Schdeuling resources

E

Eddy Recio

Some co-workers and I are experiencing difficulties with
the Resource calendars and predicting the duration, work,
and units.

The main problem is with personnel that work weekends and
either more than the average resource's 8 hours a day,
not to mention if they work only partially on weekends.

For example, we are boggled by unpredictability of the
scheduling. Let say the "project calendar" is 8-5, 8
hours a day, 5 days a week.

If we create a task that is fixed duration and assigned a
resource that works 11 hrs on weekdays (6:30 am -12 pm
and 12:30 - 6:30 pm) and 5.5 (6:30 am -12 pm)on
Saturday, and the task last 4 days and starts on a
Monday. What should this task have for "Work", if
duration is fixed and the resource is set to 100% units?

Please help clarify, we are becoming increasingly
frustrated.

Thanks in advance,

Eddy
 
J

Jan De Messemaeker

Hi Eddy,

First of all, you should know that whatever option you set, Project
calculates Duration and Work in MINUTES.
As you may notice yourself from your calendar variations, it is not easy for
Project to decide what is "a day".
It isn't necessarily "24 hours elapsed time".
Instead, Project asks you to define what it is in your mind in Tools,
Options, Calendar.
Suppose it is set to 8 hours (to me more precise, 480 minutes)

Now you create a task that says duration 4 days, starting Friday 8:00, to be
based on a calendar Fri 7 working hours, Sat 5, Sun 4, Mon 8, Tue 8.
That job will end on Tuesday, end of working hours since then the 32 hours
of working time are "covered": 7+5+4+8+8=32
Never mind it takes 5 "real days", Project totally ignores that. A "day" is
what you define in Tools, Options, Calendar.

And the easiest bit of all: When assignment units are 100%, Work=duration
(in minutyes or hours of course! beware of "day"!)

HTH
Jan De Messeemaeker Project MVP
 
E

Eddy Recio

Ok, great that clears up some questions.
However, if a resource starts their day before the
Project calendar start time, we are still noticing the
task starts at the Project calendar start time and not
when the resources start time should be. And the most
inconsistent thing is that on the second day of the task
the resource does start at their start time instead of
the calendar, which is what we would like for all days of
the task.

Also, there are certain tasks that no matter the
circumstances, the proceeding needs to start the day
after. This would be the case whether the task linked to
it finishes at 5 pm or at 9 am, the proceeding must
always start the following day. Lags are not able to
fulfill these conditions and elapsed is basically the
same. Any ideas on how we can get this to happen?
 
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