levelling resources manually

[jackie]

I understand you can level resources via Resources Leveling in MS Project
utilising the manual option.

1) What is the best way to actually level resources manually yourself?
2) If you were to chose the manual option in MS Project is there a way to
level only for one specific resource

I am grateful for any help you can give me
many thanks
J

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

I'm personally NOT recommending manual resource leveling: why try to figure
something a computer program can do for you? And how would you overview
leveling of say, a 200 tasks project manually?

This being said, theManual" radio button in MS Project does not suppose you
do any calculation "manually" it means Poject will wait for your "Go" (Level
Now) to level.

Level only one resource? Several possibilities.

A. Level from a resour view (for instance Resource Sheet). Select teh
resource(s) you want to level.
Call Resource leveling, hit Level Now. OPproject will ask you ass resources
or only the selected rsources.

B. In the resoruce sheet view, show the Can Level column. Put the resoruce
you don't want to level to "No".

Hope thsi helps,




--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
+32 495 300 620
For availability check:
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/Calendar.pdf

 

[jackie]

Hi Jan

Thanks for A & B - I can see it works!

By leveling with MS Project all overallocations are removed even those small
once that we are prepared to accept. This pushes out the schedule too much.
Is there a way to tell MS Project to only level over say 45 hours per week,
or set some kind of parameter?

Many thanks again
J

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Jackie,

Change the working calendar to 45 hours per week f.i. 9 hers per day). That
reduces duration before and after leveling.

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
+32 495 300 620
For availability check:
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/Calendar.pdf

 

[Dave]

You can do more sophisticated levelling. You probably need to look at
the "priority" field, the "can level" field and the "levelling can
split" field. You can also level over specified time intervals.

I find an iterative approach to levelling useful. If you set the
priority of your most important tasks to 900 and the others to 500, then
you can get the schedule right for them. Then increase the priority of
the ones you are happy with to 1000 and promote the priority of the next
set of important tasks to 900 and repeat.

I suspect that if you are finding that the schedule pushes out too far,
then you might want levelling to split certain tasks so that they split
around certain moments of minor overallocation.

I'm not sure that you have a good strategy of allowing 45 hours per week
in your plan. Inevitably things take longer than we think and if your
plan assumes 45 hours per week, then there is no scope for using those
excess hours to bring things back in again.

 

[jackie]

Thanks this is helpful

You can do more sophisticated levelling. You probably need to look at
the "priority" field, the "can level" field and the "levelling can
split" field. You can also level over specified time intervals.

I find an iterative approach to levelling useful. If you set the
priority of your most important tasks to 900 and the others to 500, then
you can get the schedule right for them. Then increase the priority of
the ones you are happy with to 1000 and promote the priority of the next
set of important tasks to 900 and repeat.

I suspect that if you are finding that the schedule pushes out too far,
then you might want levelling to split certain tasks so that they split
around certain moments of minor overallocation.

I'm not sure that you have a good strategy of allowing 45 hours per week
in your plan. Inevitably things take longer than we think and if your
plan assumes 45 hours per week, then there is no scope for using those
excess hours to bring things back in again.