Re: Load leveling splits tasks

Thank you Jan and Steve. I agree that the scheduling logic wherein an
in-progress task splits to make room for a higher priority task makes sense,
but I also know from personal experience that that's not always the behavior
that is desirable. I was hoping that I could turn off task splitting on
in-progress tasks by clearing the "Split in-progress tasks" check box, but
evidently that doesn't work, as indicated by Jan. As always, the most
powerful thing is to know how it works, so it's not the end of the world.

A

"Steve House" wrote:

Yes, that's what I see too but I wonder if that's a bad thing - in the
scenario he described how could the poster's task 3 NOT be split by leveling
regardless of the setting of the "leveling can create splits" permission? I
have two parallel tasks A and B scheduled to start together, both 5 days
duration, not linked. Joe is assigned to both tasks and NOT leveled. Task A
is a higher priority than task B but for some unknown reason Joe has started
work first on B for a couple of days without doing anything on A. At this
stage we resource level. It seems intuitive to me that work on B should
stop, the start of A should move to the first available date and Joe works
on A until it's finished before returning to work on B. After all, A is
higher in priority and we started B when we did by mistake - in fact we
should have started A. By splitting B we're correcting that mistake. If we
really do want B not to split and instead A move to start after B is
completed, we need to set B's priority higher than A. After all, that's
what priority means - a way of establishing preferred sequencing when
there's no process mandated sequencing to control it. The behaviour our
poster has observed seems perfectly logical to me unless I've misunderstood
his scenario.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs



"Jan De Messemaeker" <jandemes at prom hyphen ade dot be> wrote in message
news:uWRk8d5AIHA.3916@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi Steve,

I've looked at the case in depth and the poster is right, there's an
anomaly here. When you specify leveling cannot make splits in remaining
work Project Won't... except just after the actual work (it can in fact
change the Resume date). Pity, but alas;

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project MVP
http://users.online.be/prom-ade
"Steve House" <sjhouse at hotmail dot com> wrote in message
news:uGtV3VtAIHA.5160@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Task three is splitting because showing 25% complete means that work has
physically taken place on the dates currently shown and can't be moved
for any reason. Actual progress represents historical fact and you have
told MSP that those are the dates where work did take place. All
resource leveling can work with is the remaining, unworked portion of the
task. If another higher priority task is demanding the resource's
attention on those dates the unworked portion will move. But the portion
of the task that has been completed has to stay shown on the dates when
its work did, in fact, take place. The result is a task split regardless
of your settings.

HTH

--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs


"andrewandrew" <andrewandrew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:2955B92A-9098-4A84-AE8D-148D251A7F45@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I just put together a sample file to demonstrate my issue:

three tasks, all have the same resource, resource calendar is 24 hour
with
no holidays or other edits. all have 'leveling can split' and 'level
assignments' set to no. the leveling dialog has these options unchecked
as
well, and im leveling hour by hour, in priority, standard order. i use
priority a lot in my real projects.

the first task is set to priority 950, 0% complete.

the second task is prioty 950, 0% complete, with a SNET constraint that
lands it somewhere in the middle of the third task.

the third task is ~10x longer than the first two, has prioty 500, and is
25%
complete.

when I level this project is splits the third task to make room for the
higher priority task, and actually pulls the latter half of the split
all the
way past the second task, which has a SNET constraint that puts it out
in the
future somewhere. didn't i specify TWICE that I didn't want a split?
what
gives?

thanks for any input!

Andrew

"andrewandrew" wrote:

I have an industrial project with several hundred tasks. I am using
MSP's
load leveling algorithm twice a week during the execution of the
project as
updates come in and things change. I am also rescheduling incomplete
work to
start in the future. I understand that the rescheduling of incomplete
work
creates some splits in tasks, and I am fine with that. What I don't
understand is why the load leveling is creating so many splits: I've
cleared
the "Leveling can create splits in remaining work" option in the
leveling
dialog, but leveling creates splits anyway, in some cases several
splits in
the same task. I would rather not abandon the use of the leveling
algorithm:
does anyone know why it is behaving this way? The only thing I want
leveling
to do is change the values in the Leveling Delay field.

Thanks for the info!

Andrew





.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Load leveling splits tasks
    ... "Steve House" wrote in message ... scenario he described how could the poster's task 3 NOT be split by leveling regardless of the setting of the "leveling can create splits" permission? ... Task A is a higher priority than task B but for some unknown reason Joe has started work first on B for a couple of days without doing anything on A. At this stage we resource level. ... When you specify leveling cannot make splits in remaining work Project Won't... ...
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  • Re: Load leveling splits tasks
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  • Re: Load leveling splits tasks
    ... that's what I see too but I wonder if that's a bad thing - in the scenario he described how could the poster's task 3 NOT be split by leveling regardless of the setting of the "leveling can create splits" permission? ... Task A is a higher priority than task B but for some unknown reason Joe has started work first on B for a couple of days without doing anything on A. At this stage we resource level. ... If another higher priority task is demanding the resource's attention on those dates the unworked portion will move. ...
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