How do I prevent overallocation of a resource for tasks < 0.5day

[Jonathan Hand]

This can be reproduced very simply by creating a new blank project then
creating 2 half day tasks assigned to the same resource. Both tasks get
scheduled to run simultaneously and generate a 200% allocation of the
resource.

If you then add a third task of hald a day with the same resource then the
three tasks are scheduled to run sequentially as you would expect.

So why does it go wrong with just 2 tasks and are there any work arounds?

 

[Jonathan Hand]

I'm running Project Standard 2003 (11.1.2004.1707.15)SP1 by the way.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Jonathan,

You must have Automatic leveling on with the day as granularity.
When you have the two tasks leveling will not see any overallocation on the
day because there is nout more tahn a day's work.
The 200% peak units only exist in the morning.
A third task will create an overallocation and leveling will push it into
the next day.

You can avoid this by taking a lower granularity in Leveling (hour or
minute)
My advice on top of that is that you read all about leveling especially when
you have automatic leveling in.
HTH

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project MVP
+32 495 300 620
http://users.online.be/prom-ade

I'm running Project Standard 2003 (11.1.2004.1707.15)SP1 by the way.

arounds?

 

[Jonathan Hand]

Thanks Jan. Thats fixed it.

I'm familiar with levelling concepts from Corel Timeline - the granularity
control is a new one on me though!

What are the advantages of setting a coarse granularity here?

regards
Jonathan

 

[Steve House [MS Project MVP]]

I can't think of any real advantage to a coarse granularity except one might
not be worried about overallocations of less than a day, preferring to focus
on the "big picture" and let the resources figure out on their own how to
resolve scheduling conflicts of less than a day's duration. But I'd
definiltey turn OFF automatic leveling - only triggering the tool when
you're ready for it to do it

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Jonathan,

Curiously enough there is one case leveling week by week does a little
better than day by day, namely when two tasks each use a resource say 60%;
day by day will produce a duration of 1,6 days, week by week of 1,2 days.

But for that... as usual, Steve has the answer.
HTH