Custom Views-Resource Usage

[DaveA]

Hello,

I would like to make a custom view similar to the resource usage view,
except that it would our company calendar instead of the generic calendar.
Is it possible to do this in project? Thanks,

Dave

 

[JulieS]

Hi Dave,

I'm not sure I follow your comment about using the company calendar
rather than the "generic" calendar. The non-working time displayed
(usually shaded Saturdays and Sundays) in the Resource Usage view can be
changed by choosing Format > Timescale and selecting the company
calendar on the Non-working time tab.

Is that what you are searching for? If not, give us some more details
on what it is you whish to do and we'll try to help.

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

Julie
Project MVP

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

 

[DaveA]

Julie,

Thanks for writing back. I tried your suggestion, and found that the
calendar under the non-working tab is our company calendar. What is
happening in our project schedules is that if you create a task that is a
month long (based on the company calendar) sometimes the work-loads are
skewed in the resource usage view. (So if you did 4 tasks, and each was a
month long according the company calendar, and using finish to start
dependencies and had 10 hours on each month, you might get 10 hours for one
month in the resource usage view, but other months would have slightly higher
or lower numbers). This isn't a big deal for small projects, but for larger
ones with more resources, the headcount can be very distorted. Any ideas?

 

[JulieS]

Hi Dave,

When you say "a month long according to the company calendar" can I
assume you are not using the usual definition of a month? For example,
is your company using a 4-4-5 calendar? If so, I do not know an easy
way of getting Project to change the definition of the "month of March"
away from spanning from March 1 to March 31.

Questions about non-standard accounting periods has been asked several
times and I believe at least one of the MVPs (John) has said that he has
developed macros for clients in the past which export timescaled data
and re-work it to fit accounting periods. If this is something you are
interested in, perhaps John will chime in. If he doesn't you may wish
to post your specific question to the developer newsgroup for some
additional assistance on that part.

Before we go that route though, a couple of other thoughts/questions.

Are you using month (mo) as a duration unit? The definition to Project
of a "month" duration is 20 working days. That can also create some
variance if you look at resource loading on a monthly basis.

For example:
Create a project with a start date of 1 Feb. 2007. Create 4 tasks each
with a month (1mo) duration linked F to S.

Task 1 starts 1 Feb. 2007 and ends 28 Feb. 2007. It spans the calendar
month of February.

Task 2 start 1 March 2007 and ends 28 March 2007. It does not span the
calendar month of March -- ending 2 working days early.

Task 3 starts 29 March 2007 and ends 25 April 2007. It does not span
the calendar month of April.

Task 4 starts 26 April 2007 and ends 23 May 2007.

If I assign one resource to each task and specify 10 hours of work for
the task, Project calculates 6% assignment load. If I go to the
resource usage view and zoom the view to show quarters at the middle
tier and months at the bottom tier I see the following total work for
the resource:

February - 10 hours
March - 11 hours
April - 10.5 hours
May - 8.5

This spread is dictated by the start and finish dates of the task.

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

Julie
Project MVP

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

 

[DaveA]

Julie,

Yes, it is a 4-4-5 calendar. We start January on the 2nd, and end on the
26th. What you said made sense with the durations- this particular schedule
was using days as durations, but thanks for bringing that up(that's a good
reminder). This post got me thinking, and made another experimental
file-with January going from the 2nd to the 31st, Feb from the first to 28th,
etc. and again loaded 10 hours per month of the same resource onto each of
four tasks. The resource load came out perfectly level, so it seems that
Project doesn't fully use the 4-4-5 calendar (which you just said in your
email). It just shows when our vacations and other non-working times are.
Those macros you mentioned sound interesting; mostly we use the resource
usage view here to report planning data to Program Managers and Project
leads.. Perhaps that would be able to provide an appropriate view for them.
Thanks again,

Dave

 

[JulieS]

You're most welcome Dave and thanks for the feedback. If you are
interested in the VBA/macro route, I suggest posting to the developer
newsgroup. The folks there may be able to get to started or may suggest
contacting them directly as I don't believe the code developed by them
would be freeware.

Julie
Project MVP

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

 

[John]

Julie,

Yes, it is a 4-4-5 calendar. We start January on the 2nd, and end on the
26th. What you said made sense with the durations- this particular schedule
was using days as durations, but thanks for bringing that up(that's a good
reminder). This post got me thinking, and made another experimental
file-with January going from the 2nd to the 31st, Feb from the first to 28th,
etc. and again loaded 10 hours per month of the same resource onto each of
four tasks. The resource load came out perfectly level, so it seems that
Project doesn't fully use the 4-4-5 calendar (which you just said in your
email). It just shows when our vacations and other non-working times are.
Those macros you mentioned sound interesting; mostly we use the resource
usage view here to report planning data to Program Managers and Project
leads.. Perhaps that would be able to provide an appropriate view for them.
Thanks again,

Dave

Dave,
Sorry I'm a little late to this thread. No version of Project will allow
the creation of an accounting month. There are basically two ways to get
what you want. One is to use the existing "Analyze timescale data in
Excel" utility to export standard calendar week data to Excel and then
parse it out in accounting months. The other is to create a custom macro
that automatically converts Project's standard calendar month data into
company accounting month data and export it. As Julie mentioned, I have
done the latter both for my company and for a client - both are
variations of the 4-4-5 accounting calendar.

John
Project MVP