Forum Discussion
Assign a resource to a task after they have finished working on a parallel task
Let's say we have two tasks:
- Task A (80 hrs)
- Task B (40 hrs)
And two resources - Jane and John.
Both tasks start at the same time, with Jane working on Task A and John working on Task B.
With auto-scheduling and the default 5 working day week, Task A will show as 10 days and Task B will show as 5 days.
Now I want to assign John to Task A once he's completed Task B, so that he can help Jane out and get the work finished faster while making optimal use of available resource. Naturally my expected outcome is that the "Duration" of Task A then becomes 7.5 days. Is there any way to achieve this?
For context, here's my starting position:
This seems so simple and seems like the sort of thing Project is made for, so it's sending me a little mad that I can't seem to find any resources that explain how I might tackle this.
1 Reply
bobscompany,
Well, it is reasonably simple. Here's what you do. The easiest approach is to set both tasks as Fixed Work.
- Assign each resource to their respective task at 100%
- Update Project (Project > Status Group) as "complete through" the finish date of John's task. That will do two things, it will show Jane as working her task up through the date of the completions of John's task and it will of course show John's task as 100% complete.
you don't need to but it might be easier to see how it works by switching to the Task Usage view.
3. Assign John at 100% to Jane's task. It will look like this
Hope this helps.
John
