Project 2007 Outlook Integration

[Dawn111]

Does anyone know why Project 2007 cannot look directly at a resource's
Outlook calendar to obtain their non-working time?

 

[Rod Gill]

Hi,

There is an inherent problem with doing that. Scenario: There is a project
with a resource assigned. The resource add items in their Outlook calendar
to reserve time when they will work on particular tasks in the project.
Available time is now reduced, not because they are not available, but
because they are busy working on the project! If Project now re-scheduled
because the resource had no availability, you would end up in a never-ending
loop of re-scheduling!!

--

Rod Gill
Project MVP

NEW!! Project VBA Book, for details visit: http://www.projectvbabook.com

 

[Dawn111]

What you are saying makes perfect sense. Our users are just bad about
blocking out calendar time to work on tasks. Thanks for the reply!

 

[Dawn111]

What you are saying makes perfect sense. Our users are just bad about
blocking out calendar time to work on tasks. Thanks for the reply!

 

[Steve House]

Well. considering that Outlook does not record a user's non-working time,
just what would Project look at to obtain this information? If I work 8am
to 5pm with an hour for lunch, my non-working times that day are 12am-8am,
12pm-1pm, and 5pm-12am. That information is nowhere to be found in Outlook.
How many people do you know who have adjusted the hours of work in Outlook's
calendar options to reflect their actual work shifts or who post their
vacation days as "out of the office" all day events.

If I have an appointment booked in my Outlook calendar Tuesday between 10am
and 11am, that does not make that block into non-working time. In fact, it
is most definitely working time that just happens to have some specific work
booked into it. The PM doesn't necessarily have to treat that as time
unavailable for assignment to Project work either - in fact, as it is the PM
who has the bottom line responsibility of insuring the project is completed
on schedule and is managing the resources so as to achieve that goal, IMHO
it's the PM's responsibility to have the final say whether that Tuesday
appointment should stand as is or be replaced with a task assigned from the
Project. The fact the resource might prefer to do something else that hour
or day doesn't mean it becomes unavailable to the project.

 

[John]

Well. considering that Outlook does not record a user's non-working time,
just what would Project look at to obtain this information? If I work 8am
to 5pm with an hour for lunch, my non-working times that day are 12am-8am,
12pm-1pm, and 5pm-12am. That information is nowhere to be found in Outlook.
How many people do you know who have adjusted the hours of work in Outlook's
calendar options to reflect their actual work shifts or who post their
vacation days as "out of the office" all day events.

If I have an appointment booked in my Outlook calendar Tuesday between 10am
and 11am, that does not make that block into non-working time. In fact, it
is most definitely working time that just happens to have some specific work
booked into it. The PM doesn't necessarily have to treat that as time
unavailable for assignment to Project work either - in fact, as it is the PM
who has the bottom line responsibility of insuring the project is completed
on schedule and is managing the resources so as to achieve that goal, IMHO
it's the PM's responsibility to have the final say whether that Tuesday
appointment should stand as is or be replaced with a task assigned from the
Project. The fact the resource might prefer to do something else that hour
or day doesn't mean it becomes unavailable to the project.

Steve,
Talk to Mike Glen, he's got a job for ya.

John