Managing resources (people) absence in Spider

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

...

The following Spider Report  provides you with a detailed weekly assignment of resources by activity.

http://www.mediafire.com/?b6g3ba2t3aj7rqe

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

How would you model with calendar exceptions the following

• you have 100 brick layers, which are all modeled by one resource Bricklayer with qnt 100
• 90% of them go on vacation over Xmas
• 50% of them go on vacation during Spring holiday.
• 40% of them go on vacation in June-July period.

Cannot be done using a single resource as by definition a resource can have only one calendar otherwise it would be ambiguous.

If you mean

• 10 bricklayers with no vacations at all,
• 50 bricklayers with vacations on  Xmas and Spring holiday
• + 40 bricklayers with  vacations on  Xmas and June-July period

you will need 3 Bricklayer Definitions, 3 calendars and 3 calendar exceptions. 

• 10 Bricklayers A with assigned Calendar A [calendar no vacations].
• 50 Briclayers B with assigned Calendar B [calendar with Xmas and Spring Holiday Vacations]
• 40 Bricklayers C with assigned Calendar C [calendar with Xmas and  June-July period]

If other combinations are within your needs then it might be you need more calendar and resource definitions as to distribute the vacations.

Then assign activity resources using resource skills for all Bricklayers. Activities will be assigned available Bricklayers from the Pool of Bricklayers Skill.

It can yield a better prediction even when always you will have to manage your schedule and make adjustments on the run.

Best Regards,

Rafael

Evgeny,

The best way to model vacations is how all CPM software do it, by using calendar exceptions.  It applies to all resources no matter if named or unnamed.  The problem is when you do not know when the named or unnamed resource will take vacations.

A way to handle unknown vacations on long duration activities with many such unnamed resources would be to assign some extra resources and reduce workload to less than 100% to account for the impact of resource vacations.  If you are modeling resource cost then the added resources at a reduced workload shall balance the cost as well as the total resource hours. This is rarely done by us as we consider it excessive granularity.

Our hands down approach have been to use the CPM as a guide, we do not go into excessive granularity and allow individual supervisors to adjust crew size to make it within the estimated time without using overtime which locally is 2x while in the Mainland US it is 1.5.  At times it comes out that because of improved methods, because of the use of more productive equipment, because of higher manpower productivity on site, the field supervisor do it on time at a reduced cost with less manpower. We do not pretend perfection in our schedules, we manage them, we know initial preparation is 10% and the remaining 90% is managing.  Of course the impact of vacations in our schedule is low because we know in advance most vacations will be on x-mass recess. Still we are impacted in a lesser way because of sick-leave and other reasons.

Best Regards,

Rafael

Evgeny,

You said - It does not have any resources, so it is difficult to see on which way it models resources vacation.

Think out of the box, resources are not available during vacations, do not force the vacation activity to use unavailable resources, it is not the way CPM is designed to work. It might be better to model vacation activities without using resources but the known vacation start and finish dates.

You said -  your example seem to suggest, that you need 3 activities (2 milestones and 1 hammock) and 4 manually set constraints (2 for each milestone) to model 1 single vacation. Isn’t it too bulky?

Yes it is bulky indeed, even if you can hide the milestones using a Non-Main WBS Structure. 

Each milestones need only one constraint, a single SNET constraint is needed. You have the option to manually set the constraint or transfer them to the corresponding cells either using cell formulas which is too confusing to me when looking for external tables, or use Reference Books.

If I have to model vacation activities instead of merely looking at the exceptions table I would prefer the cells formula option but as said before the syntax I do not understand. With this option any changes in vacation dates executed via calendar exceptions can be updated by executing all formulas using a script and a single click of the mouse.

Not all exceptions are vacations, not all correspond to the same vacation, so anything else than looking at the exceptions table and come comment field to identify and filter vacations will require some CPM modeling.

Another method that occurs to me might be to create a single duration type activity for every vacation exception, to set the SNET constraint in a similar way and set the duration by a formula. Perhaps might be convenient to use a 24/7 calendar as to be able to use simple formulae that do not depend on activity calendar. I will explore this and will let you know. This is the first time I am trying to model vacation activities and believe we might still find a better way within how CPM models are designed, we shall not give up easily.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/ihzva3p5a1i7dim/RD012.002.sprj

As in the previous model, updating vacations on this model will require either:

1. Cell Formulas among two tables I do not know how to do because of difficult syntax I cannot clearly see on Spider Help.
2. Use of Reference Books, Formulas within Reference Books, to transfer vacations duration to Activity Table as computed from formula on Calendar Exception Table and to transfer vacations start to Activity Table corresponding SNET constraint from exception Start on Calendar Exception Table.
3. Manual updating of the vacation activities at both tables, which I did with the assistance of a formula on Calendar Exceptions  table to compute vacations duration. Then manually copied Start and duration from CE Table into Activity Table and re-scheduled the job.

I am assuming you are looking for a way to synchronize vacations exceptions  and the vacation activities through a software procedure rather than all manual. That you have a common pool of resources for a portfolio of multiple jobs. That you want to be able to see exceptions that represent vacations as activities all on a single separate job as well as to see some of the vacation activities on other jobs. Therefore it cannot be by direct use of resource assignments on many vacation activities. That you are looking for a procedure to transfer any changes in exception dates other than using double data entry.

• Your idea for creating calendar exception activities makes so much sense to me that I wonder if a new activity type "Calendar Exception" can be implemented. It shall inherit duration, start and finish from the associated calendar exception, will not be moved by predecessors therefore to avoid confusion predecessor links shall not be allowed. If the associated calendar exception is deleted then the software will not allow you to re-schedule until you fix the issue.

I have a few other special activity types in mind such as the SureTrak Topic Activity and something equivalent to P6 WBS activity that have not passed Vladimir test. I believe some of those might add extra compatibility with other software when you import/export files.

• P6: A WBS Summary Activity type represents a group of activities that share a common work breakdown structure (WBS) level. A WBS Summary Activity can group tasks that are not related in a logical sense of a task dependency where one task must wait for another, it is enough for the tasks to be under a common WBS. The duration of a WBS summary activity extends from the start of the earliest activity in a group to the finish of the latest activity. A hammock activity can group tasks which are not related in the hierarchical sense of a Work Breakdown Structure. Therefore a Hammock is not equivalent to a WBS summary activity. I have problems with software allowing dummy links to WBS Summary Activities.
• SureTrak: When you create an outline of activities,you create a hierarchy of topics and activities. You enter each level of the outline as if it were an activity. Then, when you indent an activity (“demote” the activity in the hierarchy), SureTrak changes the activity above it to a Topic Activity. Similar to MSP Summary Activities can be linked with active links.
  • You can create relationships between any activities that aren’t topics, whether they are subordinate to the same topic or different topics.  You cannot create relationships between a topic and any of its subordinates.  Topics can only have finish to start relationships.  The finish of a topic is always deter-mined by the durations of its subordinate topics and activities. You can constrain only the start of topics. Here I welcome active links between Topic Activities.
• MSP: When you delete a Summary Task, Project 2007 will automatically delete its subtasks. To delete a summary task and retain its subtasks, you need to first outdent the subtasks to the same level as the summary task. Placing tasks in a hierarchical order does not automatically create task dependencies. To create task dependencies, the tasks must be linked. After you rearrange the linked tasks in your outlined schedule, the task dependencies that you set previously may no longer be relevant, and you may need to update them. Similar to SureTrak Topic Activity MSP Summary Task can be linked one to another. Here also I welcome active links between Topic Activities. SureTrak Topic Activities are equivalent to MSP Summary Tasks.

About The BrickLayer_no_x-mass. Bricklayers with no vacations? If vacations when?

Best Regards,

Rafael

Rafael, this is great stuff.

You can then relate the reason(s) for each delay to any drag and drag cost caused thereby. And then this can be collected and modeled in Pareto charts, showing the causes of delay over the past three months in descending order of drag cost: the cost of delays due to unavailability of hobbits was $525,000, while the cost of delays due to unavailability of goblins was $200,000, so let's hire two more hobbits.

This is a huge aspect of the Total Project Control methodology (specifically when related to resources, it's called the Cost of Levelling with Unresolved Bottlenecks (the CLUB), which in turn is triggered by drag cost). And, of course, Spider is currently the only package to be able to provide this sort of functionality, as it is the only one that computes drag (and, I assume, (if the data is properly entered) drag cost. 

Fraternally in project management,

Steve the Bajan

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_Vaca…

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 delayed this decision because if you need an exact dates time production works properly, but additional option - to change resource quantity after they will finish jobs where they were assigned may be useful too.

And indeed there were other priorities. Since January many new functions appeared in Spider Project.

Regards,

Vladimir

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.

Time production is usual when you hire or remove project resources at certain time.

Activity production is used when you plan mobilization as subproject (a ship shall be moved from the port to construction site, heavy machines moved from one site to another, some equipment shall be assembled before use, etc.).

When produced resources may be used at any activity where they are are required.

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.

Ok, now I think I undestand what you meant. Let me see if I got it right, you were talking about increasing the number of resources available for a specific period of time, rather than for a single activity, les't say summer, so you would produce resources at the beggining of summer (for exeample) and have negative resource production in winter. Hope this is what you meant.

After reading the posts it has occured to me that resource production can be very helpful in portfolio management, when you move resources from one site to another in oder to finish some jobs more quickly. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Best Regards,

Bogdan

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.

Greetings,

I was reading the conversation since I've been meaning to see how resource production works. I noticed in a couple of posts the terms "time production" and I was wondering what do they mean, in relation to resource production and activity resource production, is is a functionality of spider that I don't know of, or you were refering to something else. 

Regards,

Bogdan

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

Vladimir,

If you compare the models it looks to me like it is not the same modeling available resources via resource quantity than via calendar exception. In one model I assigned different calendar and exceptions to all resources while in the second I assigned the same calendar and exceptions to all resources.

I believe what you are saying is related to a model I have not performed in my comparison, a model using activities resource production instead of the fixed time resource production I am modeling.

I use activity resource production as well as time resource production but my comparison is between resource production using a time fixed single resource production [single calendar, single set of exceptions = none] versus using skills [different resources, different calendars, different set of exceptions].

Resource production might be easier but does not equals skills under the sample jobs I am using. Skills give me a shorter schedule duration even at the expense of increasing some activities time span. In the first model activities time span is increased, in the second model activities time span was not increased but delayed enough to delay overall project duration.

Team calendar is calculated as an overlap of activity calendar and team resources calendars while a single resource team will have a calendar equal to the single resource calendar. In my first model there are several resources with different calendars due to exceptions while in the second model there is a single calendar and this makes the difference.

Please feel free to take a look and if you find an error let me know.

http://www.mediafire.com/?1o08ns4nnx2kvzz,azw6chr6f085kaj

Best regards,

Rafael

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

Vladimir,

But it will delay activities as all resources will share a single calendar. Maybe I am missing something but I modeled the schedule using resource production using time instead of activity resource production, shall be similar to your proposal, I guess. But the project was delayed as illustrated on the figure.

It looks like they are not the same model, it depends on your needs.

Best Regards,

Rafael

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

I would use Skills for resource loading when resources have different calendars, for vacations I would use resource calendars and exceptions.

If the crews can work with less than 10 bricklayers then I would assign the skills to different teams, but this is another topic.

Also can use production type activity if duration depend on resource productivity, another topic as this is implemented through volume of work, a functionality not available in MSP and perhaps not available in any other package.

The beauty of all is how it works with resource leveling.

I suggest displaying a column for calendars to make sure calendar assignments are correct, also double check on assignment of calendar exceptions. Definitively your request for a view on calendar exceptions applied for every resource could help a lot.

Evgeny,

I suggested resource production for how to handle the situation when resource is only made available for a some time (shorter, then expected duration of a project), for any resource type, named or non-named.

I suggest exceptions to model vacations, for any resource type, named or non-named. At home in my industry, Construction Industry, we schedule vacations for x-mass recess so we apply the exception across the board for most resources, for any resource type, named or non-named.

Most available CPM software remember and takes into account when resources are on vacation, they differ on their approach to store the exceptions. I believe with Spider it can be less difficult (yes still difficult, impossible for me) to generate a report for vacation periods because in Spider exceptions are stored as a range while in other software you mark individual hours for non-work time and do not let you see for what reason each non-working time little segment was assigned as non-working. For the moment you can do it very easily using separate reports, one for your resources where you show their calendar ID, one for your calendars where you show the calendar exception IDs and one for your exceptions where you display the specific date ranges. You cannot combine the 3 reports into one with ease [if can be done within Spider] and under your needs I see a lot of value for such report as you clearly defined it. For the moment the option would be to export the reports to a Database and generate the report, but still some fields are multi-valued fields and this complicates it further.

Resource Gantt Diagram tells you in a graphical and tabular way who is doing what to the activity level. It does not display unavailable time as an activity. I do not like the idea of using activities for displaying non-available time or available time for all resources, but it does not means it cannot be displayed as a bar. I would prefer to have functionality to display on Resource Gantt, in addition to activity distribution each resource global availability on a separate row and each exception at another individual rows. Row elements at the same outline level than activities, convenient for filtering purposes. 

But my list is endless, I would also like a Cost Gantt similar to Resource Gantt. From these diagram views it would be easier to generate the reports and edit/enter data as well. In this case I prefer challenging Vladimir and his team for more powerful functionality than reports, for me Spider reports works perfectly, Diagrams are more powerful, adding diagrams will add report options.

To me finding the logic to resource allocation is the most difficult task, anything that adds understanding to it is of much value. I find your request of much value. Then why not asking for the table as well as for the bar display for exceptions that do not require additional activities. The Cost Gantt I can live without, is more a matter of convenience.

Best Regards,

Rafael

Evgeny,

applying FNL constraint is the same as applying higher priority.

I agree with Rafael: creating 50 dummy activities is not easier than creating 50 calendar exceptions. But you will not need to use advanced functionality like variable resource assignments and hide vacation ativities creating reports. I do not see why creating vacation activities may be preferable to creating calendar xceptions.

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,

all Spider Fields created in any CSV table and database are described in the CSV and DB import/export section of Help menu.

Reports that you want nobody required and I agree that it is hard to get them.

But resource availability reports for any period is easy to get in a table form or as a diagram

In this example resources have planned two weeks vacations at different times.

Upper diagram shows overall availability of some resource skill (resource center).