Using team assignment pool with milestone tasks

Question

Hello,
Can someone explain to me why the team assignment pool functionality is only available for tasks with non-zero durations?  In other words, any milestone task cannot be self-assigned using this feature.  When one attempts to do so, the "One
or more of the specified tasks could not be re-assigned ..." error is observed and the self-assignment is not processed. 
However adding a duration of 1 minute to the task solves the problem and the functionality works perfectly. 
Is there any reason for this restriction?  In practice it is often useful to allow team members to update milestone dates.  In fact, the ability to do so is available without issue if the assignment is performed via MS Project Pro rather then as
a team assignment in PWA.
Is this a bug, or is there a grand design behind it?
Thanks,
Boris

Answer 1

Hi Boris,
We are just non-microsoft volunteers here on those Project forums thus have to clear asnwer for your question.
That being said, a milestone should not represent an activity resources are working on. Moreover they have a 0 duration, thus they don't trigger any work. Reporting on itmes that don't work, neither progress does'nt make sense in my point of view. A milestone
is a only the result of an activity, like a deliverable. 
Finally, the project manager is accountable for updating milestones since he'll be reporting to his board on those milestones he owns (and not the team member). I'd said that team member will send the task progress to the project manager with eventually
the remaining work, which will update the milestones dates in case the PM approves. In my opinion, this should be done that way. 
Hope this helps,
Guillaume Rouyre, MBA, MCP, MCTS |