proposed project / booking for resource demand and capacity planni

[bikerjohn]

Project server 2007. This is really a 'proof of concept' for resource demand
/ capacity type of question. I plan on tracking approved projects via
project pro in a project server enviroment. Initially (phase 1) we will
assign generic resources to the tasks in these project plans, at this point
we are just doing very high level project tracking. We don't care who
actually does the work, we just need to track at the skill set level.
Project managers will update the tasks so none of the team members will be
using pwa. My main goal is to use resource availability views via the
resource center and Data Analysis views We get about a hundred or so new
project proposals submitted a year. My goal is to see how many and which
projects we have enough resources to work. My thought process is when ever
we get a proposal, we create a proposed project in pwa and attach a resource
plan to it using the same generic resources that we use in our project
schedules. I plan on having the resources booked as proposed in the proposed
plans. My thinking is that in the data analysis, we can add and remove the
proposals and see how they effect resource use in real time. One issue I am
having is that I am playing around in the resource views in pwa and even if I
assign someone to a task in a proposal as proposed, when I look at the
resource assigments and the resource availability it shows that the resource
has been assigned to the task even if I deslect the 'show proposed bookings'
I would rather test the whole concept in the resource center before I spend a
bunch of time trying to configure the data analysis views. So my 2 main
questions are, does this sound like a sound plan? and 2, why is the
capacity for resources booked as proposed being effected in the resource
center views even when the show proposed booking is turned off?

 

[Marc Soester [MVP]]

Hi bikerjohn,

this sounds like you have not installed Service Packs and Infrastructure
update. I remember that the proposed bokking did not work without the service
packs. I would check that you have the latest updates installed on both MS
Project and Project Server.
Once installed, you should be able to differetiate between commited and
proposed bookings.

PS: Also note that on the 28th April Service Pack 2 will come out.

Hope this helps

 

[bikerjohn]

I kinda suspected it was an sp issue. I just started the job. The server
was built about a year ago and I don't think anyone touched it since. How
does my overall logic sound for tracking demand?

 

[Marc Soester [MVP]]

Hi bikerjohn,

the overall logic sounds ok, but resource management and capacity planning
is not always easlily answered. it depends very much on what you want to
achieve. The usage of generic resources and named resources is most important
and the way to track your resource demand is also very important. As you
already quite rightly stated, you can use resource plan for a holisitc
approach and then task assignement as the resource demand draws closer. It is
important that you define your actual business requirements first ( what
outcome you whish to achieve and to what granularity) before you start to
apply technology.

I hope this helps

 

[bikerjohn]

Ok, we are almost there....
What my boss wants first is a capacity planning system at a high level. We
really don't care about who is doing the work. So, I created generic
resources and assign them to projects. For example, I have 25 java
programmers so I created 1 generic java programmer and set it's max avail to
2500 percent. I then assign the generic resource to some projects. I look
at the resource view and can see how much availability is left. So far so
good. So what we have now is a bunch of backlog project ideas and we are
trying to model how adding the projects will affect availability. My plan is
to create the proposed projects in pwa, assign the generic java programmer to
the proposal with the estimated amount of effort. My question is, will the
pivot tables in the report center views allow me to add and remove these
proposals on the fly, and will it show the effect on the java developer? If
not, can the data analysis views do this on the fly.

 

[Marc Soester [MVP]]

Hi John,

the answer to your question is yes. You can filter out the project proposals
or even single projects that you dont want on the fly either using Data
Analyser or using Excel and connecting to the OLAP cubes.
Hope this helps