly, there is no change of project end dates.
MS Project is and will be the standard tool for project management for many companies out there.
I hope that the Amode design team will fix this issue shortly since the project export/import feature is pretty much useless yet.

[Mindsystems Support]

Hi Rob,

John asked me to place a comment about the MS Project import and export. I think in this particular case you should address the problem via the Helpdesk because it seems like it may be unique to the file/setup or project file itself...but it is very hard to analyse on Forum comments as they are less formal and a bit more speculative. Our helpdesk response is fast any conclusive results are then published for a wider audience. It also means you can share you data files securely.

I also want clarify is why the Project import/export was placed into the system. I totally agree that MS Project is the standard for many companies, but it is important to understand what gap Amode is meant to fill. It is not designed to be complimentary to Project, it is designed to be a more accessible (from UI perspective) alternative. Amode is not really designed or intended to be a intermediary handling/process tool for Microsoft Project files. There are, and will continue to be rough edges with any import and export process because we are being asked to keep up with API changes of other companies, where as they don't need to make any change at all.

The imports/exports are there to allow a user to migrate a project in, with the intention of switching to the Amode platform. This was done in response to a very strong ground swell of feedback from people who wanted to get away from Project but also did not like the cruder JCVGantt interface. The option to export is there out of good practice if the user needs to send to a MS Project User.

If we can track the exact issues in your files, if there are adjustments we can make in the next development round we will do it, but I just wanted you to understand the basis of our design principle on MS Project. This is mainly so false expectations are not setup or to avoid it being relied upon in the wrong way.

I will watch out for your ticket in the Helpdesk and take personal priority care of it.

Thanks,

Alex

[Uli]

Thanks for your response and support with this matter.

Just a thought I want to add regarding your statement:
"It is not designed to be complimentary to Project, it is designed to be a more accessible (from UI perspective) alternative. Amode is not really designed or intended to be a intermediary handling/process tool for Microsoft Project files."

I agree that it is more accessible than MS Project and probably also more accessible than Mindmanager with add-ons,
But I am bound to MS Project in the corporate environment - like probably many others - and this is the reason that I need it as intermediary handling/process tool.
The final schedule would need to be exported to MS project and this works only if an Import and Export from and to MS Project would not change start and end dates of tasks.

I did some basic tests and it looks like the root cause of the issue is that MS Project works in days and Amode works in in hours.
Assuming a day starts at 8:00 and finishes at 17:00 with a 1 hour break and an 8 hour working day, some tasks would start at the end of the same day and not at the beginning of the next day after an import into Amode.

An easy way to reproduce this behaviour is to create a schedule in MS Project by putting a couple of tasks in sequence and import this into Amode:

Example: Task1 = 1day, Task2 = 2days with a sequence "Task1" then "Task 2" then "End Milestone"

Behaviour after import into Amode:
Task 1 starts 8:00 and finishes 17:00 on the 1st day which is correct.
But Task 2 starts 17:00 on the first day and not 8:00 on the 2nd day as I would have expected.
Even worse, Task 2 finishes then 14:00 on the 3rd day and not 17:00 as I would have expected.
Finally the end milestone is 14:00 on the 3rd day and not 17:00 which is not an effort of 3 days or 24 hours.


Conclusion:
This seems to be an internal effort calculation issue in Amode and not a project setup issue.

I will raise this with the help desk as you proposed.

[Mindsystems Support]

We have put the Project Import/Export in for review and testing. It could well be a calculation problem in terms of how it handles data coming in from Project. The problem is the bench mark, which assumes the user will primarily design and manage the project in Amode works correctly according to Amode's logic. So it is valid to observe a problem with how Amode is managing the Project data, but if it comes to the crunch and it is Amode's core logic vs what project needs, unfortunatley Project will be the loser because we premise of the application is as a primary project tool, not a Project addon.

Having said that, we are going to do everything we can to fix any translation issues. Thank you for putting so much effort into testing this, it is greatly appreciated by Mindsystems and the Amode user base