(Refer to the previous post for a detailed procedure on how to create a Hammock Task).
In many situations, you want to charge a resource across working days but you want to charge his/her expenses across calendar days.
Example: We have an engineer working for 8 days, starting on a Monday. The engineer will be staying in a hotel where the cost per night is $200.
During this period there is one weekend. However, if the engineer starts work on Thursday, we will have 2 weekends. Secondly, the duration of his/her work might change, so the number of weekends cannot be known in advance.
- If we use Material or Cost Resources for Hotel Nights, these will be charged for 8 days only. Remember both Material and Cost Resources do not have calendars, so we cannot force weekends upon them.
- If a parallel Task is created to which we assign Material or Cost Resources, we can use elapsed duration. Two problems with this approach. First: we have to specify the duration of the parallel task which defeats the purpose of our work. Second: Microsoft Project will charge 24 hours per day and for 8 consecutive days.
There is no direct way to force Microsoft Project to charge Hotel Nights across the calendar period.
Please download the PDF file that shows the solution to the above case (Click here).
Also, the previous post shows a detailed procedure on how to create a Hammock Task (Click here).