Evgeny,

This looks great, but remember your first hunch, there might be a more efficient schedule. In this particular example activities are not linked, I assumed brick installation on different unrelated areas. This means you can assign all resources to each activity with a proportional reduction in time if activity duration depends on volume of work. In this way no single resource will be idle.

I tried a model using Skills in combination with variable quantities but for some reason I could not make it work, therefore I tried using Productivity Type activities resource loaded using variable Quantities but not Skills. As "Quantity" when using variable quantities means Maximal I changed the label of the title to Quantity [Maximal] as a reminder. I added some additional activity as for making the resource leveling algorithm to look for a solution that tries to minimize project duration and override priorities if these delay project duration.

The total duration of bricklaying activities was reduced to their minimum and no idle resources resulted from this model. The resource allocation worked as expected. But note the activities start ASAP even when no resources are still working on them and cannot finish until all resources execute the required volume of work. To me the Start of Activity 2 (and most others) is a bit weird as I would expect activity to start at the start of first production resource as well as to finish at the latest finish of any production resource, this means it should be modeled as having Start Flex instead of Start Float [in Spider named as Float to distinguish it from Finish Float]. The start of each production resource also does not makes sense to me.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/nv0lxeo0brbybqo/RD015.004.sprj

In more complex jobs it shall also do the work. Suggest trying different resource productivity on different activities due to difficulties particular of each activity or particular of any resource plus the addition of some additional successors.

Resource leveling is not just about making viable schedules as if you put all activities in tandem there will be no resource conflict and usually at a substantial cost in time, resource leveling is also about using the tool for better schedules, of shorter duration and with minimum idle resources. The excellent resource leveling algorithm in Spider Project is just one too but there are other tools unique in Spider you shall explore.

Take a look at the following file. Here I reduced maximal amounts as to allow more than a single activity be worked in parallel, note some times not all resources work in parallel on a single activity, for a better view as how many a report is of great value.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/x9bzze31pzl77pc/RD015.005.sprj

Best Regards,

Rafael

Evgeny,

You said - I used variable resource assignment,  but my method would work also without it. I used it just to make it even more efficient.

• Variable resource assignments in this case will yield wrong results, instead of the quantity needed it assigns what is available without moving the activity to a time when they are available.
• In this case variable resource quantity assignments shall not be used.
• On Duration Type Activities Variable assignment means that something in between a given maximal and minimal amount will be considered enough and will be assigned, if minimal is not available then the activity will be delayed.
• The following figure shows the assignments.
• 
• This mean I am adding another item to my current Spider Wish List.

  • Quantity & Workload displayed on partial assignments:  When using partial assignment quantities/workload the displayed amount is misleading, better showing actual range of assignments or nothing unless a single value, if a single value shall be the assigned and the Maximal shall be displayed under a differently named field. Another option might be to display an asterisk along with the quantity amount when partial assignments are being used.

• You said your method should also work and I agree just that we are no there yet. Then we can compare results with the Skills method.

  • Maybe in addition to my wish for Calendar Exception Activities another type Frozen Activities shall be included in my list. Activity that is frozen in time and entered via two of the following Start/Finish/Duration.

  • A useful two edged knife that shall be used with care but not banned.

Roports is something, which I did not look at yet. How do you generate these *.sdoc files?

• By selecting on menu Report/General Reports and Diagrams/Table Report. Note you must read them using Spider but at a single click they can be converted into Excel Files. Good for sharing but some functionality might be lost as these files like Reference Books can be used to transfer data directly to Spider Database as well as to other documents among other things. A more easier but more advanced functionality than the method used by other software to transfer data using Excel.

Variable resource assignments as well as reports shall be discussed on a separate thread several days after you start exploring it.

During this year my wish list have been drastically reduced, actually it is a small list whose majority of items I keep because of my stubbornness even when a some have been rejected as of not enough value to be implemented.

Best Regards,

Rafael

Specific comments to your example:

• I think you made a mistake and assigned all 3 resources to the same calendar (with no exceptions)
  • You are correct, fixed. http://www.mediafire.com/download/5m6whm7dejrl1t6/RD015.002.sprj
• You have Christmas 2012-2013 exception, but  the Data Date is in June 2013, so this exception does not affect schedule.
  • You are correct this exception do not affect schedule, I was thinking to use a DD at start of the year but forgot about it. I fixed it by adding a new calendar exception. You might notice I did not used any reoccurrence option as usually we start Xmas vacations not on fixed days but to cover two calendar weeks starting on a Monday. The same happens to some of our holidays, some are assigned fixed month dates and a recurrence period works for others such as Good Friday it is not about a fixed month date.

Generic comments to your method:

• The set of calendars and resources will become progressively complex, when more than 3 vacations needs to be modeled.
  • Yes the computer is not a Crystal Ball you got to tell about the new vacations that can be all on new and different dates, that can be applied to different sets of bricklayers. When it becomes so complicated it is better to use only Named Resources. 
  • The granularity of following the vacations of every set of Bricklayers with common vacations is too much for me not to mention individual named resources. The same goes to the idea of modeling every single vacation as an activity. For Bricklayers I would rather use some average seasonal adjustments using resource production. For other trades such as a specialized design engineer there would be no option other than granularity as there would be no other resource with matching skills.
• If you add one vacation, not only will you have to add resources, but you will also have to rearrange existing ones.
  • If you add new vacation to existing resources and there are no new resources there is no need to to add resources just add the new vacation as an exception, apply the exception to the corresponding calendars [new calendars might be needed] then you rearrange everything as usual by executing a resource level schedule run.
• I think you use extremely powerful mega premium feature of Spider Project (automatic resource assignment based on skills) to model quite a simple situation.
  • It is not that simple, too many possible vacation combinations, otherwise everyone would have a perfect solution.
• I noticed, that automatic resource assignment based on skills requires significant processing power even for such simple schedule.
  • Yes it adds time to the calculations. In addition because a powerful resource leveling algorithm Optimization Plus was selected, an algorithm that is far superior to standard algorithm some extra time is required also. In this case there is no difference but in more challenging jobs it makes a huge difference. Try changing resource leveling algorithm and you will notice the difference.

Alternative suggestion:

• I modeled the same project using high priority task to model resource vacations. See below
• What do you think of it?
  • I will be looking at it tomorrow and will make my comments.  In advance I can tell you that by looking at your figure during the month of March you have an over allocation of resources as Activities 5, 6 and 7 require 30, 60 and 50 bricklayers for a total of 140 while  there are only 100 available. Check on this and let me know.
  • Seems you are using variable quantities and not enough resources are being allocated. In order to view detailed resource assignments using variable quantities you must create a report similar to the following.
  • http://www.mediafire.com/download/z1faaz7hk1ooys6/RD015.003.sdoc
  • Your approach might work but looks like needs some fixing. Still  I would use some average seasonal adjustments.

Best Regards,

Rafael

...

You can download a sample file from following link.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/hpsl5ed9p07b97u/RD015.001.sprj

The following screens are from the sample file. Please explore and make changes yourself to quantities, activity priorities and resource priorities. I selected the option for the Gantt to display unassigned resources, convenient for changing priorities directly from the table. Also included an activity that spans over a year for you to see that after some time all resources are available and idle.

Let me know if you need some assistance.

Best Regards,

Rafael

You said - If you have 100 brick layers and each of them is going on vacation 5 times a year, you would have to have 1000 entries is the time resource production to show this. This will probably difficult to manage, especially as you can’t assign some sensible name to time resource production entries.

With regard to setting individual vacations time you need to enter start and finish of vacations for every vacation exception and assign the exception to each resource, at some point you got to tell the computer.

You can model each Vacations as a hammock activity driven by two milestones without need to resource load the vacations activity and therefore without need to use resource production that shall match calendar exceptions, without need to use resource loading to drive the vacation activities with all the complications it can create.

The following figure shows how you can do it. You can do it by fixing the milestones using a SNET constraint. You can change manually the constraint dates or you can change them using reference books to transfer the exception data.



If you want to explore the option for updating using reference books you can download the file and instructions from the following links.

http://www.mediafire.com/?805gvmtoavm4w40,bz24iiuqoutlt4g

http://www.mediafire.com/download/bz24iiuqoutlt4g/RD012.001.sprj

http://www.mediafire.com/download/805gvmtoavm4w40/Instructions_for_Vacat...

http://www.mediafire.com/?t1nrxd33v823brb,exys4rqox41s112

http://www.mediafire.com/download/exys4rqox41s112/ACT01.001.sdoc

http://www.mediafire.com/download/t1nrxd33v823brb/CE01.001.sdoc

Keep in mind using reference books you can transfer to other jobs from the Vacations Schedule the calendar exceptions as well as the vacation activities as needed. You will need to create an exception for every vacation period without using Recurrence Periods as this method will only transfer a single start and a single finish date for each exception.

As you will notice I have no problem with creating cell formulas within a single table my problem is when creating cell formulas with other tables. If there would be a graphical way to select cell references from within the current table as well as from within other tables I would be using direct formulas instead of using reference books to consolidate two tables.

Remember that to execute multiple formulas a script can be very handy.

You also said - So I am just wondering, how in reality the absence (vacation) of unnamed resources is managed? (for named resources this can be done via calendar exceptions).

Because every unnamed resource will share a common calendar you might need to create several unnamed resource for each calendar and use skills to assign them to activities. For unnamed resources we use a single calendar as here it is the rule that over 90% employees take vacations during x-mass recess as per agreement with the unions, it is party time. In other industries it is common for it to be per named resource.

Best Regards,
Rafael

Vladimir,

What a surprise, Resource Production can delay activity execution even when not resource loaded, and it makes sense just that it is not so obvious.

There is a reason why every activity is not scheduled to start at the beginning of times, million years before 10,000 BC. Perhaps if the Scope of Delay Reason is modified then it would be able to display a delay reason for every activity such as:

1. Project Start
2. SNET Date Constraint
3. Predecessors Logic
4. Resource Availability
5. Materials
6. Financial
7. Resource Production
8. Out of Sequence
9. Actual Dates (in the case of a finished activity)
10. Other

By reducing the detail level for all or some reasons it might be easier to program, it might be of faster execution. It will give enough clue as for the user to find out the details, especially those hidden delay reasons for which now the functionality gives no clue.

It might be that at the beginning some delay reasons might be overlooked and labeled as "Other" but very soon it would be all inclusive.

Guess that if you schedule all my requests as separate activities maybe we can find a limit to Spider

Best Regards,
Rafael

Evgeny,

I downloaded your file Vacations.001 and could not find any unexpected result.

1. To me it makes sense resource leveling delaying activities not only because of resource usage but also because of resource production even if the activity uses no resources.  Even if the activity uses no resources if resources are not available for deletion it makes sense for the activity to be delayed until the deletion can be executed.
2. In your sample file Activity 1 is set to be the first activity to start after resource leveling based on the actual settings. Because initially there are 3 resources available it consumes all available therefore availability equals zero. I suggest changing resource leveling settings to see how it changes, for a start try with Activity Priority option.
3. Because during Activity 1 execution there are no available resources to be deleted then it makes sense for the resource leveling to delay Activity 2 until there are resources to delete. Still I would say that resource reduction at the start of activity execution is unusual.
4. Same goes with Activity 21.
5. Activity 22 is delayed because of a logic link with lag, not because of resource availability.
6. I added Activity 23 just to have a longer projection of resource availability visible.

I suspect Vladimir is referring to other issue that might still be or might not be pending.  For this issue another sample might be needed.  If you have such file please make it available if different to Vacations.001

Please verify on my statements about Vacations.001 and let me know if you are in disagreement.

Best Regards,
Rafael

Very frequently you have more resources available than needed, this makes some resources to be idle. This comes at a cost you want to track and keep under control, especially when in your budget such idle time was not considered.

Modeling resource availability fixed with time when in reality is to be driven in a dynamic way by the schedule is wrong, although might be handy on a Delay claim. There is some logic into the planning for resource availability, it is good practice to make your model to follow true logic. Don't just draw your availability as if fixed bars.

At home we have no seasons, we are on the Caribbean, it is always Summer and rainy, therefore we do not plan resource availability based in fixed time, we plan our resource availability based on stages that move as the project moves. Those using software that cannot follow true resource planning and constraining that moves with the phases are forced to use fixed time resource availability. They must manually adjust the availability as the schedule plan moves.

If using Monte Carlo this plan will not change and will generate many unrealistic plans. I do not trust Monte Carlo simulation under software that cannot automatically model ever changing resource availability as it happens at home. In such case the software will model hundreds or thousands of schedule runs with a resource alignment that is not real, hundreds or thousands of wrong schedules, a big mess.

At least with some trouble they can fix their deterministic plans.

RE: - you were talking about increasing the number of resources available for a specific period of time, rather than for a single activity

This is correct it is about timing, not about a specific activity. Resource production available for all activities can be controlled fixed with time, or can be triggered by an activity. When triggered by an activity it will be available for all activities, it is the timing of a movable activity that determines when it resource production will happen.

Say you are scheduling the construction of a school like ours, all reinforced concrete. During the Concrete Phase you will hire more concrete work labor and will keep a minimum such force for miscellaneous concrete to be executed latter on. A contractor plan his manpower, it is not merely assigning the maximum across the board for all job duration. This plan will have an effect on your schedule. The combination of resource production fixed with time and resource production triggered by activities [ I usually use milestones] will help you create better plans.

When you double click a resource line on the resource table you will get displayed a resource properties window, there you have a tab for Resource Production.

Among the options are to issue a resource production fixed with time or a resource production that is generated with the activity.

You deduct resources via a negative value.

It is common for contractors to increase resource availability based on how the job activities progress and not on fixed dates therefore there is a need to model resource production that moves with activities as they move.

At times the contractor increase or decrease resource availability based on time such as when seasons have an impact, say on Winter you reduce resource availability while making others available.

In this way you will see correct resource availability as planned by PMs at the jobsite.

To me delay of activity 3 in my sample schedule using resource production works as expected, activity 3 was delayed until resources are available for the whole activity duration.

Cannot start on Jan 22/23/24/25 because it must start when ressources are available within the duration of the activity as we are using continuous PDM model.

I got to be missing something.

I was expecting for the Skills model to produce an earlier finish time in accordance to the software rules, and it did even when activities 3 and 4 were finish delayed by reason of calendar exceptions that are active at the time of activity as scheduled. A very slippery finish delay reason.

Evgeny,

use time production instead of activity production.

I discovered this problem and wrote about this earlier in this discussion. Production activities may be delayed if resources are busy but time production will not.

But I still consider this as a problem and we will work with this.

Regards,

Vladimir

Rafael,

you are right that in this case time production shall be used instead of activity production. But Evgeny wanted to see vacations in the diagram. Defining vacations as time production is similar to setting calendar exceptions.

Using skills is fine but it requires creating named resources and if the number of workers is large it may become complicated. I think that modelling vacations as resource production is preferable in this case.

For bricklayers I would use variable resource assignments. When the number of workers become lower or increases the work is done but with different speed.

It looks like in your example activity interruptions do not work as expected.

Best Regards,

Vladimir

Rafael,

an activiy will be delayed if requires exactly 10 bricklayers and there are only 9.

But I found that vacation start may be delayed if resources are not available at their start date.

It shall be corrected.

Regards,

Vladimir

Evgeny,

on January 28 one resource unit will be "spent" and produced again in a week, on February 11 one resource unit will be spent and produced again when will return from the vacation.

Modeling is easy - create two zero duration activities linked FS with vacation duration lag. Apply SNET constraint on vacation start.

On first activity -1 unit is produced, on the second +1 unit is produced.

Creating named resources with individual vacations is more complicated though it is also possible.

It is easy or I missed something in your question.

Best Regards,

Vladimir

Not movable indeed, if you change the exception they will not move and will show wrong bar if you miss re-drawing your bar manually to fit the changes. A MSP user common solution, to draw instead to use CPM functionality.

A virus that has mutated into what others call Bucket Planning.

To draw vacations bars that do not move with the changes on the exceptions better use separate software, either Excel or a Paint software, they are going to be completely independent anyway.

-"So, in case I have 10 resources, each of them will have approx 5 vacations spread over the year (in addition to public holidays), that means, that for the project of 1 year I will have to create 50 exceptions and 10 calendars just to cover resources vacations."

This means drawing 50 activities just to cover vacations of 10 resources.

It is not uncommon for our construction jobs to have over 100 employees at any given time, this would mean 500 vacation exceptions if each of them will have approx 5 vacations spread over the year, 500 dumb activities that will not move.

I believe your original idea on using tabular reposts is the way to go. I do not know of any serious scheduling software that only produce Gantt reports. Tables and reports are a much needed, so do bars, but none is a full substitute of the other.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-001/access-help/guide-to-multivalued-fields-HA001233722.aspx

http://office.microsoft.com/en-001/access-help/using-multivalued-fields-in-queries-HA010149297.aspx?CTT=5&origin=HA001233722#BM4

In certain industries it is not only about the day but also about the shift as sometimes some companies rotate shifts. Spider has unique capabilities for easy modeling of shifts on a single activity.

I wonder how best to model rotating shift in Spider. Perhaps by assigning a 24/7 calendar and then with the use of exceptions you can rotate the available hours in addition to vacations and holidays.

Shift can also model longer work-hours during the Summer and shorter during the Winter plus other availability scenarios, your activity might be delayed from Summer to Winter time and if production + duration is affected it should be in the model.

This would make your request still more useful to check on availability if you need to see the details on the available hours.

Evgeny,

our users limked Spider with other programs (1C, Navision, etc.) using CSV export/import.

Yes, Spider exports everything and if some values in CSV files will be changed Spider will open project with new values. Export to databases does not add much to this functionality.

For us it is easy to create standard report that you requested but usually people are interested in resource availability like in my example. I am not sure that your report adds value to availability report. Please try to convince me.

Best Regards,

Vladimir

Evjeny,

You said "If doesn’t cost too much time...". So I would like to see how it comes out in Access. Not the file as I do not have Access, and my alternative would be to buy and learn a Database software.

I am very interested in your request as in order to see a resource calendar my actual options require to print separate tables in order to see all details.

I would like the report to display for every resource the Resource Calendar, Calendar Week and Calendar Exceptions combined on a single Report as follows.

Resource Name

   Resource Calendar

      Calendar Data Titles

      Calendar Record

   Calendar Week

      Calendar Week Data Titles

      Week Record

   Calendar Exceptions

      Exception Data Titles

      Exception Records

Best Regards,

Rafael

Evgeny,

I thought about Access but the fact that on the calendar table the exceptions field is a multi-valued field makes such query a bit complicated for someone like me who for years have not used database software.

Even handling of multi-valued fields is relatively new to Access.

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/msoffice/how-to-use-the-new-multivalue-field-in-access-20072010/5134

Best regards,

Rafael

If I follow the “exceptions” approach for absence management, will I be able to do the following:
Create a report for all vacations, reserved for a specific person.

For each Named Resource define Named Exceptions and Named Calendars then with the use of user defined fields you can filter the calendar exceptions table. By clicking on the exception lines you can easily check on assignments.
  
 

Create a report for all public holidays applicable for a specific person (in case of multinational distributed team)

It is easier to create a report directly from the calendars table filtering for the resource. Keep it simple, the following provide both. At a single click you can transfer the filtered data to Excel and edit your report.

Regarding the subject of a “volume”
You see, not every activity can be measured in a volume in my view.
 

Of course, not all activities are necessarily production type, can be Duration Type, but even Duration Type can have volume of work.

If you lay bricks – then yes. However what if you write a book or a document?
In this case, one can spend 20% of a time to type in 80% of characters, and then will spend remaining 80% to polish off the document. How do you measure the volume in this case? How do you measure the % of readiness?

This is a duration type Activity with a volume of work equivalent to 100% of the work.
Just use volume of work as percentage, by assigning 100 to volume and % to unit.

Just switch from Gantt view to Resource Gantt, here you will be able to see all assignments grouped by resource, you can apply filters as well and create diagrams and table reports as well.

But the approach of using an activity to model vacations is still poor as resource leveling might move the activity.

Optimization will disregard priorities in favor of duration and other algorithms might still delay the activity if a prior activity using the resource is scheduled to finish after the vacation start. Say you have an activity that uses resource A, start today and last 20 days but the resource will be on vacation during X-maqs, the vacation activity approach will delay the activities.

Prior to resource leveling.

After resource leveling with all priorities equal.

After resouce leveling with priorities assigned.

Note that even with no resource leveling the effect of vacation was correct, the activity was discontinued during the resource non-work period, same as if a long week-end.

Go with the direct and reliable methods to avoid any possible trap, if a resource will not be available model availability the correct way, through resource calendar exceptions. With few resources you might notice but with hundreds of activities you might miss a few. With few resources if you notice you might solve the problem by brute force, by somehow forcing the software to do what it should do easily. Enter the data in a transparent and consistent way and let the software do the dirty job for you.

Let me know if I understood you well, at times I have problems understanding the ways of MSP users, especially with regard to productivity and volume of work. Work different to effort as you might work 8 hours but other working the same 8 hours might produce half the volume of work. MSP lacks direct functionality to model volume of work and productivity as related volume of work, when in need to model this I cannot follow the faulty logic used by MSP users.

I understand how to manage named resources, but in case of un-named resources (e.g. 50 brick layers) how do you manage the fact some of them take vacations at certain dates, thus the total availability of resources goes down. So at certain week you can have 40 of them, other week 45.

Is this possible to model?

Sure, if change in availability is date dependent use fixed date milestones to model resource production to increase/decrease availability. If dependent on activities that move as the project moves use similar approach but instead of fixed milestones use milestones that move with the activities. Once you start exploring this functionality you will see how easy it is to model. Remember that all these field values are displayed on tables you can always display when needed, it is transparent and never hidden.

Of course you do not necessarily have to use milestones it can be the activities themselves. The use of milestones might help as a reminder on the Gantt, it is a matter of personal preferences.

Be aware that the use of partial assignments is not the same as reduced quantity availability even when both might yield same amount of work-hours. One activity might require 8 work-hours by two resources working at the same time on a part time basis [4 hours each], a single resource working full time [8 hours] will not meet the requirement for two activities.

Real life resource assigments can be complicated, but transparent functionality that do not require work arounds that might be erroneous makes it less dificult.

I am now considering the situation of named resources.

Question 1

As in practice each resource has his own absence schedule (due to individually booked vacations ), does it mean, that I will have to create:

• separate exception for every vacation of every resource?
• Separate calendar of every resource?

So, in case I have 10 resources, each of them will have approx 5 vacations spread over the year (in addition to public holidays), that means, that for the project of 1 year I will have to create 50 exceptions and 10 calendars just to cover resources vacations.

Is it correct?

Yes, this is correct with any software, you have to tell the software, no software will be able to figure it out by itself. In my case it would be a single vacation exception from X-mas to 3-kings day for all employees. Can you imagine 2 climbing crane operators on vacations twice a year on the same job, a single tower?

If you got to get into this granularity tell the software, it will do the hard part for you, it will let you know what  about the impact.

Question 2

How to handle situation, when resource is only made available for a some time (shorter, then expected duration of a project)

In MS Project one can set resource availability periods, (which is by default set to From N/A To N/A), but in Spider I found only how to set exceptions, not availability.

Availability is the time where exceptions do not apply. If you want to limit the range just establish an exception from any time before the project start to the start of the availability and another from the end of availability to a distant time after project finish. This I rarely use because we usually let the software unrestricted to tell us when the resources will be needed. At times it is a genuine scheduling need and the software must provide for it, it just do it on its own way.

Use of exceptions is very efficient and allows Spider to report on non available time without having to print calendars that include every day of the year.

Eventually you will learn to use resource production triggered by activities, another unique functionality available within Spider another way to handle availability of resources. This I find it more useful when some resources become available at certain phases that will occur not per fixed calendar dates but for a phase dates range that might change as the job progress. Remember that in the construction industry it is common to hire local labor as the work develops, your modeling needs might be different, and is valid. 

See also

Spider Project enables resource production (or consumption) on activities. The user can either set a list of resources produced/spent on activity (at page Resource Production in activity properties dialog box) or set for individual resource (at page Resource Production in resource properties dialog box) a list of activities, that produce/spend current resource.

The user can specify whether resource is produced (consumed) at the beginning or at the end of activity by checking corresponding boxes At Start or At Finish.

Amount of resource units produced (i.e. positive value) or consumed (i.e. negative value) is set in the field Quantity for selected resource (at page Resource Production in activity properties dialog box) or for selected activity (at page Resource Production in resource properties dialog box).

It is recommended to use resource production option to model quantity of resources available in the project life cycle. To change resource quantity the user can also include dummy activities (producing or consuming resources) to project work breakdown structure.

Displaying idle time on Histograms most probably will interest you, but this is a separate issue by itself we shall deal when you start creating table reports and diagrams.