Resource To-Do-List

[Rob H]

Hi.

I need some feedback on accomplishing the following:

I. Report seperated by X/Y/Z

A PDF that contains each Resource Name as page header, Company logo, all the
tasks that the person is involved in (task name), duration, start, and finish
and have the gantt chart to right. I have many many resources and would like
to be able to do this as a single command.

What I have tried that came close:
1. Gantt view and move divider to right side of finish.
2. Adjust gantt bars to line up close to the divider.
3. Sort by
A. Resource Names - Ascending
B. Start - Ascending
C. Finish - Ascending
4. Insert page breaks between resources.

Why this did not meet what I am looking to do:
1. I saw someone who had some customizations to microsoft project. So this
might be one of those customizations, but something they did automatically
put page breaks between what they sorted or grouped the view by. So when
they printed to PDF the pages were already seperated by resource and
contained the resource as the header. I just can not remember what they did.
I dont want to have to put page breaks between every resource. That is
extremely timely.
2. I do not get the tasks that are assigned to more than one resource. They
end up being sorted as a group (say tasks that person 1 and 2 are both doing)
of their own.
3. If I try to group (apply) the tasks by resource this is not allowed. As
it is greyed out in the More Groups window. Somehow someone was able to do
this though, and it was a very powerful snapshot of who was doing what. They
also had this snapshot by phase.

II. Critical Path from task

Another customization that these people might have had or I have yet to
figure out how to do was that you could click on any task in the gantt chart
or table and click a button that displayed the critical path (read: new task
list and gantt chart displayed) to that task, to see what is potentially
holding that task up. You can obviously see how this is an important
snapshot for a project.

Is this available somehow?

 

[davegb]

Hi.

I need some feedback on accomplishing the following:

I.  Report seperated by X/Y/Z

A PDF that contains each Resource Name as page header, Company logo, all the
tasks that the person is involved in (task name), duration, start, and finish
and have the gantt chart to right.  I have many many resources and wouldlike
to be able to do this as a single command.

What I have tried that came close:
1.  Gantt view and move divider to right side of finish.  
2.  Adjust gantt bars to line up close to the divider.  
3.  Sort by
A.  Resource Names - Ascending
B.  Start - Ascending
C.  Finish - Ascending
4.  Insert page breaks between resources.

Why this did not meet what I am looking to do:
1.  I saw someone who had some customizations to microsoft project.  So this
might be one of those customizations, but something they did automatically
put page breaks between what they sorted or grouped the view by.  So when
they printed to PDF the pages were already seperated by resource and
contained the resource as the header.  I just can not remember what theydid.
 I dont want to have to put page breaks between every resource.  That is
extremely timely.
2. I do not get the tasks that are assigned to more than one resource.  They
end up being sorted as a group (say tasks that person 1 and 2 are both doing)
of their own.  
3.  If I try to group (apply) the tasks by resource this is not allowed. As
it is greyed out in the More Groups window.  Somehow someone was able todo
this though, and it was a very powerful snapshot of who was doing what.  They
also had this snapshot by phase.  

II.  Critical Path from task

Another customization that these people might have had or I have yet to
figure out how to do was that you could click on any task in the gantt chart
or table and click a button that displayed the critical path (read: new task
list and gantt chart displayed) to that task, to see what is potentially
holding that task up.  You can obviously see how this is an important
snapshot for a project.  

Is this available somehow?  

I can't speak to your first request other than to say I think it would
probably require some VBA programming to achieve from Project. Might
be easier in XL or some third party report generator. Others may have
better suggestions.

As to your second item, Critical Paths from task. First, if a task is
not critical, there is no critical path to that task. A Critical Path
is a path with zero Total Slack. I think what you want is the driving
path to that task. You don't mention which version of Project you're
using, but unless it's 2007, this is not easily done. Someone here
used to have a VBA macro (come to think of it, I wrote one years ago)
that will do that. Hopefully they'll chime in here.

If you have Project 2007, it's easy. I just can't remember the name of
the tool on the toolbar that does it. If I remember right, it's on the
standard toolbar, near the center.

Hope this helps in your world.

 

[JulieS]

Rob,

My comments/suggestions are in-line.

Hi.

I need some feedback on accomplishing the following:

I. Report seperated by X/Y/Z

A PDF that contains each Resource Name as page header, Company logo,
all the
tasks that the person is involved in (task name), duration, start,
and finish
and have the gantt chart to right. I have many many resources and
would like
to be able to do this as a single command.

What I have tried that came close:
1. Gantt view and move divider to right side of finish.
2. Adjust gantt bars to line up close to the divider.
3. Sort by
A. Resource Names - Ascending
B. Start - Ascending
C. Finish - Ascending
4. Insert page breaks between resources.

[Julie] I suggest using filters instead of groups. By filtering the
Gantt chart view, you still maintain the Gantt bars and don't need to
worry about page breaks.

Why this did not meet what I am looking to do:
1. I saw someone who had some customizations to microsoft project.
So this
might be one of those customizations, but something they did
automatically
put page breaks between what they sorted or grouped the view by. So
when
they printed to PDF the pages were already seperated by resource and
contained the resource as the header. I just can not remember what
they did.
I dont want to have to put page breaks between every resource. That
is
extremely timely.

[Julie] You may want to think about creating custom views which have
filtered versions of the Gantt chart for each resource. By creating
the custom views and then formatting the page setup for each view, you
can add the resource's name to the header information. Each resource
would have a view and once the formatting is set, you'd simply switch
to the correct view and print to the pdf print driver.

2. I do not get the tasks that are assigned to more than one
resource. They
end up being sorted as a group (say tasks that person 1 and 2 are
both doing)
of their own.

3. If I try to group (apply) the tasks by resource this is not
allowed. As
it is greyed out in the More Groups window. Somehow someone was
able to do
this though, and it was a very powerful snapshot of who was doing
what. They
also had this snapshot by phase.

II. Critical Path from task

Another customization that these people might have had or I have yet
to
figure out how to do was that you could click on any task in the
gantt chart
or table and click a button that displayed the critical path (read:
new task
list and gantt chart displayed) to that task, to see what is
potentially
holding that task up. You can obviously see how this is an
important
snapshot for a project.

Is this available somehow?

[Julie] In Project 2007, the task drivers command shows the components
which are driving the task schedule including predecessors, lead/lag,
resource assignments, and task calendars.

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie
Project MVP

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