I'm new to Project and struggling to make happen in MS Project what I believe I need. Basically, all of my tasks are geographically disparate (think: team service calls at many different locations around the city). Because all tasks are spread out and each one has start/stop and practical setup time to get started, there seems to be no point to a team traveling across the city to a new location if there is only X amount of time left in the workday.
So…IF there is only X amount of time left in the day then I need the next task to begin the next workday. I don’t think the "dummy task" on alternate nightshift calendar will work b/c as the project progresses and the schedule changes the same tasks will not always be the one at the end of the day and tied to a dummy task.
For example:
– 8 hr/wkday
– tasks have estimated durations based on highly variant or incomplete variables about level of work effort (investigation required to get better schedule input information is cost-prohibitive)
– ACTUAL duration may wind up being +/- 40+%
– Real world ACTUAL, if there is only a couple hours left to finish a location at the end of the day, my people will stay very late to get it done and stay on schedule, but that obviously cannot happen all the time b/c of burnout. If they get done with a location way ahead of schedule, we are not always able to move to the next location if scheduled for the following day.
Task 1 – 3.5 hours
Task 2 – 4 hours
Task 3 – 2.5 hours
Task 4 – 5 hours
Task 5 – 1 hour
Project would schedule these to take 2 days. But b/c of associated travel costs, setup time, etc it doesn’t make sense for us to move to Task 3 with half an hour left in the day, nor task 5. Given that there is less than 1 hour left in the work day I’d like Task 3 and Task 5 to start on the next workday.
Is there a way for Project to do that programmatically? If not, and if I’m just not seeing the proper way to construct a project of this type in MS Project, can you please help me? Thank you!
So…IF there is only X amount of time left in the day then I need the next task to begin the next workday. I don’t think the "dummy task" on alternate nightshift calendar will work b/c as the project progresses and the schedule changes the same tasks will not always be the one at the end of the day and tied to a dummy task.
For example:
– 8 hr/wkday
– tasks have estimated durations based on highly variant or incomplete variables about level of work effort (investigation required to get better schedule input information is cost-prohibitive)
– ACTUAL duration may wind up being +/- 40+%
– Real world ACTUAL, if there is only a couple hours left to finish a location at the end of the day, my people will stay very late to get it done and stay on schedule, but that obviously cannot happen all the time b/c of burnout. If they get done with a location way ahead of schedule, we are not always able to move to the next location if scheduled for the following day.
Task 1 – 3.5 hours
Task 2 – 4 hours
Task 3 – 2.5 hours
Task 4 – 5 hours
Task 5 – 1 hour
Project would schedule these to take 2 days. But b/c of associated travel costs, setup time, etc it doesn’t make sense for us to move to Task 3 with half an hour left in the day, nor task 5. Given that there is less than 1 hour left in the work day I’d like Task 3 and Task 5 to start on the next workday.
Is there a way for Project to do that programmatically? If not, and if I’m just not seeing the proper way to construct a project of this type in MS Project, can you please help me? Thank you!