Entering Time in Resource Usage View

[Amy]

I cannot figure out why tasks that show flat leveling schedule themselves as
strange variations in the resource usage view. A 5 hour task over 5 days
seems to be scheduled as .78, 2.1, .9 etc. Why would that be? I am changing
them back manually but they often reset themselves. I dont use leveling. Is
it ok to use resource usage view to schedule people? I am using this as a
master plan covering 30+ projects over 18 months. I am trying to allocate
them broadly to different work. But their usages is all over the place based
on these strange allocations of time.

Second issue is that I have been cutting and pasting plans into the master
plan but i just realized now that it is changing dates. I dont know why-
cannot find any predecessors that would cause that. Im perplexed. I guess I
should move to inserting as sub projects but then it doubles my resources. I
have about 10 project managers submitting various plans, we do not have
project server. Is my only option to create a resource pool?

 

[Jim Aksel]

Looks like you have a couple of things going on here. To avoid the 0.78hrs,
etc. you need to think about changing task types before you start making
changes. For example, if you change a Fixed Units task from 5 days to 4
days, the work will decrease which can cause some of your issues. There is a
reciprocal problem with Fixed Work and Fixed Duration. So, when you make a
change keep in mind:

Work = Duration x Units% Project will let you keep one constant, key the
other and calculated the third. Sometimes we have to jump back and forth
between "Task Types" to get the answer we are looking to see.

Also look at "Effort Driven." When a task is effort driven, Project keeps
the total task work at its current value, regardless of how many resources
are assigned to the task. When new resources are assigned, remaining work is
distributed to them. So, if I have a 9 hour task assigned to Fred, adding Mr.
Slate, Barney and Dino will assign them each 9/4=2.25 hours. If the tasks
are Non-Effort Driven, then adding 3 additional resources adds 24 hours of
additional work.

We use resource Usage and Task Usage views to schedule people all the time.

For your 2nd & 3rd Questions: Master Plan (using Insert) is the way to go
along with a Resource Pool. Copy/Paste of tasks asks Project to respect the
calendar of the receiving schedule. That might make things run amok if the
original schedule did not include company holidays.

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Jim Aksel, MVP

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