Task w/ Multiple Resource - schedule around availability

[KevDev]

I have a task that requires two resources to work concurrently. It is
series of presentations that need to occur within a single span of fiv
days. Both resources must be available to attend each and ever
presentation within that 5 day period.

There is work that must be complete prior to presentations, therefor
this task has a predecessor. It so happens that one of the resource
that must perform the task is away on vacation when the predecesso
finishes. Even though the vacation is entered as an exception in th
calendar of the resource, MS Project still schedules the presentatio
task to start right after the predecessor completes, when only one o
the resources is available.

What do I need to do to have the task scheduled asap, but only when bot
resources are available

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

This is explained in detail in an article I wrote about it on my website
http://users.online.be/prom-ade
and click through to Microsoft Project: an abstract

In short, DO NOT enter the absence as a holiday but as a task (with a mucst
start on constraint). Then do Resource Leveling because leveling has an
option to keep the reosurces working simultaneously.

HTH

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
+32 495 300 620
For availability check:
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/Calendar.pdf

 

[KevDev]

Jan:

Thank you. Your solution not only worked for me, it is ingenious.

The task that needs both resources is now scheduled at a time when bot
resources are available. As an added bonus, the non-working tim
appears in any task based reports. Therefore, it will become part o
our periodic review of the plan, and will be better maintained.

Thanks so much,
Kevi

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Thanks, Kevin.

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
+32 495 300 620
For availability check:
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/Calendar.pdf

 

[Steve House]

Careful though - the man-hours your resource is spending on the holiday is
now included in the project's total man-hours even though it not really work
performed in driving the project's deliverables and similarly, the
resource's salary costs for those man-hours is included in the total budget.
Jan and I would have to disagree on desirablility of this method since IMHO
it artificially inflates both the work and budget for the project, adding
both work hours and costs attributed of that work into them when neither
actually exist. It's a handy way of adjusting a schedule but it severely
distorts everything else except the timeline. I tend to believe that tasks
in the project schedule should be strictly limited to physical activities
spent working on project deliverables. Time off such as holidays,
vacations, and days off, and time spent waiting for something to happen such
as the reciept of an approval, etc, are by definition non-activity or
non-productive activity. IMHO such factors should never be represented as
tasks since to do so implies something productive is happening in them when
in fact it's not.