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
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