Can you get work remaining as a time phased field in resource usag

[Dmatzy]

I am using the default resource usage view and find it very helpful.
However, I noticed that I cannot find 'work remaining' in the list of fields
available to show as a time-phased field.

Is this available in some way? If not, is there a reason why? This would
be very helpful to have in the resource usage view. I could use that field
in this view to know how much remaining time I need from each person on the
plan by week and by month.

Now, the only remaining field I can get is 'remaining availability', which
is does not answer my question.

 

[Rod Gill]

Remaining work is every Work value that does not have a corresponding Actual
work value. So, display Actual work as well and look at the Work values for
all time slices with no actual work. This is the remaining work.

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Dmatzy ,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

Try Inserting a new column for Remaining Work.

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP
See http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc for Project Tutorials

wrote:

 

[Dmatzy]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the response. I did add 'remaining work' column to the view I
was using(Resource Usage). That shows the total remaining for the resource
and for the task, but it doesn't show in the right pane in the time-phased
portion of the screen. That's what I was hoping for. I want to know how
many hours per week or month I need to plan my resources in order to complete
the project.

In this view, if I go to 'Format' .. 'Details', remaining work is not a
field available for selection.

Is it possible to get just the remaining work value spread out over the
selected time frame?

 

[Dmatzy]

Rod,

I really appreciate you taking the time to respond to this question. I'm
using the Resource Usage view, and I do see when I go to 'Format' ...
'Details' ... that I can select 'Work' and 'Actual Work', and these values
show in the time buckets I have chosen (week and month, orjust month).

As you point out, I do see that 'Work Remaining' would be the difference
between the 'Work' values and the 'Actual Work' values. But I was hoping to
just get the 'Remaining Work' values in these time buckets. I have to
provide resource managers estimates of how much I will need their resources
for the coming months, and remaining work would cover that. Now, I would
have to provide both values and do the math myself, or have them do it. This
is made more difficult by the fact that the time-bucketed values have a
character in the value to designate the UOM (usually an 'h' for hours). So I
can't just copy this into a spreadsheet and do the math without re-keying the
values. Even at that, it would be a lot of effort to do this just to get at
the difference between the two numbers when it seems that Project is able to
provide that value.

It just seems odd to me that with a planning tool like Project, I can't get
easily get my remaining hours projected over time for the resources or tasks
that I am trying to manage. Especially given that I can get so many other
values broken out like this (even a resource's 'remaining availability'), but
not remaining effort. Obviously, Project knows this value by time phase
(even if it has to calculate it), but it doesn't seem to make it available to
me.

I was hoping it is, and I was just missing how to get at it.

Thanks again for the response, and in advance for any further insights.

 

[Mike Glen]

You can only do what I suggested. You might need to reassign the work
remaining to meet your requirement.


Mike Glen
Project MVP

 

[Rod Gill]

Hi,

If you have updated your schedules accurately then all work in the future is
remaining work. I really do not see any issue here, provided you update
tasks accurately. This is why Project does not display remaining work, it's
already there!

Copy Usage data to Excel and yes you do get a text result in Excel because
of the h for hours. In Excel press Ctrl+h for edit, replace then replace h
with nothing. You then end up numbers in your cells.

 

[Dmatzy]

Hi Rod.

I see what you are saying about the future work being remaining hours, but I
think the issue for me is that I have to provide this information on a
monthly basis.

Therefore, I set the Timescale to show only the middle tier, which I set to
the monthly level. So in the current month my work value is a combination of
actual work and remaining work. You're right in that future months will
represent only the remaining work, and past moths will represent only the
actual work. It's the current month which is a mixture.

However, your insights have given me some ideas on how to handle this. I
could go back and edit the values in the current month, or maybe change my
timescale to weekly and then summarize monthly from there. We only enter
actual hours on a weekly basis, so weekly totals would not be a mixture like
a monthly value would be.

Also, thanks for the Excel tip for removing the 'h'.

I really appreciate your help and insights.

 

[JH]

Dmatzy,

Did you ever get an answer to this? I am trying to do teh same thing, i.e.,
Add the Remaining Work field to my Analyze Time Phased Data tool. I added
another Add-On that is for Scrum, and it has this field in it, so I know it
can be added. I just don't know how.

Any help will be appreciated.

JH

 

[JulieS]

Hi JH,

In the resource usage and/or task usage view, the work shown in the
timephased portion is remaining work.

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

Julie

 

[JH]

Thanks Julie. Specifically what I am looking for is how to add the
"remaining work" field to the "Available fields" in the Analyze Time Phased
Data tool on the Analysis toolbar. This field is not an option in my
implementation of MS Project Professional 2003. I can add it to many of my
views in project, but it is not in the Analysis tool. I am creating work
burn down charts and need this field. Thanks, Jay

 

[JulieS]

Hi Jay,

If you export the "Work" field in MS Project from either the Task Usage
or the Resource Usage view, any work beyond the date of Actual Work data
is "remaining work". There is no timescaled field called "Remaining
Work" (despite what you may read in help.)

For example: If I create a 5 day duration task starting Monday and
ending Friday and assign one resource at 100%, the amount of work
scheduled is 40 hours. I go to the Task Usage View and show Work and
Actual Work in the timescaled portion. I see the 8 hours of work spread
across the 5 days in the Work field in the timescaled portion. The
Actual Work in the timescaled portion is empty.

I then split my screen to show the Task Form at the bottom and click my
secondary mouse button in the Task form and select Resource Work from
the shortcut menu. I see 40 hours in the remaining work field in the
Task form.

I book 6 hours of Actual Work on Monday and Tuesday.

In the Task Form, Actual Work is 12 hours, remaining work is 28 hours.

In the timescaled portion the work field shows:
6 hrs. Actual & 6 hrs Work on Monday
6 hrs. Actual and 6 hrs work on Tuesday
0 hrs. Actual and 8 hrs Work on Wednesday
0 hrs. Actual and 8 hrs Work on Thursday
0 hrs. Actual and 8 hrs Work on Friday
0 hrs. Actual and 4 hrs. Work on Monday

The Work on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Monday is remaining work.

If you run the Analyze Timescaled Data in Excel Wizard and export "Work"
and "Actual Work" you will see the exact same data.

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

Julie