Coping with MS Project automation on Resources

[hessi]

Hello there,


I'm trying to manage a 1-year project with about 5000 tasks and ca. 30
Resources.

The main goal of using MS Project is to keep track of delays due to
task dependencies, so each task has a fixed duration, but might get
moved due to changes on predecessors.

Around 60% of the tasks have resources allocated to them, but not to
manage getting the tasks done but simply to know (roughly) what a
member of my team is doing at the moment. Hence, I don't really care
whether a task is allocated to him during his vacation or he has an 18
hour day according to Project, as long as it's not 0 hours for weeks
at a time.

Unfortunately, Project tries to "help" me by doing some automatic
stuff as soon as I change something.

I managed to get rid of the change of duration after adding/removing
resources by changing all tasks from Type: Fixed Units to Type: Fixed
Duration. Furthermore, I switched off Effort Driven - I still don't
know for sure what it does, but it seems to avoid some automation, and
that's fine by me.

My current problem is that MS Project changes the duration of a task
(and sometimes a few other tasks in the process) after I change
something on a Predecessor, while giving me the error message:

"The resource is assigned outside the original dates for task [...].
The duration of this fixed-duration task will change to accommodate
the resource assignment"

Unfortunately, it doesn't keep track of the old duration, so I can't
change it back if I don't know what it was... not good.

Searching in this group, I found some hints on changing the Type from
Fixed Duration to Fixed Units or Fixed Work, but that seems
counterproductive to the issue I had in the first place.

After some playing around, I found out that the error message doesn't
appear if I change every task to the Standard Calendar and switch on
"Scheduling ignores resource calendars".

I'm not sure though what other effects this might have on my file. It
still seems to link my resource usage to the tasks and even marks
resources in red which are overbooked (once again, doesn't really
matter, but good to know).

So, is this the right way for me to go or what would you propose to
get rid of the "help" MS Project tries to give me?

Thanks.


Best Regards

Christian Hessmann

 

[Rob Schneider]

Christian,

I'd love to get into looking at the MPP file itself to give best
guidance. But alas ...

I think I know what's happening; but hard to explain here without
looking at the specifics.

Briefly:


: Are you sure your tasks are Fixed Duration and NOT effort driven?
Best to detect this by putting Task Type and Effort driven columns up
and inspect. Sometimes something else squeaks into plans if your default
task type is something other than you want/expect. Check that too. Think
and understand exactly what you want. Remember the "triangle" of Work,
Duration, and Units. You fix one; you change one; Project computes the
third.

: When you say "MS Project changes the duration ... after I change
something ...". What is "something"?

: Have you set a baseline? Use that to compare against plan to see
changes/delays. "Remember" the base plan this way. Not the way I think
it is you are doing this.

Hello there,


I'm trying to manage a 1-year project with about 5000 tasks and ca. 30
Resources.

The main goal of using MS Project is to keep track of delays due to
task dependencies, so each task has a fixed duration, but might get
moved due to changes on predecessors.

Around 60% of the tasks have resources allocated to them, but not to
manage getting the tasks done but simply to know (roughly) what a
member of my team is doing at the moment. Hence, I don't really care
whether a task is allocated to him during his vacation or he has an 18
hour day according to Project, as long as it's not 0 hours for weeks
at a time.

Unfortunately, Project tries to "help" me by doing some automatic
stuff as soon as I change something.

I managed to get rid of the change of duration after adding/removing
resources by changing all tasks from Type: Fixed Units to Type: Fixed
Duration. Furthermore, I switched off Effort Driven - I still don't
know for sure what it does, but it seems to avoid some automation, and
that's fine by me.

My current problem is that MS Project changes the duration of a task
(and sometimes a few other tasks in the process) after I change
something on a Predecessor, while giving me the error message:

"The resource is assigned outside the original dates for task [...].
The duration of this fixed-duration task will change to accommodate
the resource assignment"

Unfortunately, it doesn't keep track of the old duration, so I can't
change it back if I don't know what it was... not good.

Searching in this group, I found some hints on changing the Type from
Fixed Duration to Fixed Units or Fixed Work, but that seems
counterproductive to the issue I had in the first place.

After some playing around, I found out that the error message doesn't
appear if I change every task to the Standard Calendar and switch on
"Scheduling ignores resource calendars".

I'm not sure though what other effects this might have on my file. It
still seems to link my resource usage to the tasks and even marks
resources in red which are overbooked (once again, doesn't really
matter, but good to know).

So, is this the right way for me to go or what would you propose to
get rid of the "help" MS Project tries to give me?

Thanks.


Best Regards

Christian Hessmann

 

[hessi]

Rob,


thank you for your fast answer - very much appreciated.

I'd love to get into looking at the MPP file itself to give best
guidance. But alas ...

Unfortunately, I can't send you the original file - if I'd do that, I
wouldn't have to worry about the project anymore... ;-)

Are you sure your tasks are Fixed Duration and NOT effort driven?

Yes, I'm sure. I inserted the columns Type and Effort Driven, made
sure all Subtasks are shown and enabled Autofilter. Both show only one
setting: Fixed Duration / No.

Maybe I should have mentioned earlier that I'm using the resource
calendar for marking vacation as no work time - I just tried it with a
new file, as soon as I mark days for a resource as "No work time",
tasks get moved around with the aforementioned error message.

My conclusion is not to use "no work time" and stick to the standard
calendar, hoping that this is the only trigger for automatic changes
on tasks.

Any recommendation on how to mark vacations? One task with 24/7
calendar maybe?

Remember the "triangle" of Work, Duration, and Units. You fix one; you change one; Project computes the
third.

I have to admit I didn't know about that triangle, but that makes
sense.

When you say "MS Project changes the duration ... after I change
something ...".  What is "something"?

Mostly dates or duration - but I think this was due to the fact that
successors to these tasks moved into no work areas for certain
resources.

: Have you set a baseline?  Use that to compare against plan to see
changes/delays.  "Remember" the base plan this way. Not the way I think
it is you are doing this.

I'm using baselines, but just to keep track of the delays on the
project (difficult enough).


Anyway, thanks for your help.


Regards
Christian

 

[Dytham]

"After some playing around, I found out that the error message doesn't
appear if I change every task to the Standard Calendar and switch on
"Scheduling ignores resource calendars". "

Rather than changing every task, did you know that you can insert column
Ignore Resource Calendar in your View and fill down Yes into that ?

It shouldn't be necessary to change every task to the Standard Calendar.

Chas.

 

[Rob Schneider]

Christian,

See embedded (>>RMS)

Rob,


thank you for your fast answer - very much appreciated.



Unfortunately, I can't send you the original file - if I'd do that, I
wouldn't have to worry about the project anymore... ;-)

experience that what you are saying is what I hear a lot from people I
help and when looking at the plan and then teaching/coaching gets it
back into shape. With you I'm guessing.

Yes, I'm sure. I inserted the columns Type and Effort Driven, made
sure all Subtasks are shown and enabled Autofilter. Both show only one
setting: Fixed Duration / No.

Maybe I should have mentioned earlier that I'm using the resource
calendar for marking vacation as no work time - I just tried it with a
new file, as soon as I mark days for a resource as "No work time",
tasks get moved around with the aforementioned error message.

RMS>>It's doing what Project should do .. reschedule based on resource
availability.

My conclusion is not to use "no work time" and stick to the standard
calendar, hoping that this is the only trigger for automatic changes
on tasks.

RMS>>Not necessarily. If you want to model your plan with respect to
resource availability, then do so. But I think you mentioned elsewhere
that you are putting in resources only partially.

Any recommendation on how to mark vacations? One task with 24/7
calendar maybe?



I have to admit I didn't know about that triangle, but that makes
sense.

RMS>>This is key to understanding what Project does. This confirms a
hunch that I had. This understanding crucial.

Mostly dates or duration - but I think this was due to the fact that
successors to these tasks moved into no work areas for certain
resources.

RMS>>This is another hunch confirmed. Why are you changing dates? What
dates? Start Dates, End dates. Don't do that. When you do that you are
telling project to change constraint types and it will mess everything
up. You have fixed duration tasks with logic. Let Project tell you the
dates. All you should be entereing is Actual Starts, Remaining
Duration, etc. AFTER baselining.

I'm using baselines, but just to keep track of the delays on the
project (difficult enough).

RMS>>Good. but I'm curious about your comment "just" since you said up
front this is the whole purpose of using Project. Surely the focus of
your attention should be on this and not elsewhere? Why "just"? Also
use the deadline field to keep track of those pesky things.

Anyway, thanks for your help.

RMS>>My hunch is that you have a mal-formed project model. That you
have entered start/finish dates and have therefore, unknown to you since
you didn't know how to do it, have many tasks now defined with
contraints. Check the Constraint type field on each. Except for the
very first task in your model, it should be nothing other than "As soon
as possible" or if there is a darn good reason for any other type of
constraint (and there hardly ever is).

 

[hessi]

Rob,


let me be honest - as you might have guessed, I'm not a Project
professional, so I'm quite sure I'm doing a lot of things wrong.
It might be possible that I'm "raping" MS Project to do something
which it was never intended to do in the first place. Your hunches are
pointing into that direction, and you might be right about that.

RMS>>Not necessarily. If you want to model your plan with respect to
resource availability, then do so. But I think you mentioned elsewhere
that you are putting in resources only partially.

Exactly. Resources are used for my own convenience, but should not be
used by Project to reschedule anything - the information is not
complete enough to do so.
If MS Project can not be used that way, I presume I might have to get
rid of Resources, which would be unfortunate but could be coped with.

RMS>>This is another hunch confirmed. Why are you changing dates? What
dates? Start Dates, End dates. Don't do that.  When you do that you are
telling project to change constraint types and it will mess everything
up.  You have fixed duration tasks with logic.  Let Project tell you the
dates.  All you should be entereing is Actual Starts, Remaining
Duration, etc. AFTER baselining.

Right - I think I know most of these errors from past experience, and
I'm trying not to do repeat them anymore.

Basically, what I have are about 40-50 (less than 1%) tasks with fixed
dates due to external circumstances (implemented as Constrains: Start
no earlier than: xx.xx.xxxx). Every other task has dependencies on
other tasks - about 90% FS or FS+x days, a few SS or FF.
If I said I changed dates, this meant I had to change the buffer x (FS
+x days) between two tasks due to changes of external circumstances -
something gets delivered later than anticipated, we try to cope with
it by shortening our preparation time and therefore the buffer.

I'm not working with remaining duration at all, planning is mostly
about the future, what happened in the past or right now is not of
immediate concern.

RMS>>Good. but I'm curious about your comment "just" since you said up
front this is the whole purpose of using Project.  Surely the focus of
your attention should be on this and not elsewhere?  Why "just"?  Also
use the deadline field to keep track of those pesky things.

"Just" as in: I don't know exactly what I'm doing by using baselines,
I (manually) sync my Project file with a bigger P3 Master Schedule
file every month and make a new baseline afterwards. The daily changes
on the project are reported to management each week by printing out
the Gantt Chart with the latest baseline and the actual schedule and
giving them a quick overview on the movement of tasks. Wrong?
Presumably.

RMS>>My hunch is that you have a mal-formed project model.  That you
have entered start/finish dates and have therefore, unknown to you since
you didn't know how to do it, have many tasks now defined with
contraints.  Check the Constraint type field on each.  Except for the
very first task in your model, it should be nothing other than "As soon
as possible" or if there is a darn good reason for any other type of
constraint (and there hardly ever is).

As already mentioned above, this is one of the few rules I knew about
Project (from previous errors).
I do have more than one task with constraints, since, during the
project, we receive about 40-50 deliveries from external partners.
Each delivery triggers tasks in our project - of course, some tasks
depend on more than one delivery.
We have a predefined date on which these deliveries are arriving, but
these dates change (monthly - I receive them from the P3 Master
schedule).
I hope this counts as a darn good reason in your book. ;-)


Regards
Christian

 

[hessi]

Dytham,

Rather than changing every task, did you know that you can insert column
Ignore Resource Calendar in your View and fill down Yes into that ?

I didn't know that, but it doesn't work, either. ;-)
You'd have to set the Calendar to Standard, as well, otherwise Ignore
Resource Calendar is greyed out.

But: I just selected all tasks at once by clicking on the task column,
pressed Shift-F2 and changed the two settings - quite easy, as
well.


Regards
Christian

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Christian,

You might like to have a look at my free series for beginners on Microsoft
Project in the TechTrax ezine, particularly #11 on Task Types, at this site:
http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc or this:
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMFrame.asp?CMD=ArticleSearch&AUTH=23
(Perhaps you'd care to rate the article before leaving the site,
Thanks.)

In addition, the Effort Driven setting only comes into use after you have
assigned a resource and you then want you change assignments.

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

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

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP

Remember the "triangle" of Work, Duration, and Units. You fix one; you
change one; Project computes the
third.

I have to admit I didn't know about that triangle, but that makes
sense.

 

[Rob Schneider]

Christian,

See embedded, marked with RMS>>>

Rob,


let me be honest - as you might have guessed, I'm not a Project
professional, so I'm quite sure I'm doing a lot of things wrong.
It might be possible that I'm "raping" MS Project to do something
which it was never intended to do in the first place. Your hunches are
pointing into that direction, and you might be right about that.

RMS>>>I think Project is intended to do exactly what you want.

RMS>>>You just have to do it the way Project works and my hunch is that
you are a bit behind the learning curve. Rod Gill gave you some links
to read. Suggest you do that. Also see the book which I really like
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dynamic-Sch...486&linkCode=wsw&tag=0019030-21&creative=8898

Exactly. Resources are used for my own convenience, but should not be
used by Project to reschedule anything - the information is not
complete enough to do so.
If MS Project can not be used that way, I presume I might have to get
rid of Resources, which would be unfortunate but could be coped with.

RMS>>>Resources are NOT rescheduling the project. You are when you allow
to recalculate. It is recalculating based on the logic you gave it.
Project can work as you believe it should. it just has to be setup
correctly. No more complicated than that.

Right - I think I know most of these errors from past experience, and
I'm trying not to do repeat them anymore.

Basically, what I have are about 40-50 (less than 1%) tasks with fixed
dates due to external circumstances (implemented as Constrains: Start
no earlier than: xx.xx.xxxx). Every other task has dependencies on
other tasks - about 90% FS or FS+x days, a few SS or FF.
If I said I changed dates, this meant I had to change the buffer x (FS
+x days) between two tasks due to changes of external circumstances -
something gets delivered later than anticipated, we try to cope with
it by shortening our preparation time and therefore the buffer.

I'm not working with remaining duration at all, planning is mostly
about the future, what happened in the past or right now is not of
immediate concern.

RMS>>>Think again. These aren't really fixed dates. They are "demands"
that something be done by that date. That doesn't make it so no matter
how hard you try. Example of a truly fixed dates are: solar eclipse.
Keep track of when you want things to occur with Deadline fields adn
then let Project do the work. It will tell you if you can do it or not,
and it will tell you, as you progress the project, if it thinks future
deadlines are at risk. Then you have to change the plan or renegotiate
new dates.

"Just" as in: I don't know exactly what I'm doing by using baselines,
I (manually) sync my Project file with a bigger P3 Master Schedule
file every month and make a new baseline afterwards. The daily changes
on the project are reported to management each week by printing out
the Gantt Chart with the latest baseline and the actual schedule and
giving them a quick overview on the movement of tasks. Wrong?
Presumably.

RMS>>>is this re-work. Why not do everything in P3? I'm surprised you
make a new baseline every month. I would think baselines only should
change when there is an agred change in scope (with a approved CR). I
think I have a problem with the basic approach you are taking, but maybe
it works. I don't have enough info to really make it worth thinking
harder than I have.

As already mentioned above, this is one of the few rules I knew about
Project (from previous errors).
I do have more than one task with constraints, since, during the
project, we receive about 40-50 deliveries from external partners.
Each delivery triggers tasks in our project - of course, some tasks
depend on more than one delivery.
We have a predefined date on which these deliveries are arriving, but
these dates change (monthly - I receive them from the P3 Master
schedule).
I hope this counts as a darn good reason in your book. ;-)

RMS>>>Again, even these external deliveries should not be constrained.
They may or may not happen!!! In fact, you say it yourself--"these
change monthly". Keep track of the expecations using the Deadline
field. Manage these in Project just like any other tasks.

Sorry Christian, but I have problems with the basic approach. I don't
think it's going to get you very far. Read Rod's links and get that
book. And consider using one scheduling tool (P3 or Project)? Have a
reason to do both.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

Let me put this simply: you are spot on for what you want to achieve.
Your massage is typical for resources using a different calendar: suppose a
one dat-y taks, 2 resoruces, one is on holiday on the originally planned day
and that holiday is reflected in his calendar.
Then Proejct MUST plan his work on the next day because no work is scheduled
during nonworking time; duration thus becomes two days.

So either you give all resources the same calendar OR you give all tasks a
task calendar (even the project calendar) and the option Scheduling Ignores
Resoruce Calendars as you say.
That's all.

HTH

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
+32 495 300 620
For availability check:
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/Calendar.pdf

Hello there,


I'm trying to manage a 1-year project with about 5000 tasks and ca. 30
Resources.

The main goal of using MS Project is to keep track of delays due to
task dependencies, so each task has a fixed duration, but might get
moved due to changes on predecessors.

Around 60% of the tasks have resources allocated to them, but not to
manage getting the tasks done but simply to know (roughly) what a
member of my team is doing at the moment. Hence, I don't really care
whether a task is allocated to him during his vacation or he has an 18
hour day according to Project, as long as it's not 0 hours for weeks
at a time.

Unfortunately, Project tries to "help" me by doing some automatic
stuff as soon as I change something.

I managed to get rid of the change of duration after adding/removing
resources by changing all tasks from Type: Fixed Units to Type: Fixed
Duration. Furthermore, I switched off Effort Driven - I still don't
know for sure what it does, but it seems to avoid some automation, and
that's fine by me.

My current problem is that MS Project changes the duration of a task
(and sometimes a few other tasks in the process) after I change
something on a Predecessor, while giving me the error message:

"The resource is assigned outside the original dates for task [...].
The duration of this fixed-duration task will change to accommodate
the resource assignment"

Unfortunately, it doesn't keep track of the old duration, so I can't
change it back if I don't know what it was... not good.

Searching in this group, I found some hints on changing the Type from
Fixed Duration to Fixed Units or Fixed Work, but that seems
counterproductive to the issue I had in the first place.

After some playing around, I found out that the error message doesn't
appear if I change every task to the Standard Calendar and switch on
"Scheduling ignores resource calendars".

I'm not sure though what other effects this might have on my file. It
still seems to link my resource usage to the tasks and even marks
resources in red which are overbooked (once again, doesn't really
matter, but good to know).

So, is this the right way for me to go or what would you propose to
get rid of the "help" MS Project tries to give me?

Thanks.


Best Regards

Christian Hessmann