Custom Resource Report

[Marina]

Hello all!

I am trying to customize a resource report to deliver to each "resource" in
which I can list out each of their tasks. The "To-Do-List" and the "Who Does
What" has that feature but unfortunately, I have a difficult situation. I
have several tasks and subtasks and some of those subtasks have the same name
across tasks described as such below:

T-shirts
Layout Design - Art Department
Design Review - Art Department, Marketing Department
Design Approved - Art Department, Marketing Department
Send Artwork - Project Manager
Pens
Layout Design - Art Department
Design Review - Art Department, Marketing Department
Design Approved - Art Department, Marketing Department
Send Artwork - Project Manager
Buttons
Layout Design - Art Department
Design Review - Art Department, Marketing Department
Design Approved - Art Department, Marketing Department
Send Artwork - Project Manager

My customized report to distribute to the Art Department shows the tasks
"Layout Design" three times, but they will not know if the Layout Design is
for T-shirts, Pens or Buttons. I have searched the help and it mentions that
there isn't a way to enable the "show summary tasks" for any resource report.

Is there any way to accomplish what I am trying to do? I am trying to avoid
listing out all task/subtask information for every task such as T-shirts -
Layout Design; Pens - Layout Design; Buttons - Layout Design.

Thanks in advance for your help!!

 

[John]

Hello all!

I am trying to customize a resource report to deliver to each "resource" in
which I can list out each of their tasks. The "To-Do-List" and the "Who Does
What" has that feature but unfortunately, I have a difficult situation. I
have several tasks and subtasks and some of those subtasks have the same name
across tasks described as such below:

T-shirts
Layout Design - Art Department
Design Review - Art Department, Marketing Department
Design Approved - Art Department, Marketing Department
Send Artwork - Project Manager
Pens
Layout Design - Art Department
Design Review - Art Department, Marketing Department
Design Approved - Art Department, Marketing Department
Send Artwork - Project Manager
Buttons
Layout Design - Art Department
Design Review - Art Department, Marketing Department
Design Approved - Art Department, Marketing Department
Send Artwork - Project Manager

My customized report to distribute to the Art Department shows the tasks
"Layout Design" three times, but they will not know if the Layout Design is
for T-shirts, Pens or Buttons. I have searched the help and it mentions that
there isn't a way to enable the "show summary tasks" for any resource report.

Is there any way to accomplish what I am trying to do? I am trying to avoid
listing out all task/subtask information for every task such as T-shirts -
Layout Design; Pens - Layout Design; Buttons - Layout Design.

Thanks in advance for your help!!

Marina,
Well I have an answer but you probably won't like it. The best way to
deal with your "difficult situation" is to not create it in the first
place. When identical task descriptions appear throughout a project
file, a part of the description should include an identifier that in
fact makes each task description unique. So yes, layout design for
example should really be, layout design for T-shirts, layout design for
Pens, and layout design for buttons.

And just for reference, summary lines are not tasks. No activity is
performed at a summary level. For that reason a summary line should have
a noun based task name (e.g. in your case T-shirts, Pens, and Buttons).
However a subtask to a summary is a performance task and its task name
should include an action verb (e.g. layout design for T-shirts, Paint
living room, Design RF amplifier for correlator module, etc.).

But wait, there's more. When viewing assignments for each resource (e.g.
To-do-list), Project uses what is called a combination view. Rather then
go into the details of combination views, let me refer you to FAQ 51 -
Data Types: Task, Resource and Assignment, on our MVP website at:
http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm
If you really don't want to make the task name more explicit, a spare
field could be used to identify the summary information in a combination
view. For example, you could use a spare text field to identify the
summary line information with each subtask but then you would need to
check out FAQ 37 - Custom fields in tables to make that information
appear in a combination view. Believe me, it's a whole lot easier to
just bite the bullet on the Task Name.

Of course there is always a VBA approach to get virtually any kind of
report you want, but then, that's another story.

John
Project MVP

 

[Catfish Hunter]

Maybe this will help. Add a column for resource so you can filter on this. To
turn this on click on the funnel and arrows become visable at the top of each
column. Now filter on a resource. You can split the screen to show resources
on the bottom and the schedule on top.
Other than this I think you would have to have seperate resource names. Good
Luck

 

[JulieS]

Hi Marina,

I do agree with John's comments that a re-design of the task list is in
order.

However in the meantime, there may be a workaround that gets you close
to what you want. The Who Does What report can be closely reproduced by
printing the table side (left side) of the Resource Usage view with some
additional fields added. You could add the following fields (columns)
to the table and then just print the left side of the Resource Usage
View.

Already in the usage table in the Resource Usage View:

Resource Name (Currently in Usage Table)
Work (Currently in Usage Table)

To add the information from the Who Does What Report:

Add the Start Field (will show the assignment start)
Add the Finish Field (will show the assignment finish)
Add the Assignment Units Field (will show the assignment units)

To Show the Summary Task Name (T-Shirts, Buttons, etc.)
Add the Task Summary Name field.

You can re-order the fields around as you need. Then drag the
timescaled (right) portion of the view to the far right and print.

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.

 

[John]

Hi Marina,

I do agree with John's comments that a re-design of the task list is in
order.

However in the meantime, there may be a workaround that gets you close
to what you want. The Who Does What report can be closely reproduced by
printing the table side (left side) of the Resource Usage view with some
additional fields added. You could add the following fields (columns)
to the table and then just print the left side of the Resource Usage
View.

Already in the usage table in the Resource Usage View:

Resource Name (Currently in Usage Table)
Work (Currently in Usage Table)

To add the information from the Who Does What Report:

Add the Start Field (will show the assignment start)
Add the Finish Field (will show the assignment finish)
Add the Assignment Units Field (will show the assignment units)

To Show the Summary Task Name (T-Shirts, Buttons, etc.)
Add the Task Summary Name field.

You can re-order the fields around as you need. Then drag the
timescaled (right) portion of the view to the far right and print.

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

Julie

Julie,
Well I learned something today. I didn't even know there was a Summary
Task Name field. Another A+ for you - that's two today. You're on a roll
girl

John

 

[JulieS]

Julie,
Well I learned something today. I didn't even know there was a Summary
Task Name field. Another A+ for you - that's two today. You're on a
roll
girl

John

<snip>

Hi John,

Gee, now you're making me blush :-D

High praise coming from you -- thanks!

Julie

 

[Marina]

WOW! After reading all the information, I decided it was best to "bite the
bullet" and rename all tasks specifically for each category as you suggested.
As I become more familiar with MS Project and improve on my skills, perhaps
I'll entertain these other ideas. As for the VBA approach ... I may not be
ready for that for a while! : )

Thanks for your help,
Marina

 

[Marina]

Thanks for your help ... I didn't think to add columns to include specific
information about those tasks. I'll try this as well.

Thanks,
Marina

 

[Marina]

Julie,

I agree ... in the end, the task list naming convention should be more
descriptive and that will be the way that I go. However, this is a great
idea to add columns to the table in order to include them in the reports.

Thanks Julie!
Marina

 

[John]

WOW! After reading all the information, I decided it was best to "bite the
bullet" and rename all tasks specifically for each category as you suggested.
As I become more familiar with MS Project and improve on my skills, perhaps
I'll entertain these other ideas. As for the VBA approach ... I may not be
ready for that for a while! : )

Thanks for your help,
Marina

Marina,
You're welcome.
John

 

[JulieS]

You're welcome Marina and thanks for the feedback.

Julie