Resource Plan: Total Work Option and Timephased data questions

[Mauricio I]

Hi,

I am creating a Resource Plan for a project with three named resources; this
project will take a full year starting 01/01/08 ending 12/31/08. Now I want
to add 5 FTEs for Resource A, 2 for Resource B and 3 for Resource C.

Since I want to reserve these resources for the full year I selected the
Show Total Work option. Here's one problem: after checking this option I
can't modify the values for each resource.

Anyway I found a workaround to this issue: deselecting the Show total work
option and changing the comun interval to Years. Now I have another question:
I entered the 5, 2 and 3 values for the FTE's in the project; if I now change
the column interval to show months I see that Project assigned time to the
resources in a somehow random method: Resource A was assigned 6.81 on April,
6.59 in May, 6.5 in June and so forth; Resource B was assigned 2.97 in
January, 2.9 in February. The odd thing is that when I add up all these
values and calculate the average instead of the original FTE values a get
something like 5.1, 1.98 and 3.2 FTE's which obviously is not what I have
forecasted.

Can someone explain what's the algorithm Project is
following when spreading this data across the monthly intervals?

Thanks in advance

Mauricio I

 

[Jonathan Sofer]

Mauricio,

I responded to your question on the project newsgroup but I see that Mike
Glen suggested you post the question here instead. I am not sure if you saw
my response so here it is again.

"My two cents is that in my experience resource plans are not a very stable
feature of 2007 and I also find that FTE's do not translate very well when
allocating them at a higher interval and then expecting them to show
correctly at the lower intervals.

My suggestion is that you enter your FTE's in the lowest unit that you
require. For instance, entering in months rather than year and not
expecting
the weeks or days to be completely accurate.

Also, try to look at the option available in Server Settings>Additional
Server Settings>Resource Plan Work Day
Definition of Resource Plan Work Day:
Enter the average length of the work day for all resources in a
resource plan. The resource plan owner can use this average for all
resources in the plan or use the individual resource calendar settings to
calculate availability."

Jonathan

 

[Mauricio I]

Thanks Jonathan. Indeed I saw your answer in the General group. Although I
agree with you on the fact that resource plans are quite immature yet, I'm
still pushing to find a solution. Besides the fact calculations look to me
very odd, the SDK documentation is incomplete since we can't find out any
information regarding the time Intervals and additonally, we're facing a
Queue issue when we push the ResourcePlan data set to it.

Thanks again.

 

[Mike Mahoney]

Thanks Jonathan. Indeed I saw your answer in the General group. Although I
agree with you on the fact that resource plans are quite immature yet, I'm
still pushing to find a solution. Besides the fact calculations look to me
very odd, the SDK documentation is incomplete since we can't find out any
information regarding the time Intervals and additonally, we're facing a
Queue issue when we push the ResourcePlan data set to it.

Thanks again.










- Show quoted text -

Mauricio

Are the resource in your example generic or named people? When
converting FTE data to hours (as in data analysis views) the system
does not apply the resource calendar in the case of generics. Changing
the resource plan period is generally ok for named resources but is
incomprehensible for generics - try switching between hours and fte to
make sense of the numbers. Other than this and a regular inabilty to
check plans in, and the occasional time-out which loses your data I
like this feature. I agree with the above recommendation to stick
with monthly periods and do not use generic resources.

regards

Mike

 

[Mauricio I]

Mike,

Thanks for adding to the discussion. Let me enhance my original posting:
1- I am using named resources with no login capabilities. I knew about
Generic Resources not following resource calendars.
2- The intervals data is still a mistery. I have tried to use FTEs with
monthly entries and I still get some weird data after publishing the resource
plan, i.e. I have entered 1 FTE each month for a year long project and after
publishing the resource plan, I have 1.1 FTE in January, and 0.9 in December.

Thanks

Mauricio

 

[Mike Mahoney]

Mike,

Thanks for adding to the discussion. Let me enhance my original posting:
1- I am using named resources with no login capabilities. I knew about
Generic Resources not following resource calendars.
2- The intervals data is still a mistery. I have tried to use FTEs with
monthly entries and I still get some weird data after publishing the resource
plan, i.e. I have entered 1 FTE each month for a year long project and after
publishing the resource plan, I have 1.1 FTE in January, and 0.9 in December.

Thanks

Mauricio





- Show quoted text -

Mauricio

I have seen this behaviour even to the extent that I was consistently
getting negative values appearing for January and February in any
year! (other months behaved) The position improves if you switch from
using resource calendar to number of hours per day setting.

regards

Mike