Resource Levelling Problem w/ MS Project Std. 2002

[Leyton]

Hi All,

This one is a first post and first MS Project problem I
haven't figured out . . . but then I recently started
using this version.

Anyway, here's my example in an attempt to resolve a much
bigger (and real) project: I've got a resource working on
3 tasks over 4 days, 8 hours each day.
- The first task takes 20 hours total effort,
- The second task starts 4 hours later with 10 hours total
effort,
- The third task is on the last day for 2 hours.
- The constraint type is 'Start No Earlier Than'
- I checked to make sure the Working Time in the Project
Calendar was actually an 8 hour day

I've tried:
- standard levelling (using the drop menus),
- adjusting the units available for the resource on each
task,
- different contours in the assignment information, and
- manual entering the numbers in the Resource Usage window.

No matter what I try, at least one view shows my Resource
(me in the above example) as extremely over allocated for
at least one day -- even though the numbers (on the last
try above) show 8 hours each day (the Resource Graph view
says I'm at 175%). I'd really like to solve this since the
real project has 22 people and over 300 tasks in the
project.

Help! :-(

Thanks,

Leyton

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Leyton,

Welcome to the Microsoft Project newsgroup

Firstly, remove any constraints as that will reduce the flexibility of your
plan. (Did you type in the Start dates?). Then have a look at FAQs #34
Overallocation Occurring In Less Than One Day and #28. Resource Levelling
Does Not Remove Overallocation.

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: http://www.mvps.org/project/

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on

Mike Glen
Project MVP

 

[Leyton]

Hi Mike,

Thanks on all counts.

I manually reduced the Resource Units on the smallest task
first an then manually set the effort back to how it was
originally in my example to solve the problem. Increasing
the granularity of the Resource Leveling just continued to
say it couldn't resolve the overallocation (even at the
Minute by Minute level). -- i.e. FAQ #34 mostly worked,
FAQ #28 had no effect.

I hate to say it but I can't see myself going through all
this on the major projects I have this on unless I really
have to ( =8O ) -- funny, I never had this problem in MS
Project 98?

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Leyton,

I can't see why it should not level. Confirm that you have unchecked "Level
within available slack", you have no constraints and Tools/Change Working
Time is set as 8 hours per day and that there are no Task or Resource
calendars?

Try a new project with just these tasks and see what happens. If you send
me the appropriate part of the project (zipped) I'll have a look at it.

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP