Leveling Issue with MSP

[Doc]

- this example based on an 8 hour day
- T1 and T2 are Task / Assignments
- assign two resources to a couple of tasks at (say) 75% each
- both resources are now overallocated (150%)
- level the schedule (using hour-by-hour, standard levelling order)
- task 2 is delayed by 1 eday (24 elapsed period)
- the resouces are are now only allocated 75%
- the 2nd activity is (e)delayed into the "next" day

1) Before Leveling
Mon Tues
Fred 12h <---- 150% Allocated
T1 6h
T2 6h
Tom 12h
T1 6h
T2 6h

2) After Leveling (withhour by hour option)
Mon Tues
Fred 6h 6h <--- 75% Allocated (25% Underallocated)
T1 6h
T2 6h
Tom 6h 6h
T1 6h
T2 6h

3) Desired state after leveling !!!
Mon Tues
Fred 8h 4h
T1 6h
T2 2h 4h
Tom 6h 4h
T1 6h
T2 2h 4h

Anyone out there done work in this area? Are there MSP add-ins that can
help?

Regards
Doc

Mark "Doc" Dochtermann, PMP, CISSP, MSP Black Belt
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

No, MSP's leveling woill inevitable handle this this way.
When you say you need 75% of the resoruce for MSP that means 75%, not 100 or
50.
In fact, it is stored internally as 45 secs every minute, and you cannot
overlmap 2 such tasks.
If you want leveling to consider the resources at 100%, why do you tell
Project not to by entering 75%?

Enter the resources at 100% and Project will level them at 100% producing
the result you desire.

Leveling never ever changes assignment units. Suppose it would tell you that
you need 50% of a large building crane!?!

Hope this helps,

 

[Akram]

Hi Jan,
I have a problem also with leveling that no one was able to resolve until
now, and i hope you can give it a shot. I am using leveling in MS
Professional and it is working perfect, however as soon as i connect to
Project Server the task allocation and durations starts to get crazy.

Here is an example:
John is Assigned to: T1,T2,T3 each task is 16 Hours

so after leveling:
Sun 8
Mon 0
Tues 0
Wed 6
Thurs 8

week after
Sun 0
Mon 0
Tues 5
Wed 8
Thurs 12

as you can see it is doing irrational behavior it doesn't allocate the
resource on certain days and even in others it only assigns 5 or less hours.

I have made sure of the following also:
1. Each resource is 100% utilization
2. using Fixed Work and also Fixed Unit and Fixed duration all produce same
result.
3. Using Manual Leveling
4. and not checking on any of the check boxes or even checking them all
doesn't make a different
5. I am leveling by ID Only.

Thank you.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

I don't know Server very well but isn't it so that when you are connected to
Server Leveling will take into account all work done in all published
projects?
So if John is busy in an other prohject his tasks in the open project will
shift..

HTH

 

[Akram]

Hi Jan,
This resource is only involved in 1 project, and i made sure of that so i
guess this is not the problem, however do you know anyone who can help out.

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Akram,

Try posting on the server newsgroup. Please see FAQ Item: 24. Project
Newsgroups. FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information
can be seen at this web address: http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm

Mike Glen
Project MVP

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

Adding a bit to Jan's excellent answer, your situation is exactly why I
always recommend that task durations be estimated as the time the work is
actually expected to take once it starts, not the time allowed for it. Your
first task requires 6 hours of work. You can represent that as 6 hours
duration at 100%. You also get 6 man-hours of work by listing it as 8 hours
duration at 75% but for scheduling and leveling to work as it should, the
first way is definitely the best way to go!