Reassign or not to reassign

D

D Greer

That is the question.

We have Project 2007 and professional. I have a general questions which
hopefully someone can answer.

We have tasks that have a flow to them. For example to finish a task there
might be an four or five people who need to do part of the task. They only
work on it when the previous person finishes. sort of like an assembly line.
Would you accomplish this by creating one task, then when the first person
finishes, they assign it to the next person in line OR would you create a
task for each part in the assembly line?

I have tested the one task and reassigning it, but everytime I reassign a
task it shows it as complete. Is there something that I am not doign
correctly?

Thank you.
 
B

Ben Howard

Which way you do it depends on which process is most comfortable for you.
Reassigning will work, though I noticed the "complete" flag also (see my blog
on assigning team tasks). For each reassignment, the PM will have to approve
it. My gut feeling would be to create separate tasks, as this more
accurately models the finish to start dependencies you appear to have.

HTH,
 
D

D Greer

Thank you Ben for the reply. One follow-up question.

When tracking actual times would either way work better? Can multiple people
put in their respective times and it all track correctly?
 
B

Ben Howard

As you can only have one person assigned to a task at once (in the 1st
method), only one person can track their time at once. Therefore I suggest
the 2nd method will give you more flexibility.
 
D

D Greer

First Method: Whenever I reassign tasks they close and cannot be modified or
reopened even though they are not completed

Second Method: I would like to automate the flow of tasks. If I split the
task into subtasks to keep from needing to reassign, can I go ahead and
assign each task even though I do not want updates until the previous one has
finished. Meaning if I know who will work on every task of a project, but I
want them to be completed in order do I have to wait to assign the next one
in line until the previous one finishes?
 
B

Ben Howard

1st method; I think there is an issue with the reassignment as it should
certainly work...

2nd method; there is no workflow for this, you could write it though!
Otherwise this is down to process though it could be aided with the aid of a
manual status flag that shows in the assignments view. Note that the PM
would have to update this via the project plan and republish.
 
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