Levelling across projects with project server

S

STEVO

Dear All,

I would really like to get some clarification on the following
question.

When you level a project, does it level taking into consideration
resource assignments across other projects?

I have asked this question before, and I was told that the answer is
"yes, but you must have all projects open" Although hard to believe i
accepted this answer as final, but i have just created 2 test projects
(A&B), assigned identical resources from the global resource pool, and
then allocated the same resources to each task on both A&B projects. I
have now closed Test Project A, and when i run levelling on Project B
sure enough it levels the resource tasks taking other project resource
allocations into consideration, which goes against the original answer
I recieveed.

grateful for any feedback or advice on this

Regards
Steve
 
D

Dale Howard [MVP]

Steve --

My experience is that if you do not open all projects to which an
overallocated resource is assigned, the system does level the overallocated
resource, but in doing so it seems to give higher priority to the tasks in
the closed projects and give lower priority to the tasks in the open
projects. This makes no sense, but that's the way it seems to work. If you
open all projects to which the user is assigned, then the leveling tool
seems to work properly. That's why the advice has been given to open all
projects to which the overallocated resource is assigned. Hope this helps.
 
S

STEVO

Hi There Dale,

thanks for your feedback, I assumed that may have been the case, but
justed wanted to hear it from an expert, to ensure i wasnt barking up
the wrong tree. i had come to the same conclusion with the closed
project taking prioity. Another one of those quirky bugs I guess, but
still i can put that query to bed now, so thanks.

ok, well leading on from that, is there a way of opening all projects
within one window? I used to be able to do this when using Projects
Professional without server, but now I cant find anywhere that would
allow me to do this, or open all in seperate windows.

I remember (I think it may have been your good self) saying to goto
Window>New Window and go from there, but when I try this I dont
actually see any of the projects which is somewhat concerning me.

thanks in advance
Steve
 
D

Dale Howard [MVP]

STEVO --

Navigate to the Project Center page in PWA and select the row header for
each project you wish to open in a single window. Click the Open button and
the system opens a temporary master project with each selected project as a
subproject. Expand the tasks in each subproject. Go to the Resource Usage
view and do your cross-project leveling from there. When you finish
leveling, close the master project and DO NOT save it. When prompted about
saving each subproject, click the Yes To All button to save the changes in
each subproject. Hope this helps.
 
S

STEVO

Dale,

Cant thank you enough, that has resolved the issue I have had from the
beginning, and I now understand how to efficiently level across
projects.

Thanks again
Steve
 
H

Hung

Hi
I got the contrary problem:
- I had several small projects assigned to few resources (from enterprise
resource pool)
- I then created a master project and insert all these projects in, and
expanded all of the sub project there to see the tasks
- from there I did the resource levelling
Nothing happened

What did I do wrong?
Any help is really appreciated
Thanks
 
D

Dale Howard [MVP]

Hung --

In the Resource Sheet view of your master project, temporarily insert the
Can Level field. Is the Can Level field set to Yes for every resource? In
the Gantt Chart view, double-click the first line of each subproject so that
you see the Project Information dialog? Is the Prority number less than
1000 for every subproject? Temporarily insert the Priority field in the
Gantt Chart view. Is the Priority number for each task less than 1000? Do
you have hard constraints (Must Finish On or Finish No Later Than) on any of
the tasks that would limit the software's ability to level the resources?
On any individual task to which an overallocated resource is assigned, did
you accidentally assign the resource at a Units value greater than 100%?
Based on the questions I asked, any of these could be the source of your
problem.

When you try to level, what Leveling Sensitivity do you use (Hour by Hour,
Day by Day, etc.)? What happens if you change the Leveling Sensitivity to
something other than its current setting? Let us know and we will try to
help.
 
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