Down sides for assigning one task to multiple users?

[SkyeHa]

Alice G posted recently (last week) about a report she was trying to create to show upcoming work coming to her team in the form of total Planned Hours. However, since Tasks are assigned to multiple users, I don't know if there's a way to report on the specific fraction of planned hours that are assigned to her team: even though the resource planner does this. So, first question: is there a way to report on planned hours per assigned user outside of the Resource Planner? My question is a little bit more general. I always have a bad feeling when folks assign multiple users to one task. I understand why they do it, and would never tell them not to--I understand the "up side". But I would like to have a more collective list of "down sides" so I can remember what this doesn't allow me to do. For example: - when multiple users are assigned to a task, I can no longer group tasks by who it's assigned to. I can only group tasks by task owner. - apparently cannot report fractions of planned hours? - what other down sides am I missing? and are there any neat workarounds? -skye

[Mohini__Mini_Si]

The biggest pain that we've run into is when users still hit Complete rather than Done With My Part regardless of how many times we've told them not to hit Complete. One of my favorite things that I've found is a column when running Task reports called Assignments and Status. This shows everyone assigned to a task and the status for each person (requested, in progress, complete, etc.). Mohini Sinha, CSM Project Coordinator Excelsior College

[DavidCo3]

Hi @Skye Hansen , If you have multiple assigned resources you can run an Assignment report to get the assigned hours per resource, but you have to get into text mode if you want to group it by team. By using an assignment report it also means that you lose the ability to in-line edit Task fields, which can be quite annoying. This is probably the biggest draw-back in my opinion (other than the Done / Done-with-my-part mixups). One other drawback of assigning multiple people to one task is if you use custom data at a task level for reporting or other purposes, then by assigning multiple resources you lose the ability to set these fields independently per person. Regards, David Cornwell

[SkyeHa]

hi @David Cornwell , thanks for the pointer. I'll go take a look and play some more. I feel like the assignment report isn't really giving me a way to call out work by the assigned users (only by the assigned to name). i.e. filters like this won't work in an assignment report. assignmentsUsersMM:ID=XXXXX assignmentsUsersMM:ID_Mod=in Am I missing something? -skye

[DavidCo3]

The below should work? assignedToID=insertuserID assignedToID_Mod=in David Cornwell

[SkyeHa]

@David Cornwell -- doesn't "assigned to ID" just capture the task owner? That was my understanding. Or is it different in an assignment report? (if so, that's very confusing but OK) -skye

[DavidCo3]

Hi @Skye Hansen - on an Assignment report, you're actually reporting on the Assignment objects. In this case the assignedToID is actually the individual assigned. e.g. if you have 1 task assigned to 3 resources, there are actually 3 assignment records - each with their own assignedToID. This field is different to the assignedToID on the Task, which is the primary assignment. David Cornwell

[SkyeHa]

oh awesome ! (and still, confusing. But glad it works) -skye

[VincentGo]

We assign multiple people to tasks and issues. The biggest issue we have is that you can't really make a My Issues/My Tasks report work consistently. The filter "Assigned to" with the "me" wildcard only works on tasks/issues where the user is the Task/Issue Owner. If they're secondary owners, the task/issue won't appear in their list. (The same issue would apply if you have a manager who wants a report on all the tasks assigned to their team). The workaround is to use Assignment Reports, which have the drawbacks David listed. Vincent Goodwin The Capital Group Companies

[AnthonyPernice]

Hi Vincent, I had the same issue you did for awhile and someone in the Community was kind enough to advise me to use "Assignment Users" instead of "Assigned To" for that purpose. Anthony Pernice Healthcare Consultancy Group

[JasonDA]

Hey Anthony, Do you know the best way to setup the grouping for the Assignment Users route? We just recently found out about this as well, but found that grouping was still weird. We currently group by Task Owner and then Project, but would like to group by Task Assignee (using Assignment Users) and then Project. If not, it's fine, but figured I'd ask since you're also using this. Jason DAquin

[AnthonyPernice]

Sorry Jason, but I haven't gotten that one figured out just yet. Based on some of the conversation above, it sounds like the solution might be found in text mode, but that is far beyond my current capabilities. Anthony Pernice Healthcare Consultancy Group

[SkyeHa]

From what David Cornwell said, and as I experiment in the system this morning, if your instance has a practice of assigning multiple users to one task, the optimal way to show the work breakdown is through using an Assignment report rather than a task or issue report. The assignment report will allow you to group by assigned user when you use Assigned To Name as the grouping. "Assigned To Name" in an Assignment report is NOT the same as "Assigned To Name" in a Task or Issue report (and this was the concept I struggled with the most :) ). If you want to further group by team, this could be achieved through textmode. Assignment report will also divvy up the Planned Hours per assigned user, whereas a task or issue report will not. -skye

[MichelleJa]

Hi Skye, We use multiple users in a single task, but I struggle with Time-Off. If you use this, it won't shift tasks, so I still need to look at people's vacations and shift tasks manually. Michelle Jackson Colony Brands, Inc.