(1) Explain your problem, don't simply post "This isn't working". What were you doing when you faced the problem? What have you tried to resolve - did you look for a solution using "Search" ? Has it happened just once or several times?
(2) It's also good to get feedback when a solution is found, return to the original post to explain how it was resolved so that more people can also use the results.
Hey guys I am working on MS Project 2007
I'm setting up a large scale project and the resources aren't allocated at a granular level yet. I'm making broad sweeps to determine who and when I'm hiring by setting up "team" resources. The lead for each team is at 50% capacity because of other duties - so in a team of 7 people the resource is set to a max of 650%
When it comes to levelling all tasks - project doesn't seem to want to account for that extra 50% so it's useless to me.
I've tried several methods and still can't find a solution so I thought I'd post it. I simplified a test project to test different ideas and still can't work it.
Test project:
2 tasks at 5 days each
1 Resource set at 150%
Desired outcome:
I'd like project to level the first task at 100% and the second task at 50% I'm starting to think it's not possible?
Tried:
Thanks!
Debossaurus
Printer-friendly version
Send to friend
Debossaurus,
Quantity and partial assignments are not the same and must be treated as separate variables. For example, it is not the same assigning 5 engineers 100% of their time to an activity than assigning 10 engineers 50% of their time to the activity.
What, for both you would set the resource to 500%? And how do you distinguish one from the other? There is no such thing as half engineer, what you do, you cut them in halves? Perhaps you mix upper bodies with lower bodies or you keep them apart?
Your mixing of quantities and workloads is so cumbersome that I even wonder if I understood what you are looking for. The following is what I could understand, but I do not believe neither MS Project nor any Primavera product can correctly model partial assignments or work loads.
What if you need more complex assignment using variable quantity and variable workload? What if you have a team partially assigned to an activity and within the team, a few resources partially assigned to the team? The following resource assignment is for two crews working as a team, the first crew is assigned 100% of the activity duration while the second crew is assigned 40% of the activity duration and within the second crew, the supervisor works 50% of the time this crew works, which is 20% (50% of 40%) of the activity duration. Yes the supervisor must supervise several crews working on different actrivities.
What if your team resources belong to a skill set but each one have different productivities, then your activity duration shall be driven by their productivities. This is another common modeling need your software shall be capable of modeling with ease, of course in full harmony with the other functionalities.
Wrong functionality, defective thoughts, defective scheduling.
Best Regards,
Rafael
Hey Trevor thanks for replying!
yes I believe you're right I'm just starting to understand how Project levels things out too, so after hours of resarch I realised it couldn't do it.
The two points you don't understand are trying to say the same thing.
Currently if I have a resource marked at 200% max units - that resource can start 2 separate tasks for any given day - this is how I've been using Project to plan my teams.
If I have one resource marked at 50%, Project is also allowing me to level that out by doubling the duration of the task, which is fine for my project
If I have a resource marked at 150% - Project doesn't use that to its full max units - not even to use up half day tasks or double the duration of other tasks.
It's a shortcut but when I'm dealing with 1st draft planning to hire 100 staff that all start and end on diff dates it's a good shortcut to only deal with 11 teams rather than 100 people. I'm having to change the hire plan every day so to manually add each staff member would be overly time consuming (esp as I only have a couple hours each day to do this)
Another way I thought would be for me to make 2x resources, one for the team and one for the 50% team leader - but I want project to "pick" whichever is more available to drive the priority forward - at the moment it keeps wanting to use both together to shorten the duration, which isn't viable for what I want
I read that Project Server has team resources is there anything similar for my setup?
Thanks!
Debs
I am sure I can help out but I do not quite understand your description of what you want to do, and what you expect leveling to do for you.
I don't know what you mean by this:
When it comes to levelling all tasks - project doesn't seem to want to account for that extra 50% so it's useless to me.
or this:
I'd like project to level the first task at 100% and the second task at 50%
Can you enlighten me?
If you have two tasks, 5 days duration, starting and finishing at the same time, and you assign a resource with max units = 150% to it, you must say what units you want to assign the resource at. If you don't, MSP assigns the resource at 100%. If you then assign at 150% and level with all of the extras turned off, MSP delays one of the tasks. What do you expect it to do.
Best to use the Assign Resources dialog (from the icon on the toolbar) when assigning the resources so that you can make sure that you have done it.
Possibly, you are trying to cut corners by having these 6.5 man teams and you are probably better off just creating a resource for each person, which has to be done eventually anyway.
Email: PPadmin@planningplanet.com
Replies