Resource Group in Assignment Summary?

[Ray Powers]

Hello everyone!

Considering how basic this functionality is in Project without Enterprise, I
know I must just be missing something, and am hoping someone can help me out.

I maintain projects for the entire technical side of our company. As such, I
track tasks for several different groups, and for several different projects.
Many of the resources cross projects, so I prefer to print out task lists by
person, then a group summary for each manager, especially of overdue tasks.

Recently we went to Enterprise Project 2003. I published all of my projects
to enterprise, put all of the resources in, and was getting ready to create
my first OverDue Tasks Summary sheet for the managers. The Summary Sheet in
Resource Assignments looked perfect. Group by Resource, Group by Project.
Filter by % Work Complete < 100 and Finish < Today's date, and it looked fine
except one thing, I can't group by Resource Group. Further checking showed I
can't even add the Resource Group to the report. I have Resource Name,
Resource Initials, but not Group. I went into Admin, Modify Views, Modified
the Summary view, and the Resource Group field is not addable.

I looked through the Resource Center Manual, Configuration Manual, Project
Manager Manual and online help with no luck. My simple question is this: How
can I get the Resource Group into this view so I can group by it to provide
task lists for the managers of each group?

Secondary question, and not as important, but helpful, is how do I create
this report as a standard report so I don't have to set the groups and
filters every time I run it, and can I use a variable in the filter such as
$Today instead of putting in a manual date?

Thanks in advance to anyone that has any ideas here..

Ray

 

[Reid McTaggart]

You are correct, Ray. For some reason, Group is not an available field in an
Assignment view.

A workaround is to set up a custom Enterprise Resource Text field with a
formula in it to capture the Group info. Then use this custom field in your
Assignments view.

-Reid

 

[Ray Powers]

Well, ouch. That's a big cramp in my plan. Considering I use it all the time
in the standard version of Project, its very disheartening to realize I just
LOST functionality in an upgrade. =/

Thank you for the info. I guess it's time to read up on how to create the
custom field as you described.

Ray

 

[Reid McTaggart]

Here's the short version of one way to do it:

Start Project Pro using an Admin account.
Tools, Enterprise Options, Open Enterprise Global
Tools, Customize, Enterprise Fields
Select Resource button
Choose Text in the drop-down box
Select and Rename on of the Enterprise Resource Text fields in the list
Click the Formula box
Formula: =[group]
Save and Close Enterpise Global
Restart Project Pro
Open a project
Press <F9> to be sure recalculation occurs
Save, Publish, and Close the project

See if this helps/works. I have not tested it and I recited names of menus,
boxes, etc. from memory.

-Reid

 

[Ray Powers]

It was close.... Modifications in the quote of your process.

Unfortunately, In admin for the Summary view in Assignment, NONE of the
Enterprise Resource Text fields can be added, renamed or not. So for try two
I did the same thing using Enterprise Task Text 1, and setting it to Resource
Group (for some reason it gave me resource group instead of Group when
editing a task text). Then I added that field to the Summary, and ran it.
Unfortunately the field gave me "No Value," so still, no dice. There was
also a radiobutton for "use formula" so I tried that... still no dice.

Feels like it's getting closer though. =)

Ray

Here's the short version of one way to do it:

Start Project Pro using an Admin account.
Tools, Enterprise Options, Open Enterprise Global
Tools, Customize, Enterprise Fields
Select Resource button
Choose Text in the drop-down box
Select and Rename *one* of the Enterprise Resource Text fields in the list
Click the Formula box

*Click on Field, Select Text, Select Group*

Formula: =[group] *delete, this gave me syntax errors*
Save and Close Enterpise Global
Restart Project Pro
Open a project
Press <F9> to be sure recalculation occurs
Save, Publish, and Close the project

See if this helps/works. I have not tested it and I recited names of menus,
boxes, etc. from memory.

-Reid

 

[Reid McTaggart]

I'm afraid I misled you, Ray. with the Enterprise Resource Text fields
unavailable in Assignments views, my approach will not work.

Using a Task Text field, as you are contemplating/trying, also will not work
because a task could have more than one resource, and Group is a resource
field.

There may be a macro approach that will work, and I'll think about that.
Sometimes we use macros to trick Project Server into doing useful things such
as you want.

Sorry for the firedrill.

BTW, have you looked at using the OLAP Cube (Portfolio Analyzer) to get the
data you want?

-Reid

It was close.... Modifications in the quote of your process.

Unfortunately, In admin for the Summary view in Assignment, NONE of the
Enterprise Resource Text fields can be added, renamed or not. So for try two
I did the same thing using Enterprise Task Text 1, and setting it to Resource
Group (for some reason it gave me resource group instead of Group when
editing a task text). Then I added that field to the Summary, and ran it.
Unfortunately the field gave me "No Value," so still, no dice. There was
also a radiobutton for "use formula" so I tried that... still no dice.

Feels like it's getting closer though. =)

Ray

Here's the short version of one way to do it:

Start Project Pro using an Admin account.
Tools, Enterprise Options, Open Enterprise Global
Tools, Customize, Enterprise Fields
Select Resource button
Choose Text in the drop-down box
Select and Rename *one* of the Enterprise Resource Text fields in the list
Click the Formula box

*Click on Field, Select Text, Select Group*

Formula: =[group] *delete, this gave me syntax errors*
Save and Close Enterpise Global
Restart Project Pro
Open a project
Press <F9> to be sure recalculation occurs
Save, Publish, and Close the project

See if this helps/works. I have not tested it and I recited names of menus,
boxes, etc. from memory.

-Reid

 

[Ray Powers]

No problem on the firedrill, it taught me something new for future reference
for other situations, so it was good thing even if it didn't apply to this
problem.

I have just begun playing with the Analyzer, and am pretty low on the curve
for it.

I'm trying to duplicate this report basically:

1. In a normal project, Select View, Reports.
2. Select Assignments
3. Select Who Does What
4. Chose Edit
5. Choose Sort Tab
6. Sort by Group Ascending, then by Name Ascending

That report, across all the published projects in Enterprise.

It seems like it should be so easy. *sigh*

Ray