Re: Pushing expected finish when higher priority task is assigned to same resource

[Vicky]

Hi Guus, 

Merlin offers resource leveling as a feature. It does not run automatically though, you can call it by Edit > Resource Leveling > Level All (or Level Selection).

You may check the Resource Leveling settings and select to resource by priority. Enter a higher priority for 'task b' and call resource leveling > level all. 

This will push lower prioritized activity to start after the higher prioritized activity.

You should also know, 

Merlin handles planned values by Resource Leveling and does not change started tasks. So if 'task a' has a actual start date and a '% complete' it won't be pushed by Resource Leveling. 

You can however split the sub tasks. One for the completed part and the other for the remaining work to do. Resource leveling would effect the not yet started sub task. You may want to check a script I've posted on our blog automatically splitting the task into those two parts:

http://www.projectwizards.net/en/macpm/merlin/applescript-split-activity-in-completed-and-remaining-sub-tasks

BTW, do you really need to plan tasks at hour level? An experienced PM told me once, tasks with less then half day durations require more work to manage than they take to complete.  

Best regards, Vicky

On Thursday, May 23, 2013 9:44:39 AM UTC+2, Guus Visser wrote:

Hello all,

I'm test driving Merlin for planning in my freelance business. (All tasks are assigned to the same resource: myself.) In general, it seems to work quite well. However, there are a couple of things I'm wondering about.

One of those is the following. Say I have a task 'A' that takes 3 hours. It's started this morning at 9.00 and scheduled to be finished for 12.00. It might happen that I get a smaller task 'B' of 1 hour that needs to be carried out before 11.00. If I plan it where it should go, the resource leveling system indicates that over utilization cannot be prevented (two hours of work in one hour) and the expected end of the big task remains the same. Would it be possible to have the expected delivery of the main task to be pushed forward to 13.00 and resources levelled so everything fits? (Preferably taking into account the current completion of the bigger task, i.e. if it's one hour ahead, there's no need to reschedule.)

I know that in some cases it's not clear which solution would be best. In that case, it would be nice to get a suggestion of the possible solutions (1. Push deadline of task 'A' forward, 2. Reschedule  task 'B' to a moment after task 'A').

Thanks for all your help!

Guus