Autoleveling moves task to start today when I change complete %

OmniPlan OmniPlan for Mac
#1

I don’t understand this behavior when I have autoleveling turned on and two tasks assigned to the same person.

When I do the following:

  1. Create task A, 2 day effort, assign to “John”
  2. Create task B, 1 day effort, assign to “John”

The autoleveler schedules: A and then B

When I do the following:

  1. Change task A complete % to 50%

The autoleveler schedule task B to start today and the remainder of task A to start tomorrow.

How can I tell the autoleveler to ignore the complete % so I can track the complete % in my project? Or maybe there is a better way to do this?

#2

I’m not certain this is the best way but I think creating an explicit dependency where task 2 is dependent on task 1 is one workaround for your issue.

#3

@fmaker I believe the behavior you’re seeing is caused by the way OmniPlan levels partially complete tasks & your current editing date in OmniPlan:

  • When a task is marked complete (or partially complete) in OmniPlan ahead of schedule, OmniPlan does not re-level and move the completed tasks to an earlier date in the project schedule.

  • Marking a task complete early tells OmniPlan that the resource that was originally assigned to the completed task on that date is now available to work on other tasks. If you’re marking tasks complete ahead of their anticipated completion (for example, if you know Task 1 will be 50% complete by the end of the day today), setting your Current Editing Date in OmniPlan to tomorrow will prevent other tasks for being scheduled to start today.

I hope this explanation helps! If you’d like additional clarification on this behavior, our Support team would be happy to help out via phone or email.

#4

Hello @ains,

Thanks for the explanation and your help I will try that.

I understand it does not move another task to an earlier date, but it still changes what a person is currently working on. What you said makes sense, but I really think this should be an option for the project. Oftentimes there is a detriment to taking a person off a task and then back again. For OmniPlan that means the effort actually grows because the resource has been switching on/off that task.

What I would like to be able to do is keep what people are currently working fixed and only effect what they will work on in the future. If I use the completed % to track their progress I can currently do that with auto-scheduling enabled.

#5

@fmaker That makes sense! We have an open request in our development database to better handle leveling while tracking actual completion - I’ll attach this thread so that we can keep your feedback in mind as continue to develop OmniPlan!

1 Like
#6

I’ve just encountered this situation too. I can’t seem to complete anything without auto-levelling altering the start date of future tasks and running them concurrently with the completed task.

Is there any update on this request in your development database?