Project 2003 Viewing Multiple Resource Calendars

[Reggie]

I have a number of projects that use resources from a pool of people. Each
person has a calendar and I know how to put non-working time into each
calendar, but I cannot see multiple calendars at once so that I can tell what
resources are available on any given day. I would like to see the
non-working time for each resource at the same time. Basically I want to be
able to schedule vacations schools and time-off. Is there a way to do this
with Project?

 

[Gérard Ducouret]

Reggie,
Sorry, not possible (Not in an interactive way. It would be possible via a
VBA procedure)

Gérard Ducouret

 

[Dominic Moss]

Reggie,

I have been asking if it is possible to run a query to return values for
resources where on certain days the resource has no work scheduled AND no
remaining availability - the latter being as a result of the days in
question having been "blocked out" in the individual resources calendar,
sadly I have been advised this is not possible using SQL & Project Server.

In the absence of the neat solution expected above the only way you can
attempt to gauge the overlap of resource holidays is to modify the Resource
Usage view as follows:

In the Resource Usage view add including 2 additional fields in the view,
Remaining Availability and
Overallocation. You can do this by right clicking on the timephased element
of the screen and selecting these fields from the list provided. In order to
make the information more meaningful/less confusing I tend to make the
Remaining Availability stand out by changing the cell colours from yellow to
another
colour - this results in a contrasting band of values running horizontally
across the timephase display. At the resource level you will see the 3
values and "at a glance" see if there are any points in time where the
resource has a Remaining Availability value. You can zoom out to view 3 days
or a week at a time which provides a quick short term perspective on demand
for resources.

You can "collapse" all the resources in this view by clicking once on the
Resource Name column heading and then clicking the - sign button on the
Formatting Toolbar, this will provide you with a high level view on demand
for each resource in your resource pool.

This approach will give you a high level view on the workload or non-working
time for your resources, I hope this is of some assistance.
--
Dominic Moss

www.projectability.co.uk

Helping people achieve more with Microsoft Project

Tel +44 8707 303 400
Fax +44 8707 303 500

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

I wrote a VBA procedure showing absence periods as tasks in a Gantt Chart:
it is on my Website ("Abstract in English")
It is (too) complex as I wanted to cover a maximum of cases, still it may
inspire anybody who wants to write such a macro.
The basic principle is that you look for days where the property
calendar.period(theday).working is true for the project calendar and false
for the resource calendar.

Hoiep this helps,

 

[Reggie]

Thanks all. I was hoping that there was some type of solution in Project.
What I have done is create a Task called Vacation and I assign resources to
this Task. Although you can assign a resource to Vacation, the percent of
assignment is basically of no use.

 

[JulieS]

Hi Reggie,

From your earlier post:

"I would like to see the non-working time for each resource at the same
time."

I offer a suggestion that may or may not help you out, but I thought I'd
throw in my two cents:

You can create a custom resource report (printed). Create a new resource
report. Use the entry table or a custom table just showing resource name
and other data you think is important. Apply the Resource - Work filter to
show just work resources, not material. On the Details tab under Resource,
click the Calendar checkbox. This will print out the Resource's calendar
definition including any "exceptions" which are non-working days defined in
the resource's calendar. No, it's not interactive, but it may help.

Another option is to use the Resource Assignment dialog box and the Graphs
feature. Select the task you are trying to find an available resource for,
click the Assign Resources button. Select the resources your are thinking
about assigning and click the Graphs button. If you choose the Remaining
Availability graph, resources who have nonworking time in their calendar
during the task's start and end will show zero.

Hope this helps.

Julie