ProjectLibre: One person two tasks at the same time

Question

I'm trying to schedule a few tasks in ProjectLibre and I'm also fairly new to PM

The problem

Suppose we have Person1, and he'scheduled on two tasks (100%):

• Install device (duration=1hr)

• Test Operation (duration=1hr)

ProjectLibre keeps both tasks starting at the time (i.e 0930) and ending at the same time. Should it not know that one person would be doing 1 thing at a time?

Answer 1

Your program cannot possibly know that those tasks are connected, nor does it know whether they can be handled by a single person at the same time.

After all, it's only a matter of naming. It could be "wait for the wash to finish" and "watch TV". You can do that at the same time.

You have to connect those two tasks and signal your program that one cannot be done if the other is not done first.

I don't know your language version. The easiest way is dragging from the first task to the second to connect them. Menu items and columns exist to do the same without drag&drop.

Answer 2

Your question involves a typical Finish>Start Dependency, or what Projectlibre calls "Predecessor/Successor". i.e.: In order to Start "Test Operation" you must first Finish "Install Device". As the gentleman states, you must first tell the program the order of your tasks, or Predecessor/Successor. You can create a dependency in ProjectLibre in at least two ways: Go to Tasks> click the Gantt chart button. In the Gantt chart, left-click-hold on the task "Install Device", a chain icon will appear with a line attached to it. Drag the chain icon/line to the task "Test Operation". Now click on the line you've just created, and a pop up will allow you to select FF=Finish-Finish, SS=Start-Start, FS=Finish-Start or SF=Start-Finish; these are the types of dependencies. The initials become pretty self explanatory after some use. Another way to create a dependency is to type in the Task Id number in the Predecessor column in your Task spreadsheet. In your case, you type in "1" into the predecessor cell for Test Device. You then click on Information in the Task ribbon, and select the type of dependency you want.