Advanced Microsoft Project Help - Need help on having multiple resources for one task

Copper Contributor

I'm working on building a very detailed MS Project schedule for our around the clock maintenance work in a facility. I've set the project up on a 24 hour 7 day per week schedule and set up working time for a day shift worker (12hr; 7:00AM to 7:00PM) and a night shift worker (12hr; 7:00PM to 12:00AM,12:00AM to 7:00AM). I'm wanting to be able to have both resources assigned to the task so that it will automatically assign the work to the appropriate resource based on the start/end date and time. This works well if you know exactly when the work will take place. My problem comes in when I go to change the task time. For example, I have (qty: 2) day shift workers and (qty: 2) night shift workers assigned to the task that has a duration of 2 hours starting at 5:00PM. It shows 4 hours of work for day shift worker and 0 hours of work for night shift worker in the task usage. When I shift the predecessor and it moves the task start/finish time to the night shift, it doesn't shift the work from the day shift worker to the night shift worker. I'm needing to get a overall headcount of workers based on the tasks to provide to maintenance group to hire more people. Is there a way to build this schedule to allow for changes to resources that are on different shifts? It also changes the duration and gives an error sometimes. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

1 Reply
bghall,
Unfortunately what you are looking for is resource optimization and Project does not have that functionality. The resources you assign to any given task are the resources that stay assigned until you change the assignments. If a resource is overallocated then you can try using Project's leveling function to resolve the overallocation but that will not optimize the work.

As far as duration changes, it depends on the task type. If you need task duration to stay the same, then the task type should be set as Fixed Duration.

Hope this helps but I realize its probably not the answer you wanted.
John