Resource leveling problems

B

Bret

I am having a problem leveling my resources. I have been
told the best way to do this is in the 'enterprise
resource sheet'. When I level the resources, nothing
happens to any of my project start dates. I have
prioritzed my proejcts, giving a priority of 1000 to those
that I don't want to be leveled. I have no constraint
dates. I am using "priority, standard" leveling, no other
boxes are checked. I am using a leveling range of "entire
project". I am using a leveling calculation of "manual,
day by day". Should I be doing this in the 'enterprise
resource sheet' or in the projects themselves? Any help
would be greatly appreciated. I am relatively new to this.
 
D

Dale Howard [MVP]

Bret --

Whoever told you to leve in the Enterprise Resource Sheet is mistaken. To
level all of your projects, you must open all of your projects. Leveling
will impact every open project. Hope this helps.
 
B

Bret

I will give this a try, but it brings up another
question. Is there an easier way to open all the
projects? The open function in project is different than
other Microsoft programs and it only allows you to open
one at a time; no selection options at all. Any tricks
taht I'm not aware of to easily open all the projects?
 
B

Bret

OK, tried to level the resources by opening all the
projects and saving them in a workspace (talk about a long
time to load and close), leveling still didn't work. I'm
at a loss to get the resources leveled and get good
project start and finish dates. Nothing is changing. If
anyone can help me level all my resouces across all my
projects, please post a reply. It would be greatly
appreciated.

One frustrated project user. Any better products out
there?
 
B

Bret

Opening all the projects in a workspace and leveling did
not work. It did not change any starting dates for
assigned work. It did nothing. I will try creating a
master project instead of a workspace and see if that
works.

I have seperate project files for all my projects, but
they should follow one after another according to the
project priority I set and assignments I make. They are
not. Everything is just remaining the same.
 
D

Dale Howard [MVP]

Bret --

There are many reasons why Microsoft Project would not level your
overallocations. You may need to adjust the leveling senstivity from Day by
Day to Hour By Hour, for example, because the overallocations are at an
hourly level. Examine the indicator for each overallocated resource in the
Resource Sheet view of any project to determine the leveling sensitivity
needed to level the overallocation.

In addition, some overallocations are not worth leveling because the
overallocation is of no consequence and will be resolved when the resource
enters actuals. Some overallocations are better to level manually using
other methods, such as replacing an overallocated resource with an available
resource.

I just want to caution you that using the automatic leveling capability of
Microsoft Project is not a "magic pill" to solve all of your overallocation
problems. Hope this helps.
 
B

Bret

Obviously, I'm not understanind something here. It should
be easy to get this to work correctly.

* I have a bunch of projects
* They all have project priority set in the order I
would like the projects completed. I have assigned 1000
to projects that cannot move becasue they have firm dates.
* I have my resources with their calendars setup so that
they can spend 7 hours of their time or 4 hours of their
time on projects.
* I have not assigned a start date or finish date. At
least I don't think I have, even though project wants you
to enter one.
* I want Project to assign the start and finish dates
based on the information I've given of estimated task
length, resource assignments, and priorities.

Why is it that when I level the projects they will not
line up in the queue and give me my start and finish
dates? I would think this would be a great benefit of
Project. Is it not possible? If so, I need step by step
instructions or an email and perhaps we can talk. I have
done so many things to try and get this to work, I'm at my
wits end with this thing. Any help anyone can provide
would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Bret
 
D

Dominic Moss

Bret,

It sounds like you are trying to achieve "Best Fit Scheduling" - do your
individual tasks have dependencies/links between themselves or are all your
tasks listed with the same start date. You also need to check the priority
on individual tasks as if any of them are set to 1000 they will not level.
There is also a Resource Field called "Can :Level" which by default is set
to Yes, check and see if this is the case, I cannot imagine circumstances
where it would have changed without your intervention but you never know.

Another potential showstopper may be that you have assignments "Rolled Up"
or collapsed - sometimes project does not perform actions on data that is
not fully visible - check the Resource Usage View, click once on the
resource name column heading and then click the + button on the formatting
toolbar to expand out all selected resources to display their assignments.

Another common problem I have seen is that people open the Resource
Levelling dialogue box and make their selections which may differ from the
defaults, day by day, range of entire project, standard levelling order,
vary resource assignments on a task, split remaining work and then click the
OK button instead of the "Level Now" button - the thinking being I have made
my selections so click the OK button like I do in other Microsoft
applications to accept the user defined values and perform an action except
in this case all Project does is "Store" the parameters you have defined
when a user expects it to apply them.

I appreciate that you may well have tried some of these already, I have
picked up the thread part way through and do not know all the actions you
have attempted so far.
--
Dominic Moss

www.projectability.co.uk

Helping people achieve more with Microsoft Project

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

travis

i am having the same problem and have tried everyhting in this thread
and nothing worked........travis
 
E

Ed Hanna

Bret,

Go to View/Resource Sheet and see if the names of any of your resources
appear in red. If none of them appear in red, you have no overallocated
resources--and therefore nothing to level.

Also you mentioned having "Manual Leveling" selected. With this selected,
you will have to click the "Level Now" button to activate leveling. Have
you clicked "Level Now"?

Ed
 
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