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Woody's avatar
Woody
Copper Contributor
Jan 24, 2025

Task assignments and overall task % completion

Hi!

Most probably this might not be possible in MS Project / Project Online, but it doesn’t hurt to check with the Project Community.

We have a task assigned to two resources, and the Project Manager's idea is that either of these two resources can complete the whole task to 100%, not only their 50% of it.

We have tried various combinations of Fixed Duration / Work / Units with and without Effort Driven but haven’t found any combination that works so one of the two resources can complete the task to 100%. It always ends up being half. For example, the resource goes to My Tasks and submits 80%, but in the project, it shows 40%.

We have also looked into using the Team Resource option, but it requires the resources to take an extra step, assigning the task from the Team to themselves, which is not what we are looking for.

Does this requirement have any solution, or should we stop investigating and give up?

Thank you.

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1 Reply

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  • Dale_HowardMVP's avatar
    Dale_HowardMVP
    MVP
    Jan 24, 2025

    Woody --

    There are actually two parts to the solution:  (1) Planning, and (2) Entering Actual Progress.

    Here is an example:  I have a task that requires 40 hours of Work, spread over a Duration of 5 days.  There are two team members, Mickey Cobb and Calvin Baker, who can perform this task.  They both have the skills of a SQL Server DBA.

    1.  Planning - In the Resource Sheet view of the project, I will create a local Generic resource named SQL Server DBA.  Then I will assign the SQL Server DBA to the task with a Units value of 100% and Work of 40h.  If you are using either the Fixe Units of Fixed Work task stype, Microsoft Project will calculate a Duration of 5 days.

    2.  Entering Actual Progress - During a project status meeting, I learned that Mickey Cobb was the team member who actually did the work on this task.  I will select the task in question and display the Assign Resources dialog.  In the dialog, I will select the SQL Server DBA local generic resource, and click the Replace button.  In the Replace Resource dialog, I will select Mickey Cobb and then click the OK button, and then click the Close button in the Assign Resources dialog.  I can now enter task progress on this task using my organization's method for manually entering task progress.

    The above reply is based on the assumption that you are NOT using either the Tasks page or Timesheet page in PWA.  Hope this helps.

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