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I'm new at ms project and I have some questions.

Let's suppose that I have a human resource named "T1" that works from 2 pm to 11 pm, and that we have a machine named "m1" that can be working all day. If I assign both of the resources to a task, supposing that the machine is available to start the task at 10 am, ms project tells me that the test can start at 10 am. But that is not true because my human resource isn't in the company yet.

Every time I try to assign a human resource and a machine to a task, ms project schedules the task to an hour that the machine is "free" even if the human resource has another task for the same hour.

I am using ms project 2017 and I want to know if there is any option that allows me to schedule tasks for compatible hours to all the resources that I want to use.

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  • ms project 2017? Jan 8, 2019 at 12:03
  • I keep having to remind myself that project is a tool to generate an analyze critical path. Asking it to deconflict resources is like asking a professional baseball player to hammer nails; the baseball player will probably do it better than I would, but not as well as a carpenter.
    – MCW
    Dec 29, 2020 at 14:24

2 Answers 2

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No, unfortunately there isn't such an option. When you assign several resources to a task, Project will assume the work assigned to the resource can be done independently from work assigned to other resources. What you can do is define a calendar for each machine instead of having the machine as a resource. Then you assign the proper calendar as a task calendar. Then define a calendar for your human resource and assign the resource to the task.

It's only a workaround, because you will lack other features associated with resources for your machines, but maybe it will be enough for your use case.

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Please try the following: -

  • Add the resource to MS Project.
  • Define the calendar for the resource, 1400-2300 5 days Define a calendar for the machine, e.g. a machine may be available 0400-2400, (4 hours down time for servicing each day)
  • Name the calendar, e.g. "Machine X", or "0000-2000 7 day" if there are multiple resources using this calendar.
  • Assign the resource to the task. Assign the "0400-2400 7 day" calendar to the task.

This should limit the hours worked to 1400-2000 in my example.

Though I don't have MS project at hand to test.

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  • Nitpick: Humans are never resources (slavery was abolished). Humans' time is a resource.
    – Sarov
    Apr 28, 2021 at 13:33

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