Real Life Practical Scheduling Constraint

[Dominic]

Here is a poser.

Is there any way to set a constraint on a task so that it can start on any
workday but only at the default start time on the working day? I was asked
this recently in order to address a real life situation casting a concrete
floorslab - it is a specific task can be done on any working day but given
the nature of the task once it has started it must be worked on
continuously, therefore having it scheduled to start part way through a
working day is not workable. Any suggestions? I scratched my head on this
one and could not think of a way to model it in the standard tool, I guess a
bit of VBA might do the job.

It was the first time I had been asked this question in 11 and a half years
of delivering Microsoft Project training and on reflection I think it could
possibly apply in industries other than construction and as such might be a
useful feature for future releases - again any thoughts or observations
welcome.


--
Dominic Moss

Projectability - helping people acheive more with Microsoft Project and
Project Server

www.projectability.co.uk

 

[Jack Dahlgren]

This is a perfect occasion for a start "milestone" with a strictly defined
task calendar which is a predecessor to the task.
Between the concrete pouring activity, set a one minute task (I think it
needs some duration for a task calendar to work, but I may be wrong) with a
calendar which only lets it to be performed at a time just before the work
All the concrete pouring predecessors should connect to this task. So as
soon as they are all done, the one minute task can be performed and then as
the day starts, the concrete task will be scheduled.

-Jack Dahlgren

 

[JulieS]

Hello Dominic,

There is a workaround which involves a custom calendar, and a one minute
task set as the predecessor to the task you want to schedule. Create a
calendar in which the working time for all working days (Monday through
Friday) is after the standard time. (For example 5:01 pm to 5:02 pm.)
Insert a task before the task you wish to schedule and set the duration
as 1 min. Assign the task as the predecessor to your task and assign
the one minute calendar to the task. Now the 1min task can only occur
based upon the calendar assigned, forcing the successor task to always
start at the beginning of the next working day.

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie
Project MVP

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for the FAQs and additional information
about Microsoft Project

 

[Dominic]

Jack & Julie,

Thanks for your insight - your suggestion is a neat "work-around" and I
guess from a scheduling purpose it does what is required. However the
requirement is not unusual and I was wondering how feasible it would be to
have an option to "only start at default start time" - I would be interested
to hear your views.

 

[JulieS]

Hello Dominic,

You're welcome for the suggestion and thanks for the feedback. To your
question about such a feature, I agree, it would be a nice addition.
There have been several suggestions through the years for a number of
features -- multi-level undo, ability to restrict scheduling of a task
so that all resources must work together, etc. We can always look
forward to future releases and see what suggestions have been
implemented in the release. Project 2007 gave us the multi-level undo --
who knows what the next release will bring.

Julie
Project MVP

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for the FAQs and additional information
about Microsoft Project

 

[Mike Glen]

Hey, Dominic, why not tell Microsoft direct? Look here:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/project/default.aspx and there's an
opportunity for feed back at the bottom left of the page.


Mike Glen
Project MVP