Split resources over long-running task

I’m new to OmniPlan, forgive any obvious ignorance. I have worked through the tutorial and read additional parts of the manual pertaining to resources and tasks, but got a little stuck.

We are a small manufacturer. We often have long-running tasks for a project intermixed with small tasks that can share a resource:

Build 16 hoists (2w effort)
Wire pump (1d effort)

For resources:
Electrician 1
Electrician 2

To compress the long task on the calendar, I’d like to assign both resources to it. That shortens the calendar to 1w for Build 16 hoists. However, on Wednesday of that week I need to get Wire pump done. So I assign it to Electrician 1. What I’d like is for Build 16 hoists to extend on the calendar by a 1/2d since I had to reduce the resources by 8h midweek to get the other task done. Instead, Electrician 1 shows a violation because it is over-utilized on Wednesday. Leveling seems to either: have no effect, or push the second task after the first. But, the timing of the second task is critical so I don’t want to let it slide.

Similarly, if I wanted to allow the first task to take 2w on the calendar, but switch resources so Electrician 1 works on it for the first week, and Electrician 2 works on it the second week, I’m unclear how to express that schedule in OmniPlan. It looks like I could put them both on the task at 50% over the entire duration, but not 100% for Electrician 1 in the first week followed by 100% Electrician 2 the second week.

Thanks for any help. Not sure if this sort of scheduling is too granular for the purpose of the tool, but it would help me juggle resources :-)

To compress the long task on the calendar, I’d like to assign both resources to it. That shortens the calendar to 1w for Build 16 hoists . However, on Wednesday of that week I need to get Wire pump done. So I assign it to Electrician 1 . What I’d like is for Build 16 hoists to extend on the calendar by a 1/2d since I had to reduce the resources by 8h midweek to get the other task done. Instead, Electrician 1 shows a violation because it is over-utilized on Wednesday. Leveling seems to either: have no effect, or push the second task after the first. But, the timing of the second task is critical so I don’t want to let it slide.

It sounds like you need to allow leveling to split the longer Build 16 hoists task - this is an option in the leveling sheet. Alternatively, you can manually split the task via the Split Task option.

Similarly, if I wanted to allow the first task to take 2w on the calendar, but switch resources so Electrician 1 works on it for the first week, and Electrician 2 works on it the second week, I’m unclear how to express that schedule in OmniPlan. It looks like I could put them both on the task at 50% over the entire duration, but not 100% for Electrician 1 in the first week followed by 100% Electrician 2 the second week.

This is not something OmniPlan currently supports, sorry! The easiest way to set this up right now is by creating two distinct tasks for weeks 1 and 2 of this work (and perhaps nest them inside a group task for clarity). We do however have an open feature request for the ability for two resources to split work on a task in this way - I’ll attach your comment to it!