Resource Planning

Sven L.

I noticed that Smartsheet is further considering task durations in it's resource planning, even the task is already completed. I would have expected, as soon a task is completed, the duration of the task will not longer be considered in the resource management planning. 

Any recommendation or workarounds? 

Mike Wilday

Have you considered having an actual end date column that the user inputs? And then basing your Gannt chart off of that end date... Actually, that doesn't make sense. Hmmm, this area clearly needs some improvement. I suggest submitting a product enhancement request.

Sven L.

Hi Mike,

Thanks for your comment. We are relatively new to the SmartSheet experience. Before I file a product enhancement, I wanted to get some feedback from the community, if you guys experience the same issue or if it is a user issue on our side.  

We really have an issue with the resource management in SmartSheet. Because it is considering capacities of already 100% completed tasks.  

We do work with Start and End dates. We also working with Allocation column. Our work around as of today is, every time we marke a task 100% complete, we change the allocation of the task from 100% to 0%. Than it will not be considered in the resource management tool. NOTE: If you take out the 100% and leave the field blank, the resource manager will still consider 100% capacity use in the resource planning. You have to enter 0% and not leave the field blank. We found this out the hard way .

 

   - Best, Sven

Mike Wilday

I don't have a lot of practice around resource management as our company is small and we have a limited number of full-version users. In my mind's eye I can imagine setting the resource end date to a blank field that the user populates when they finish their task. Which would, as I imagine it, take the task off the plate. That may not work considering you might be doing future planning... but this clearly seems like an issue with Smartsheets. I would contact support and see what they have to say about it. Please share any findings you discover back to this thread! 

Sven L.

Happy to share any findings and thanks for your comments.