Getting Recurring Tasks to Display Info In Resource Report

[CK_PMP]

Good morning! Two part question:

1) I'm using the report generator ("View" -> "Report") to create a task
usage (work) report. However, I can't get recurring tasks to display their
work in the "totals" column. The only way to get it to show is to expand the
task; I'd really like to have all of the recurring tasks collapsed when I
generate the report. Is this possible?

2) Ideally what I'd REALLY like is a report that just shows resource
utilization by time unit (e.g., week, month, etc), but DOES NOT show
individual tasks or resources. Basically, I'm just trying to plot, over
time, how many FTEs are needed to perform the work required by ALL tasks. I
don't care if it's a line graph or bar graph.

And if anyone's feeling particularly helpful/smart this morning: is there
any way to combine/merge tasks? For example, Task 1 is called: "Bake Pie"
and Task 2 is called "Taste Pie." The resources are the same, but
utilization is much lower for Task 2. There is another task in between that
is done externally to the project (let's call it "Remove Pie From Oven"), so
my resources perform work, wait a given period of time, and then perform some
follow-up work. Currently I have them as two tasks, with a FS+edays
dependency. Is it possible to merge these non-consecutive tasks? Would I
even want to? Or would I be better off leaving them as-is? My motivation
for merging is just for simplicity (simpler reports, fewer tasks to deal
with). Thanks!

 

[Rod Gill]

Hi,

The Resource Usage View provides a summary of Resource Workloads.

I wouldn't combine the Tasks. You could insert a flag field such as Flag1
and set it to yes for all Tasks for a particular report then use the
AutoFilter to show only the Tasks of interest for teat report. Add extra
flag fields for each report. That's one way of limiting Report sizes.

--

Rod Gill
Microsoft MVP for Project

Author of the only book on Project VBA, see:
http://www.projectvbabook.com

 

[CK_PMP]

Thank you for the reply, Rod.

I'm not looking for a report/graph that shows workload by resource, but
rather for workload for all resources across all tasks by time. That is, for
the duration of the project, what is the level of effort for any given time
period? For example, I want to know how many people are going to be tasked
the week of 12-Aug-09--for all tasks, all resources.

A little background: I've built the schedule using the best known resources
at the time. Now, however, we don't know which resources will actually be
available when the project window starts. So what I'd like to do is just
figure out how many FTEs we need by time period (e.g., week, or possibly
month). This is just a preliminary step.

It seems like it should be an easy thing to do, but for the life of me I
can't figure out how.