Is it possible to assign a task to multiple people?

Robin Sherwood

Hey William, et al

 

How would you want this to ideally work with resource management? Does multiple assigenees also mean we need to introduce the concept of "work effort" vs "duration?" If I have a task that is 3 days long, does each assignee get 3 days on their resource view? Or do I have to set these independently? If I add an assignee to a task does the work get divided? or multiplied? Many other project management tools have gone down this path, creating lots of unusable complexity in the process. We are interesting in finding a way to keep it as simple as possible while still giving you an effective tool. Would love to hear your thoughts. 

 

Thanks! 

 

Robin

Peter C

Hi Robin,

Gald to hear you are trying not to be as complex as MS Project, that is one of the main reasons we like Smart Sheet so much.

 

For our specific situation we just need to track resourse over allocation.

Effort of all resourses is always 100%. 

 

We run multiple projects simultaneously with varying durations (from several days to several months) in locations all over the country.

We have teams of 3 to 12 people assigned to each project, but with additional specialist resourses that need to be assigned to every project at a specific stage for a set duration.

 

Ideally we would like to track each specialist resourse across all projects and flag the days that they are over allocated.

That way we can adjust our planning to ensure they can transition smoothly between each project.

 

I have tried unsuccessfully to use additional columns and conditional formatting on our master planning sheet to highlight over allocation.

Donn Denniston

We are a current SS customer, the lack of this feature could be a deal breaker for us. One more vote to have this feature added asap! Thanks.

Mark Wellman

Count me in; adding multiple assignments is critical to resource planning.  Adding in multiple lines is not realistic.

David Vogel

Our company uses small teams as well and the ability to assign multiple resources to a single task is a must have. Even the ability to split the task evenly would at least be a start. This would allow me to still know who is on the task and request updates as to the progress.

 

Please put this on the top of the priority list!

Tim Meeks

Robin,

 

I also vote for this. I just sent this in to Smartsheet support and Shane Whitehurst as one of the features our agency would like to see. 

 

(Also...we would like for resources to be able to be entered into one field/cell. And, it would be GREAT if the Smartsheet contacts could be synched with the email Active Directory.)

 

As for your question regarding how to address work effort vs duration,  I am most familiar with MS Project.   I would suggest defaulting the % alllocated to 100% but allow the user to override.  So if 3 people are assigned to the same task and the duration is 5 days/40 hours and they are allocated at 100%, then the WORK is 120 hours (3 x 40 hours). However, I would like to be able to change the level of effort (% allocation or units)  such as in the example below to 50% for each resource. This would then change the WORK to 60 hours (3 x 40hours x 50%)

 

Hope this answers your question. 

 

thanks,

Tim

 

Kay Mok

I agree that it should allow us to assign the same task to multiple people.  Please add soon on a future release.  Thanks!

 

Zach McQueary

Hi all,

 

Has there been any further developments or solutions to this issue - as most people have commented, yes in some ways it helps not to be so granular, but for the purposes of individual Resource Management, it's QUITE vital for capacity reports. I know one workaround could be for assigning the 'Assigned To' as a Group account, but that still doesn't solve the problem of knowing individual allocation. 

 

Would SS Admins care to comment?

 

Thanks all!

Victor Velton

Lack of this functionality is certainly a showstopper for us to switch completely to Smartsheet. Now we just use Smartsheet for small projects.

Travis

Zach, Robin (Smartsheet Product Manager) posted here a couple weeks ago, asking about how users would ideally want this to work... here is his post (from above), feel free to reply here with suggestions and answers to his questions:

 

"How would you want this to ideally work with resource management? Does multiple assigenees also mean we need to introduce the concept of "work effort" vs "duration?" If I have a task that is 3 days long, does each assignee get 3 days on their resource view? Or do I have to set these independently? If I add an assignee to a task does the work get divided? or multiplied? Many other project management tools have gone down this path, creating lots of unusable complexity in the process. We are interesting in finding a way to keep it as simple as possible while still giving you an effective tool. Would love to hear your thoughts. "

greg@weclick

+1 for feature request.

Sonia Coelho

Definetely a downside of SS.

Please include my vote also for developing this feature as this function is imperative to manage resources across aprojects.

Travis

Donn, Mark, David, Kay, Zach, Victor, Greg, and Sonia, I submitted your votes! 

Dave Morrow

I agree with comments re multiple resources for single tasks. I usually have two/three or more resouces for tasks and it can become onerous when adding several rows for the same activity

Emily Zhao

I vote for this feature. It's super important for schedule and resource management. When can SS integrate this feature?