Resource Availability not behaving as (I at least) expected

[Keith Loewen]

I have a fixed work task of 80 hours. Assigned one person at 100% so the
duration is 2 weeks. Assigned a second person at 100% so duration moves to 1
week. Perfect. Used Resource Availability to set up a second person with 0%
availability for the first week and 100% availability for the second week.
Inserted a second 80 hour fixed work task that starts after the second person
has 100% availability. Assigned both resources, duration is 1 week.
Perfect. HOWEVER, if I assign the second person to the first task so that
availability starts in the middle of the 2 week task duration, MS Project
assigns at 0% for the entire 2 week task. I expected that the person would
be assigned at 0% for the first week and 100% for the second week when they
become available at 100%, thereby reducing the duration from 2 weeks to 1.5
weeks. What am I missing?

 

[Dave]

I don't get the effect you describe. When I add the second person with
the availability profile you describe, the task shortens to one week
with the second person overallocated 100% during that week. That is
what I would have expected to happen.

From that position, you can use levelling to make Project respect the
resource availability. However, by adding the two resources in the way
you have, you have evenly shared out the work between them. Different
levelling settings produce diffrent effects.

It is important to note that Project will not optimise the ratios of
work assigned to each resource. If you want to shorten the duration of
the task in that fashion, you will have to to it manually and assign 60
hours to the first resource and 20 to the second (reflecting that the
first works flat out for the first week and that the remaining work is
then shared).

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

Assignment units do not automatically adjust to availability (Max Units).
Hope this helps,