Either / Or resources

[KK]

John can dig. John can drive the truck. John cannot operate the crane.
Pete can dig. Pete cannot drive the truck. Pete can operate the crane.

I would like to define the above resources in Project 2000 so that for
"Drive the truck" I use John. For "Operate the crane" I use Pete. But for
"Dig" I can use Joh or Pete and project selects them automatically dependent
on who is free, without me having to determine who is free.

Can I do that?

 

[John]

John can dig. John can drive the truck. John cannot operate the crane.
Pete can dig. Pete cannot drive the truck. Pete can operate the crane.

I would like to define the above resources in Project 2000 so that for
"Drive the truck" I use John. For "Operate the crane" I use Pete. But for
"Dig" I can use Joh or Pete and project selects them automatically dependent
on who is free, without me having to determine who is free.

Can I do that?

KK,
Man that John, (or is it Joh), is one versatile guy. I hire him in a
flash.....unless of course I need a crane.

The solution is simple. Assign the right resources to the right task.
But you are going to have to do it. How can Project possibly know who
has what talents? If it did, then that meant that you provided the
information to Project. So, why not just "tell" Project by making the
right assignments.

In order for it not to sound as if I'm jumping on you and then pounding
you to a pulp for not being the project manger, here is what Project
2000 can do (later versions do expand the resource function a bit but
nowhere near what you are asking). Let's say you have a group of
painters. Some of them are a little faster, some are a little neater and
some are more precise, but basically any one of them could do your
painting tasks. On the Resource Sheet, create a resource set called
"painters". Set the Max units to be consistent with however many
painters you have. For example, one painter is 100% and 5 painters are
500%. Now, for all your painting tasks simply assign the resource
"painters" at the appropriate level. For example if you need one and a
half painters for a given task assign the painters at 150%.

A resource set allows the project manger to set up functional resources
without having to identify specific resources by name. It can be very
useful when you may not know, or care, who does the work but you do know
you don't want to overallocate the resources you do have.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

 

[KK]

What I suppose I'm trying to do is have the following resource list:
John 100%
Pete 100%
John or Pete 100%

I will allocate John to truck driving tasks. I will allocate Pete to crane
operating tasks. However, when it comes to digging I want Project to look for
who is free (John or Pete) and allocate him. However, in the above resource
list John or Pete can be over-allocated becuase I can have "John" and "John
or Pete" working at the same time becuase Project considers "John" and "John
or Pete" as two separate resources.

KK

 

[John]

What I suppose I'm trying to do is have the following resource list:
John 100%
Pete 100%
John or Pete 100%

I will allocate John to truck driving tasks. I will allocate Pete to crane
operating tasks. However, when it comes to digging I want Project to look for
who is free (John or Pete) and allocate him. However, in the above resource
list John or Pete can be over-allocated becuase I can have "John" and "John
or Pete" working at the same time becuase Project considers "John" and "John
or Pete" as two separate resources.

KK,
Unless Project Server has some utility for finding and assigning
resources (I seriously doubt it), you are going to have to make the
assignments yourself.

As far as your idea of setting up the resources shown above, John will
NOT be overallocated because "John" and "John or Pete" are two
completely separate independent resources. Project has no way of knowing
that the two "Johns" are the same person. Project doesn't "think", it
responds to user data and a fixed set of calculation algorithms.

Personally I think you are making this harder than it is. I will repeat,
it is the project manager's job to manage the project. Part of that job
includes assigning the appropriate resources to the right task. As I
stated before, you could probably develop a resource assigning algorithm
but it will not be simple.

John
Project MVP

 

[davegb]

John can dig. John can drive the truck. John cannot operate the crane.
Pete can dig. Pete cannot drive the truck. Pete can operate the crane.

I would like to define the above resources in Project 2000 so that for
"Drive the truck" I use John. For "Operate the crane" I use Pete. But for
"Dig" I can use Joh or Pete and project selects them automatically dependent
on who is free, without me having to determine who is free.

Can I do that?

There used to be third party software that did this and integrated with
Project. Don't know how well it did it, I never used it myself. And I
can't remember the name (not getting younger, unfortunately).You
assigned skills to each task, i.e., "drive truck", "operate crane".
Then you assigned skills to each resource. The software then supposedly
matched the two fields and assigned resources based on availability.

You might find it if you look on the list of third party software for
Project that shows features. I don't think it's on the MVP list, but I
haven't looked in a long time.

Hope this helps in your world.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Project Server's "substitute resources" functionality does that but like you
Dave I can't judge about how well it does it.

Hope this helps,