A CHALLENGE FOR THE BEST OF THE BEST!!!!!

[MissUnPunctual]

I asked a similar question in the Excel area, much to no avail. I stumbled
across Project and asked our company's IT department to install it on my
computer. They did and now i'm stuck... i've never used this before and i'm
not even sure if it can do what i need it to...

I work for Pepsi and here's what i need to do (regardless of whether i use
Excel or Project):

Schedule employees (merchandisers) to be at stores (ie - Walmart, Meijer,
Kroger, etc) at certain times of the day. I'd also like to have that
schedule reflected in a way that shows each store and it's coverage, per day
/ per week, with only having to enter the data once. This schedule will
change weekly, including who will be at which stores and at what time. It
doesn't necessarily need to be an 'on-going' schedule, as it will only be
looked at week to week. I would imagine each week will just be modified as
needed, based off the previous week (now i'm just rambling, huh?)

I'm having trouble because i'm not familiar with Project yet. Hopefully
someone can*actually* help me, and i don't get too many people telling me to
buy a book on Project or to take a class, because i don't have much time to
figure this out. I'm pretty quick to latch onto something once i understand
how the basics work, but if someone can loan me their expertise, it would
certainly speed up the process. This, to me, seems to be a lot like Excel in
some ways, but i'm hoping it can do so much more for me.

Thanks, in advance, for any and all help!
Marie
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Rod Gill]

By forcing days and times of resources you effectively remove almost all the
benefits Project gives you!! Excel would be a much better solution,
especially if you want something done quickly.

 

[davegb]

By forcing days and times of resources you effectively remove almost all the
benefits Project gives you!! Excel would be a much better solution,
especially if you want something done quickly.

I'd have to agree with Rod. Project won't do this easily and will be
more trouble than Excel. This is not what it's intended to do.

 

[MissUnPunctual]

Thank you for your responses.

I know this is a Project group, but does anyone know how i can set this up
in excel?

 

[JulieS]

Hi Marie,

I think the "how" is really highly dependent upon what you need to see
and how you need to see it. That being said, a couple of ideas:

Each store is an Excel workbook.
Each week (or month) depending upon how much data you are using is a
sheet in the work book.
The actual sheet is arranged with Days of the week horizontally and crew
names on the vertical. Once you create one sheet with the structure,
copy the sheet within the workbook.
Then you enter the time on day of the week for the crew at the
intersection.

If you don't have hundreds of stores, you could simplify further create
a calendar like format with crews to the left and at the intersection
enter store and time.

--
I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for FAQs and more information about
Microsoft Project.

 

[Cincin]

Excel is ok but it might take you a while to set it up. A scheduling tool is
what you need.
An example of the top of my head "Wallchart" made by a company in UK, but
I'm sure you can find some other open source, maybe even free similar tools.

HTH,
Cezar