How to Setup Groups of Mutually Exclusive Tasks in MS Project

[williamwinder]

Evening All,

I am trying to programme some road works for 3 separate teams working concurrently. Works will require us to shut either slow or fast lanes of various roads, but never both lanes at once.

Is there a way to use Project and associated resource tools to flag instances where we have accidentally planned to shut both lanes at once?

I’ve considered setting up a common resources for each road and assigning resource to task IDs, but this wouldn’t allow me to undertake multiple tasks in the same lane - e.g. two boreholes in the slow lane of the same road - a perfectly acceptable outcome on site.

Checking for clashes manually will take several days as we have a few hundred investigations and the programme is a live document that will change as works go faster/slower than expected.

Thanks

[#2]

williamwinder,
There is no mutually exclusive option for tasks in Project but you might be able to at least partially achieve what you want via resource overallocation. You mentioned the idea of a common resource not working because it would not allow you to do multiple tasks on the same lane. If you were thinking about a single common resource then that may be true but if each function (e.g. grading, hole boring, etc.) has a common group resource, multiple group resources could be assigned to a "lane". Only one resource needs to show a conflict (overallocation) and that will serve as the "flag" to re-plan.

John