I can't figure out how to clearly describe this, so I'm not having luck searching the forums. I apologize in advance if this is a frequently asked question.
I'm managing a team of people who staff multiple projects. Each project is its own OmniPlan file. We assign people to projects on an X hrs/month basis —*it's obviously simple to turn this into a percentage for the "Units" field in OmniPlan.
The trouble I'm having is this: if I'm 10% and my two workers are 25% each, how can I convince OmniPlan that it's okay for us to have a 2-hour meeting*that actually takes 2 hours (duration) and costs 6 hours (effort)? The result of scheduling this (fixed effort) is that the duration is 3 hours 20 minutes. Not at all what I want.
What I effectively want to be able to do is say how many hours a month each person has (communicating this via percent is okay) and have OmniPlan schedule all of those hours "in a row" (i.e., 8 hours day one, 8 hours day two, etc. until all hours for the month are spent). This lets me have my 6-hour (effort) in 2 hours (duration) meeting but still see that a 60-hour (effort) task will take 1.5 months (of duration) for one of my 25% workers to complete.
Any suggestions would be most appreciated. Perhaps I'm thinking of this all wrong?
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Additional thoughts:
I tried, at one point, to say that my resources had unusual-looking work weeks to try to accomplish the above. So I said they were assigned 100%, but could only work on Mondays (as an example). That is better, since it lets the 6-hour (effort) meeting happen in 2 hours (duration). But it's bad because it yanks the schedule around too much: it's not really the case that we only work on Monday —*it would be perfectly fine to work on Tuesday instead. I'd have to go in and special-case the work week to allow a Tuesday meeting to take place.
I don't see a way to tell OmniPlan "30 hours a month, allocated however fits best" (what I really want) or "8 hours a week, allocated however fits best" (not what I want, but likely also of interest to some).
I'm managing a team of people who staff multiple projects. Each project is its own OmniPlan file. We assign people to projects on an X hrs/month basis —*it's obviously simple to turn this into a percentage for the "Units" field in OmniPlan.
The trouble I'm having is this: if I'm 10% and my two workers are 25% each, how can I convince OmniPlan that it's okay for us to have a 2-hour meeting*that actually takes 2 hours (duration) and costs 6 hours (effort)? The result of scheduling this (fixed effort) is that the duration is 3 hours 20 minutes. Not at all what I want.
What I effectively want to be able to do is say how many hours a month each person has (communicating this via percent is okay) and have OmniPlan schedule all of those hours "in a row" (i.e., 8 hours day one, 8 hours day two, etc. until all hours for the month are spent). This lets me have my 6-hour (effort) in 2 hours (duration) meeting but still see that a 60-hour (effort) task will take 1.5 months (of duration) for one of my 25% workers to complete.
Any suggestions would be most appreciated. Perhaps I'm thinking of this all wrong?
---
Additional thoughts:
I tried, at one point, to say that my resources had unusual-looking work weeks to try to accomplish the above. So I said they were assigned 100%, but could only work on Mondays (as an example). That is better, since it lets the 6-hour (effort) meeting happen in 2 hours (duration). But it's bad because it yanks the schedule around too much: it's not really the case that we only work on Monday —*it would be perfectly fine to work on Tuesday instead. I'd have to go in and special-case the work week to allow a Tuesday meeting to take place.
I don't see a way to tell OmniPlan "30 hours a month, allocated however fits best" (what I really want) or "8 hours a week, allocated however fits best" (not what I want, but likely also of interest to some).
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