How to account for outside test house closures?

Robin Markham

Hello!

Part of our Manufacturing process may include having to send samples of our product to an Outside Test House and waiting for results before proceeding to our 'finals'. We know the weeks this test house will be closed throughout 2020. Is there a way to indicate this in our Gantt chart when setting up our projects? In other words, if a project were to be scheduled to complete during a test house shut down, we wouldn't be able to send product out until they were open for testing. The only thing I can think of is to set those known dates as 'non-working days'. I thought smartsheet may have some machine resource tracking capability that I could manipulate.

Thank you in advance.

Andrée Starå

Hi Robin,

You could maybe use the resource management feature?

If you add a user as something like, testhouse@yourdomain.com and invite to the account. You don’t need to confirm.

You can then use that in the resource management.

Make sense?

Would that work?

I hope that helps!

Have a fantastic week!

Best,

Andrée Starå

Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

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Andrée Starå

Hi Robin,

You could maybe use the resource management feature?

If you add a user as something like, testhouse@yourdomain.com and invite to the account. You don’t need to confirm.

You can then use that in the resource management.

Make sense?

Would that work?

I hope that helps!

Have a fantastic week!

Best,

Andrée Starå

Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

✅Did my post help answer your question or solve your problem? Please help the Community by marking it as the accepted answer/helpful. It will make it easier for others to find a solution or help to answer!

Robin Markham

Hi Andrée,

Thank you for such a quick reply. This makes sense - I'll give it a try and see how it works.

Thank you again!

Andrée Starå

Excellent!

Happy to help!

Robin Markham

Hi Andrée,

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I'm able to add a user, even if for a fake resource, without paying for a licensed user.

Back to the drawing board.

Thanks!

Andrée Starå

Which plan do you have? What happened?

Robin Markham

We have a business account. When I try to add a user, as suggested, it will not let me at a Resource Viewer without first, making them a Licensed User. This is a screenshot. Any suggestions?

Andrée Starå

@Robin Markham You only need to add the object as a user. Not a Resource Viewer.

Make sense?

Robin Markham

I'm sorry but I don't know that I understand what you mean. Can you explain in a little more detail for me? Again, I appreciate your help!

Andrée Starå

Happy to!

Email: Dummy Email (not a real one)

Then press OK. That will send an invite to the user that doesn't exist.

Now you can use this user as the resource.

Make sense?