Insert a task within an existing task in progress?

[Joe]

Is there any way to have a task interrupt an existing task, then resume the
task that was in progress when the new task is complete? For example, I am
painting a room that will take 5 days. I started this task and after the 2
days of work, there is an emergency to paint another room at another
location. This task will take 2 days. I want to stop the current painting
job, go to the other paining job, finish that job (in 2 days), then come back
to my original paint job. I want to be able to have the dependency of
resuming the original paint job when the emergency paint job is complete.
Can this be done? Realizing I already started the original paint job.

 

[John]

Is there any way to have a task interrupt an existing task, then resume the
task that was in progress when the new task is complete? For example, I am
painting a room that will take 5 days. I started this task and after the 2
days of work, there is an emergency to paint another room at another
location. This task will take 2 days. I want to stop the current painting
job, go to the other paining job, finish that job (in 2 days), then come back
to my original paint job. I want to be able to have the dependency of
resuming the original paint job when the emergency paint job is complete.
Can this be done? Realizing I already started the original paint job.

Joe,
There are various ways to do it, some may work better than others.

One way is to split the first painting task and then set a 2 day delayed
Start for the second task and a 2 day split on the first. However, this
approach is more complex and doesn't offer much flexibility, in my
opinion.

You could probably also set priorities and then use leveling to jockey
the tasks around but again this is more complex.

Probably the easiest and best method is to break the first painting job
into two tasks. Insert the Actual Finish column into your view and set
it to be the date when you completed 2 days worth of effort on the first
room. Then create a new task for the second room and link it to the
first in a simple Finish-to-Start relationship. Finally, create the
second part of the first task as in independent third task and link it
to the completion of the second. If it is more visually descriptive you
can show the three painting tasks as follows:
1. Paint Room 1 at jobsite "A" - first part
2. Paint Room 1 at jobsite "A" - second part
3. Paint Room 1 at jobsite "B"
with a link sequence of:
1 > 3 > 2

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

This is resource leveling.
Enter the second task with a higher priority and given the right leveling
parameters it will schedule the 2 tasks exactly as you describe.
Resource overallocations should be handled by leveling, it is made for
exactly that.
HTH