[wreilly]

Greetings.

Summary:

Four fictional tasks, each set to fixed Effort of 1w, with Actual Start date of 10/5/07, "As early as constraints allow."
- Task 1 Rob ( 25% of 25%) END = 11/2/07; DURATION = 1mo
- Task 2 Rob ( 5% of 25%) END = 2/22/08; DURATION = 5mo
- Task 3 Tom (100% of 100%) END = 10/12/07; DURATION = 1w
- Task 4 Tom ( 5% of 100%) END = 2/22/08; DURATION = 5mo

That Task 2 and Task 4 would reflect the same END Date and DURATION strikes me as unexpected.

Tom works fulltime on this project (Resource:Information Units value = 100%), but Rob I only get one quarter of his time (25%) working on my project.

If I indicate a mere 5% of Tom (Task 4), I expect the "1w" job to take some 20 weeks (10/5/07 to 2/22/08) - O.K.

But I'd have thought that "5% of 25%" for Rob (Task 2), on that same "1w" job, would take, I guess, some four times that (!), like 80 weeks.

Note that the _full_ uses of Rob and Tom (Tasks 1 and 3 respectively) do calculate correctly: Tom (Mr. 100%) at 100% knocks out a 1w job in 1w. Rob (Mr. 25% on my project), at "25%", takes 4w. O.K.


---I think more than the calculations above, I'm just getting wrong the idea of putting Rob into my plan at this "25%" rate for the Resource:Information Units value. Hmmm.

I searched this forum on "assigned amounts" and was led to a few threads of some help ("Durations vs. Effort" etc.), but didn't see anything quite addressing my question.

So as I say, I think I'm misinterpreting how to put resources (Staff) into my OmniPlan who are available to this project less than 100% of their worktime.

Page 51 of the OmniPlan-Manual.pdf, for the "Resource:Information" Inspector reads: "The Units value means how much of the resource is available."

I've been going to the Inspector for Resource:Information and putting into the "Units" field values like 50%, or 25% (for part time assistants or specialists), or even as little as 5% (for finance staff, or a sysadmin) for certain team members.

Then I use the Inspector for Task:Assignments to select a few Staff, and to give the "Assigned Amount" as:
- John Doe, 10% of 100%
- Jane Doe, 10% of 50%
- Tom Doe, 5% of 25%

fwiw, I'm mostly using Effort as fixed (light gray people icon), to see what I get for Duration (dark gray people icon).

So I tinker with these sort of odd %s of %s, and the hours will calculate and all, but something seems very odd about all this (not least the Task 2 and Task 4 Durations noted above).

So, as noted in the Summary above, is 5% of 25% = 5% of 100% (?) (as we seem to see), OR is it indicative (as I would have sort of expected) of a sliver of a sliver, as it were (one fifth of one quarter)?

Really, my main question is less about the calculation oddity and more about whether this is the right way to handle these types of Staff resources (putting in values like 50%, 25% etc.)? I don't believe I've seen this addressed in either the documentation nor any forum threads.

Maybe I'm supposed to philosophically regard all Staff resources as more or less "available" as 100% resources (that is, when they're working on my project), such that I can then work a little more straightforwardly with the numeric values like:

- John Doe, 10% of 100%
- Jane Doe, 10% of 100%
- Tom Doe, 5% of 100%

Please note: I'm not asserting these two "Doe family" diagrams add up to the same hours. That's not my goal here. I just want to talk about that right-hand column value -- should it (better practice) be 100%, simply?

Please note also I'm not concerned here with the Efficiency value (which I just always leave at 100%), ---and I would not expect to be told that that's how I would accomplish getting an effectively lower % for a given Resource (?!).

Final note: I haven't quite puzzled through what the effect (if any?!) might be of the Resources chart, etc., if I start putting my half- and quarter-time staff into OmniPlan as "100%" Units. Seems like I'll somewhere get a Resources report or something that doesn't quite add up to reflect my realities, or something? I'll hold off on puzzling that through further till I hear more... :^)

Thanks for any and all help in understanding this.

Best,
William Reilly
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

[Lizard]

You're right to set the units of resources with other responsibilities as 25% or even 5%. But it sounds like you're confused by the "5% of 25%". It doesn't mean 1/80 of a work week (.5 * .25). It means Rob is only available to work on this project 25% of any given work day, and that this task should occupy 5% of his work day, 1/5 of his available time for this project. "25% of 25%" would mean you're using all the time Rob has available to this project. So yes, Rob and Tom's tasks will take the same amount of time, because they're both spending 5% of each day on them.

[Lizard]

It's important to set resources' units according to what portion of their work day they can devote to your project. This allows the resource utilization graph in the resource view to warn you when you're expecting a resource to give more time to the project than they are supposed to.
In the resource view, choose "Show Resource Allocations" from the View menu. This will turn on a bar graph for each resource, below their lane of tasks. Any time a resource is overloaded (30% of 25%, 150% of 100%, etc.), the bar will be pink. If you are using the resource exactly to capacity, the line will be green. If they have some spare time for your project at that moment, the bar will be blue.

[wreilly]

Hi -- the quick reply is definitely appreciated. O.K., I get now the 5% is 5% of day, regardless of overall % of project availability/assignment. Sounds good.

I wonder how I might best handle this:
- Sysadmin is 5% overall for a two-year project, but will do about a let's say 50% stint of work for one month.
A. I just don't worry about the resulting "red" overages (i.e. I don't really Level the project)
B. I create them, but when I go to "Level" I guess they get flattened out (?)
B.2. Maybe I can select all project items then de-select my SysAdmins, and only level selected? Hmm.
C. Is there some more creative approach? Like enter Sysadmin as a 50% resource, use as such for the month or so, and then just more or less ignore for duration of project? Or something along these lines?

I don't mean to be creating a mountain out of a molehill... Just curious how to best manage temporary resources like this (or similar examples, which might not be quite as clearcut (dropping off almost entirely like this simpler Sysadmin example)).

Thanks again for the quick response.

Best,
William Reilly

[Lizard]

In the calendar view, select your Sysadmin. Change their "Normal work week" to not contain any work time at all. Now switch to the "Work Schedule" for your sysadmin. For each week your sysadmin will be working on the project, draw back in the green bubbles for his work week. Now you can level the project and the work for the sysadmin will all be scheduled during the few weeks they have hours.