I think the issue is with your update methodology in all honesty. It sounds
like to me that you're not assigning resources to tasks, but simply creating
tasks, assigning a duration in hours, then decrementing against that total.
That's not quite what MS Project is designed for. Typically, you need two
points of data to develop a duration estimate:
1) Work (Person hours)
2) Units (% that a resource is dedicated to the task. In your case, it sounds
like you are working with the assumption of 100% for all tasks, which implies
that all tasks for a specific resource are in sequence and not overlapping).
3) Duration (The window of time within which the task will take place).
The third point will be derived from the first two using the formula D X
(U X Person hours per day) = W.
From an update methodology standpoint, if you're tracking by hours, you probably
shouldn't be using the % Complete Tracking mechanism that you are. That
method isn't designed for tracking work, but instead for duration. Your
best bet is to update the resource hours against task in the Resource Usage
View each week - then reschedule all incomplete work after the status date.
That will push any open hours to the post status date period and recalculate
the duration estimates for each task. Once you do that, you can review the
resource allocations for potential resource loading issues.
That's how most people I work with deal with the challenge that you've stated.
Otherwise, it just sounds like a task list with each task associated to
a specific budget. That could be managed in Excel just as easily.
- Andrew Lavinsky
Blog:
http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/epm