resource underallocation

[ellebelle]

Hello,

Is there a tool in MSProject that shows you when a resource in NOT
allocated to a task. Ideally this would be displayed as a separate task with
splits.

Thanks

 

[DavidC]

Hi,

Use 'View\Resource sheet", any resource not allocated to a task will have
'0' in the work column.

Hope this helps.

Regards

DavidC

 

[JulieS]

Hi ellebelle,

I'm not sure I follow your question exactly, but what I think you are
searching for is to try to find out when (what time period) a resource is
not assigned to a task, perhaps due to nonworking time? Have you checked
out either the Resource Usage view (zoomed out to show the appropriate time
scale) or the Resource Graph?

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

Julie

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

The REsource Usage view has an option to display a row of remaining
allocation, that is the difference between what they are allocated and what
their maximum allocation is.

 

[ellebelle]

I would like to view it in the gant view as a task.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

I'm afraid you will have to program that in VBA - and it is by no means a
simple logic.
HTH

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

How can it be a task? A task by definition is a block of physical work
performed by a resource or resource team. The amount of time they are NOT
working is the remaining allocation. If you had a task that is assigned to
both Fred and Ethyl, Fred used 75% and Ethyl 50%, what single remaining
availabilty number is associated with that task?

 

[ellebelle]

the task is 'other/miscellaneious" they will do this when i have not schedule
them to do anything else. It automatically defaults back to this
'other/miscellaneious" when they are NOT scheduled on any other tasks.

is it possible?

 

[ellebelle]

if i create a task called 'other' with prority zero (lower than all other
tasks), could I use leveling on just that individual task?

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

When you use leveling (on all tasks of course, you cannot level just one
task) it will nicely fill the gaps.
That is an excellent idea.
HTH

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

Leveling does not make assignments or modify the resource's assignments to a
task in any way. All it does is slip a resource's work onb the task later
in the schedule in the event the resource is overallocated at the time when
the task is originally scheduled to take place. I have Joe assigned to task
8 on Mon for 8 hours. He's also assigned to task B, also on Mon and also for
8 hours. He's free for the rest of the week. He only works an 8 hour day
and so can't do a total of 16 hours work all on Monday as our schedule calls
for. All resource leveling will do is push one of those tasks to Tuesday.
Ir won't take him off the task and put someone one, it won't reduce him to
50% on both tasks, it does nothing at all except move the lower prioroty
task to Tuesday. And considering the oppoisite situation. I have Mary
assigned to 2-day Task X on Monday and Tuesday at 50%, 8 hours work, 16
hours duration. She's not scheduled for anything else those days and has a
max avail in her resource information of 100%. Leveling does nothing to
her asignment. Project will NOT see she's only used 50% on Monday and free
the other 50% and will NOT respond by increasing her to 100% and finishing
the task sooner. It assumes we had our reasons for assigning her like we
did that is knows nothing about and it doesn't try to second guess us and
change it.

You example would require it to understand the nature of the work and to
modify assignments, neither of which it can do. It would require it to see
that they're only used 50% on Task X that you have assigned and thus should
put them on task MISC for the other 50%. But these task names are just
character strings to Project and it doesn't know that MISC is a catch-all.
As far as it knows, it could be just as technically sophisticated and
require as many special skills as helium arc welding and it has no way of
knowing whether your resources even have the skills necessary to DO MISC.
So it leaves the decision to put them on MISC or not strictly up to you and
keeps its hands off.

There's simply no way to automate management decision making such as
resource assignments and resource loading and decision making is what
project managment is all about. MS Project is just a calculation tool to
help decision makers predict the outcomes of the various options they might
select but it won't make decisions for you.

--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

But it won't see someone is only used 50% on a certain day and automatically
assign them to some catch-all task for the remainder of the day, which is
what ellebelle is asking it to do.

--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Steve,

Since Ellebelle said nothing about using only part of people's brains on
some tasks I dared suppose all the asignments were 100% ones; that is the
prerequisite for leveling to work ideally.
Greetings

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Steve and all,

Just to clarify the point made in my previous note, this is a copy from a
part of a previous note from Ellebelle:
-----
It automatically defaults back to this
'other/miscellaneious" when they are NOT scheduled on any other tasks.
-----
That is not filling up a gap from 50% to 100%, it is something leveling can
do.
Greetings,

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

I suppose, if the MISC task were running continuously and they had initially
been assigned 100% to it and 100% to the other tasks they're to do, then
leveling with "split tasks" enabled, along with maknig the MISC task lower
priority than any others, then leveling would split it for times when the
other tasks are running. But there's still the problem of the MSIC task
having no defined concrete beginning and end.
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

Jan, are you sure you mean that? It sounds like she's asking leveling to
create assignments - specifically to see the unused availablility of all the
resources from day to day and have any unassigned percentage short of their
maximum allocation to automatically be assigned to a MISC task (whether
they're booked 100% or something less doesn't matter). That would require
Project's leveling to actually create the assignments to MISC, which we know
it doesn't do.

I figured out a workaround using leveling but it sure seems risky to me to
actually use it. Create the project plan with all the resource assignments
and level it. Add a hammock task for MISC from project start to project
end. Make it non-effort driven, priority zero, and assign all the resources
to it. Level again using priority, standard order, within available slack
turned off, can adjust individual assignments turned on, can create splits
turned on. After leveling the hammock task will extend beyond the real
project end so we need then to reset the hammock link for the end date to
cut away the excess time on the MISC task.

I don't like that solution because the MISC task is not producing a
quantifiable, defineable, specific deliverable that is a required component
of the overall Project's final deliverable as such. It's really just a
vague catch-all task that captures people's non-project related activities.
As such it is completely outside of the project universe, has no effect on
the progress towards project completion, and shouldn't even be a factor in
the schedule except in so far its demands reduce the resource's availability
for project work, something accounted for when setting the resource's
maximum availability in the first place. Further, the strategy requested
says it's a lower priority than project work to begin with, freely
interuptable whenever anything else in the project is going on, so IMHO it
should just be completely ignored by the PM, letting the resources
themselves figure out how best to work around the project's demands to get
their other stuff done. If I have an employee who arrives in the office at
9am and I'm planning what I need them to get done that day in the office, I
don't also try to plan for them when they need to leave home in order to get
to work on-time and what they should bring for lunch.
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Steve,

That's it. I don't even think the end date is crucial (these things
generally serve the purpose of taking short-term decisions) so she could
just enter a task with a "reasonable" duration instead of a hammock task,
and it would nicely "Gantt Chart Style" show availability odf the resource.

Greetings,

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

Guess I just don't see the point of it. Yup, you get a pretty Gantt chart
but does that picture materially contribute to and make it easier to
schedule the work on the project's deliverables and only the work on the
project's deliverables? I don't think of Project as an office schedule
planning, resource workday planning, or resource calendaring tool and the
Gantt chart does not illustrate the resource's personal schedules IMHO. It
is a project work scheduling tool and it's that work only that the Gantt
should depict - the resources are merely part of the assets you use to
achieve the work. True, when fully populated, the Gantt is showing resource
schedule information - Suzie must do task X on Tuesday - among its other
data but it's only by coincidence due to the fact that the work has to be
done by resources. It should not attempt to show or schedule anything not
directly associated with creating a project deliverable that the resource
may also doing.

Let's look at our MISC task example again. I have a single sequence of
tasks A, B, C, D, E. I have 4 resources, Bob, Carol, Ted, and Alice. I
randomly assign one resource to each task, doesn't matter who or how many
tasks each resource gets. Add the MISC task as a separate task running the
entire project duration, not linked to anything, and assign all 4 resources
to it. Level as we discussed. But now it doesn't show any splits because
out of the 4 resources at any given point in time only one is assigned away
from it and three remain on it - the only time it'll show a split is if no
one is working on it but in this scenario that never happens. Now what
useful information have we generated? Does having that solid bar running
parallel to the project tasks proper actually convey anything that helps us
get the project's work done or schedule the resources? If we look at the
resource usage view we can see that Bob is 8 hours on Task A Monday and 8
hours on task MISC on Tuesday but so what? We would have a more reliable
indicator of under-utilized capacity if we got rid of the MISC task all
together and simply added the Remaining Availability line to the resource
usage view.

If all I wanted to do was draw a Gantt-style chart showing what members of
an employee group are doing each workday, I'd just use a diagram creating
and drawing tool like Visio.

--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Hi Steve,

That's it. I don't even think the end date is crucial (these things
generally serve the purpose of taking short-term decisions) so she could
just enter a task with a "reasonable" duration instead of a hammock task,
and it would nicely "Gantt Chart Style" show availability odf the
resource.

Greetings,

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/
+32-495-300 620

Jan, are you sure you mean that? It sounds like she's asking leveling to
create assignments - specifically to see the unused availablility of all the
resources from day to day and have any unassigned percentage short of their
maximum allocation to automatically be assigned to a MISC task (whether
they're booked 100% or something less doesn't matter). That would
require
Project's leveling to actually create the assignments to MISC, which we know
it doesn't do.

I figured out a workaround using leveling but it sure seems risky to me
to
actually use it. Create the project plan with all the resource assignments
and level it. Add a hammock task for MISC from project start to project
end. Make it non-effort driven, priority zero, and assign all the resources
to it. Level again using priority, standard order, within available
slack
turned off, can adjust individual assignments turned on, can create
splits
turned on. After leveling the hammock task will extend beyond the real
project end so we need then to reset the hammock link for the end date to
cut away the excess time on the MISC task.

I don't like that solution because the MISC task is not producing a
quantifiable, defineable, specific deliverable that is a required component
of the overall Project's final deliverable as such. It's really just a
vague catch-all task that captures people's non-project related activities.
As such it is completely outside of the project universe, has no effect
on
the progress towards project completion, and shouldn't even be a factor
in
the schedule except in so far its demands reduce the resource's availability
for project work, something accounted for when setting the resource's
maximum availability in the first place. Further, the strategy requested
says it's a lower priority than project work to begin with, freely
interuptable whenever anything else in the project is going on, so IMHO
it
should just be completely ignored by the PM, letting the resources
themselves figure out how best to work around the project's demands to
get
their other stuff done. If I have an employee who arrives in the office at
9am and I'm planning what I need them to get done that day in the office, I
don't also try to plan for them when they need to leave home in order to get
to work on-time and what they should bring for lunch.
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs



"Jan De Messemaeker" <jandemes at prom hyphen ade dot be> wrote in
message

Hi Steve and all,

Just to clarify the point made in my previous note, this is a copy from a
part of a previous note from Ellebelle:
-----
It automatically defaults back to this
'other/miscellaneious" when they are NOT scheduled on any other tasks.
-----
That is not filling up a gap from 50% to 100%, it is something leveling
can
do.
Greetings,


--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/
+32-495-300 620
"Steve House [Project MVP]" <[email protected]>
schreef in bericht Leveling does not make assignments or modify the resource's
assignments
to
a
task in any way. All it does is slip a resource's work onb the task
later
in the schedule in the event the resource is overallocated at the time
when
the task is originally scheduled to take place. I have Joe assigned
to
task
8 on Mon for 8 hours. He's also assigned to task B, also on Mon and also
for
8 hours. He's free for the rest of the week. He only works an 8 hour
day
and so can't do a total of 16 hours work all on Monday as our schedule
calls
for. All resource leveling will do is push one of those tasks to
Tuesday.
Ir won't take him off the task and put someone one, it won't reduce
him
to
50% on both tasks, it does nothing at all except move the lower prioroty
task to Tuesday. And considering the oppoisite situation. I have
Mary
assigned to 2-day Task X on Monday and Tuesday at 50%, 8 hours work,
16
hours duration. She's not scheduled for anything else those days and has
a
max avail in her resource information of 100%. Leveling does nothing to
her asignment. Project will NOT see she's only used 50% on Monday and
free
the other 50% and will NOT respond by increasing her to 100% and
finishing
the task sooner. It assumes we had our reasons for assigning her like we
did that is knows nothing about and it doesn't try to second guess us and
change it.

You example would require it to understand the nature of the work and to
modify assignments, neither of which it can do. It would require it
to
see
that they're only used 50% on Task X that you have assigned and thus
should
put them on task MISC for the other 50%. But these task names are
just
character strings to Project and it doesn't know that MISC is a
catch-all.
As far as it knows, it could be just as technically sophisticated and
require as many special skills as helium arc welding and it has no way of
knowing whether your resources even have the skills necessary to DO MISC.
So it leaves the decision to put them on MISC or not strictly up to
you
and
keeps its hands off.

There's simply no way to automate management decision making such as
resource assignments and resource loading and decision making is what
project managment is all about. MS Project is just a calculation tool to
help decision makers predict the outcomes of the various options they
might
select but it won't make decisions for you.

--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs


if i create a task called 'other' with prority zero (lower than all
other
tasks), could I use leveling on just that individual task?



:

the task is 'other/miscellaneious" they will do this when i have
not
schedule
them to do anything else. It automatically defaults back to this
'other/miscellaneious" when they are NOT scheduled on any other tasks.

is it possible?

:

How can it be a task? A task by definition is a block of
physical
work
performed by a resource or resource team. The amount of time
they
are
NOT
working is the remaining allocation. If you had a task that is
assigned to
both Fred and Ethyl, Fred used 75% and Ethyl 50%, what single
remaining
availabilty number is associated with that task?


--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

message
I would like to view it in the gant view as a task.

:

The REsource Usage view has an option to display a row of
remaining
allocation, that is the difference between what they are
allocated
and
what
their maximum allocation is.

--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs



message
Hello,

Is there a tool in MSProject that shows you when a resource in
NOT
allocated to a task. Ideally this would be displayed as a
separate
task
with
splits.

Thanks

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Steve,

Can't comment on everything, just a few:

"simply added the Remaining Availability line to the resource
usage view"

What's wrong with representing this graphically? That's all she asked for.

"I'd just use a diagram creating and drawing tool like Visio".

Well I definitely wouldn't as Project calculates that for me, that is the
whole point of Project.

Greetings,





--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/
+32-495-300 620

Guess I just don't see the point of it. Yup, you get a pretty Gantt chart
but does that picture materially contribute to and make it easier to
schedule the work on the project's deliverables and only the work on the
project's deliverables? I don't think of Project as an office schedule
planning, resource workday planning, or resource calendaring tool and the
Gantt chart does not illustrate the resource's personal schedules IMHO. It
is a project work scheduling tool and it's that work only that the Gantt
should depict - the resources are merely part of the assets you use to
achieve the work. True, when fully populated, the Gantt is showing resource
schedule information - Suzie must do task X on Tuesday - among its other
data but it's only by coincidence due to the fact that the work has to be
done by resources. It should not attempt to show or schedule anything not
directly associated with creating a project deliverable that the resource
may also doing.

Let's look at our MISC task example again. I have a single sequence of
tasks A, B, C, D, E. I have 4 resources, Bob, Carol, Ted, and Alice. I
randomly assign one resource to each task, doesn't matter who or how many
tasks each resource gets. Add the MISC task as a separate task running the
entire project duration, not linked to anything, and assign all 4 resources
to it. Level as we discussed. But now it doesn't show any splits because
out of the 4 resources at any given point in time only one is assigned away
from it and three remain on it - the only time it'll show a split is if no
one is working on it but in this scenario that never happens. Now what
useful information have we generated? Does having that solid bar running
parallel to the project tasks proper actually convey anything that helps us
get the project's work done or schedule the resources? If we look at the
resource usage view we can see that Bob is 8 hours on Task A Monday and 8
hours on task MISC on Tuesday but so what? We would have a more reliable
indicator of under-utilized capacity if we got rid of the MISC task all
together and simply added the Remaining Availability line to the resource
usage view.

If all I wanted to do was draw a Gantt-style chart showing what members of
an employee group are doing each workday, I'd just use a diagram creating
and drawing tool like Visio.

--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Hi Steve,

That's it. I don't even think the end date is crucial (these things
generally serve the purpose of taking short-term decisions) so she could
just enter a task with a "reasonable" duration instead of a hammock task,
and it would nicely "Gantt Chart Style" show availability odf the
resource.

Greetings,

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/
+32-495-300 620

Jan, are you sure you mean that? It sounds like she's asking leveling to
create assignments - specifically to see the unused availablility of

all
the

resources from day to day and have any unassigned percentage short of their
maximum allocation to automatically be assigned to a MISC task (whether
they're booked 100% or something less doesn't matter). That would
require
Project's leveling to actually create the assignments to MISC, which we know
it doesn't do.

I figured out a workaround using leveling but it sure seems risky to me
to
actually use it. Create the project plan with all the resource assignments
and level it. Add a hammock task for MISC from project start to project
end. Make it non-effort driven, priority zero, and assign all the resources
to it. Level again using priority, standard order, within available
slack
turned off, can adjust individual assignments turned on, can create
splits
turned on. After leveling the hammock task will extend beyond the real
project end so we need then to reset the hammock link for the end date to
cut away the excess time on the MISC task.

I don't like that solution because the MISC task is not producing a
quantifiable, defineable, specific deliverable that is a required component
of the overall Project's final deliverable as such. It's really just a
vague catch-all task that captures people's non-project related activities.
As such it is completely outside of the project universe, has no effect
on
the progress towards project completion, and shouldn't even be a factor
in
the schedule except in so far its demands reduce the resource's availability
for project work, something accounted for when setting the resource's
maximum availability in the first place. Further, the strategy requested
says it's a lower priority than project work to begin with, freely
interuptable whenever anything else in the project is going on, so IMHO
it
should just be completely ignored by the PM, letting the resources
themselves figure out how best to work around the project's demands to
get
their other stuff done. If I have an employee who arrives in the

office
at

9am and I'm planning what I need them to get done that day in the

office,
I

don't also try to plan for them when they need to leave home in order

to
get

to work on-time and what they should bring for lunch.
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs



"Jan De Messemaeker" <jandemes at prom hyphen ade dot be> wrote in
message
Hi Steve and all,

Just to clarify the point made in my previous note, this is a copy

from
a

part of a previous note from Ellebelle:
-----
It automatically defaults back to this
'other/miscellaneious" when they are NOT scheduled on any other tasks.
-----
That is not filling up a gap from 50% to 100%, it is something leveling
can
do.
Greetings,


--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/
+32-495-300 620
"Steve House [Project MVP]" <[email protected]>
schreef in bericht Leveling does not make assignments or modify the resource's
assignments
to
a
task in any way. All it does is slip a resource's work onb the task
later
in the schedule in the event the resource is overallocated at the time
when
the task is originally scheduled to take place. I have Joe assigned
to
task
8 on Mon for 8 hours. He's also assigned to task B, also on Mon and also
for
8 hours. He's free for the rest of the week. He only works an 8 hour
day
and so can't do a total of 16 hours work all on Monday as our schedule
calls
for. All resource leveling will do is push one of those tasks to
Tuesday.
Ir won't take him off the task and put someone one, it won't reduce
him
to
50% on both tasks, it does nothing at all except move the lower prioroty
task to Tuesday. And considering the oppoisite situation. I have
Mary
assigned to 2-day Task X on Monday and Tuesday at 50%, 8 hours work,
16
hours duration. She's not scheduled for anything else those days

and
has

a
max avail in her resource information of 100%. Leveling does

nothing
to

her asignment. Project will NOT see she's only used 50% on Monday and
free
the other 50% and will NOT respond by increasing her to 100% and
finishing
the task sooner. It assumes we had our reasons for assigning her

like
we

did that is knows nothing about and it doesn't try to second guess

us
and

change it.

You example would require it to understand the nature of the work

and
to

modify assignments, neither of which it can do. It would require it
to
see
that they're only used 50% on Task X that you have assigned and thus
should
put them on task MISC for the other 50%. But these task names are
just
character strings to Project and it doesn't know that MISC is a
catch-all.
As far as it knows, it could be just as technically sophisticated and
require as many special skills as helium arc welding and it has no

way
of

knowing whether your resources even have the skills necessary to DO MISC.
So it leaves the decision to put them on MISC or not strictly up to
you
and
keeps its hands off.

There's simply no way to automate management decision making such as
resource assignments and resource loading and decision making is what
project managment is all about. MS Project is just a calculation

tool
to

help decision makers predict the outcomes of the various options they
might
select but it won't make decisions for you.

--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs


if i create a task called 'other' with prority zero (lower than all
other
tasks), could I use leveling on just that individual task?



:

the task is 'other/miscellaneious" they will do this when i have
not
schedule
them to do anything else. It automatically defaults back to this
'other/miscellaneious" when they are NOT scheduled on any other tasks.

is it possible?

:

How can it be a task? A task by definition is a block of
physical
work
performed by a resource or resource team. The amount of time
they
are
NOT
working is the remaining allocation. If you had a task that is
assigned to
both Fred and Ethyl, Fred used 75% and Ethyl 50%, what single
remaining
availabilty number is associated with that task?


--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

message
I would like to view it in the gant view as a task.

:

The REsource Usage view has an option to display a row of
remaining
allocation, that is the difference between what they are
allocated
and
what
their maximum allocation is.

--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs



message
Hello,

Is there a tool in MSProject that shows you when a

resource
in

NOT
allocated to a task. Ideally this would be displayed as a
separate
task
with
splits.

Thanks

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

I suppose one could setup a separate MISC task for each resource so you
could see at a glance from the segmented bars if Suzy was free on Tuesday
but if you had more than a handful of resources wouldn't that make for an
awfully confusing and complicated chart? Imagine the appearance if you had
20 or 30 or 100 resources resulting in page after page of bars for the
resource's background tasks before you ever saw any of the real project
tasks that you need to actively manage?
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Hi Steve,

Can't comment on everything, just a few:

"simply added the Remaining Availability line to the resource
usage view"

What's wrong with representing this graphically? That's all she asked for.

"I'd just use a diagram creating and drawing tool like Visio".

Well I definitely wouldn't as Project calculates that for me, that is the
whole point of Project.

Greetings,





--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/
+32-495-300 620

Guess I just don't see the point of it. Yup, you get a pretty Gantt
chart
but does that picture materially contribute to and make it easier to
schedule the work on the project's deliverables and only the work on the
project's deliverables? I don't think of Project as an office schedule
planning, resource workday planning, or resource calendaring tool and the
Gantt chart does not illustrate the resource's personal schedules IMHO. It
is a project work scheduling tool and it's that work only that the Gantt
should depict - the resources are merely part of the assets you use to
achieve the work. True, when fully populated, the Gantt is showing resource
schedule information - Suzie must do task X on Tuesday - among its other
data but it's only by coincidence due to the fact that the work has to be
done by resources. It should not attempt to show or schedule anything
not
directly associated with creating a project deliverable that the resource
may also doing.

Let's look at our MISC task example again. I have a single sequence of
tasks A, B, C, D, E. I have 4 resources, Bob, Carol, Ted, and Alice. I
randomly assign one resource to each task, doesn't matter who or how many
tasks each resource gets. Add the MISC task as a separate task running the
entire project duration, not linked to anything, and assign all 4 resources
to it. Level as we discussed. But now it doesn't show any splits
because
out of the 4 resources at any given point in time only one is assigned away
from it and three remain on it - the only time it'll show a split is if
no
one is working on it but in this scenario that never happens. Now what
useful information have we generated? Does having that solid bar running
parallel to the project tasks proper actually convey anything that helps us
get the project's work done or schedule the resources? If we look at the
resource usage view we can see that Bob is 8 hours on Task A Monday and
8
hours on task MISC on Tuesday but so what? We would have a more reliable
indicator of under-utilized capacity if we got rid of the MISC task all
together and simply added the Remaining Availability line to the resource
usage view.

If all I wanted to do was draw a Gantt-style chart showing what members
of
an employee group are doing each workday, I'd just use a diagram creating
and drawing tool like Visio.

--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs


"Jan De Messemaeker" <jandemes at prom hyphen ade dot be> wrote in
message

Hi Steve,

That's it. I don't even think the end date is crucial (these things
generally serve the purpose of taking short-term decisions) so she
could
just enter a task with a "reasonable" duration instead of a hammock task,
and it would nicely "Gantt Chart Style" show availability odf the
resource.

Greetings,

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/
+32-495-300 620
"Steve House [Project MVP]" <[email protected]>
schreef in bericht Jan, are you sure you mean that? It sounds like she's asking leveling to
create assignments - specifically to see the unused availablility of all
the
resources from day to day and have any unassigned percentage short of
their
maximum allocation to automatically be assigned to a MISC task
(whether
they're booked 100% or something less doesn't matter). That would
require
Project's leveling to actually create the assignments to MISC, which
we
know
it doesn't do.

I figured out a workaround using leveling but it sure seems risky to
me
to
actually use it. Create the project plan with all the resource
assignments
and level it. Add a hammock task for MISC from project start to project
end. Make it non-effort driven, priority zero, and assign all the
resources
to it. Level again using priority, standard order, within available
slack
turned off, can adjust individual assignments turned on, can create
splits
turned on. After leveling the hammock task will extend beyond the
real
project end so we need then to reset the hammock link for the end date to
cut away the excess time on the MISC task.

I don't like that solution because the MISC task is not producing a
quantifiable, defineable, specific deliverable that is a required
component
of the overall Project's final deliverable as such. It's really just
a
vague catch-all task that captures people's non-project related
activities.
As such it is completely outside of the project universe, has no
effect
on
the progress towards project completion, and shouldn't even be a
factor
in
the schedule except in so far its demands reduce the resource's
availability
for project work, something accounted for when setting the resource's
maximum availability in the first place. Further, the strategy requested
says it's a lower priority than project work to begin with, freely
interuptable whenever anything else in the project is going on, so
IMHO
it
should just be completely ignored by the PM, letting the resources
themselves figure out how best to work around the project's demands to
get
their other stuff done. If I have an employee who arrives in the office
at
9am and I'm planning what I need them to get done that day in the office,
I
don't also try to plan for them when they need to leave home in order to
get
to work on-time and what they should bring for lunch.
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs



"Jan De Messemaeker" <jandemes at prom hyphen ade dot be> wrote in
message
Hi Steve and all,

Just to clarify the point made in my previous note, this is a copy from
a
part of a previous note from Ellebelle:
-----
It automatically defaults back to this
'other/miscellaneious" when they are NOT scheduled on any other tasks.
-----
That is not filling up a gap from 50% to 100%, it is something leveling
can
do.
Greetings,


--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/
+32-495-300 620
"Steve House [Project MVP]"
<[email protected]>
schreef in bericht Leveling does not make assignments or modify the resource's
assignments
to
a
task in any way. All it does is slip a resource's work onb the
task
later
in the schedule in the event the resource is overallocated at the time
when
the task is originally scheduled to take place. I have Joe
assigned
to
task
8 on Mon for 8 hours. He's also assigned to task B, also on Mon and
also
for
8 hours. He's free for the rest of the week. He only works an 8 hour
day
and so can't do a total of 16 hours work all on Monday as our schedule
calls
for. All resource leveling will do is push one of those tasks to
Tuesday.
Ir won't take him off the task and put someone one, it won't reduce
him
to
50% on both tasks, it does nothing at all except move the lower
prioroty
task to Tuesday. And considering the oppoisite situation. I have
Mary
assigned to 2-day Task X on Monday and Tuesday at 50%, 8 hours
work,
16
hours duration. She's not scheduled for anything else those days and
has
a
max avail in her resource information of 100%. Leveling does nothing
to
her asignment. Project will NOT see she's only used 50% on Monday and
free
the other 50% and will NOT respond by increasing her to 100% and
finishing
the task sooner. It assumes we had our reasons for assigning her like
we
did that is knows nothing about and it doesn't try to second guess us
and
change it.

You example would require it to understand the nature of the work and
to
modify assignments, neither of which it can do. It would require
it
to
see
that they're only used 50% on Task X that you have assigned and
thus
should
put them on task MISC for the other 50%. But these task names are
just
character strings to Project and it doesn't know that MISC is a
catch-all.
As far as it knows, it could be just as technically sophisticated and
require as many special skills as helium arc welding and it has no way
of
knowing whether your resources even have the skills necessary to DO
MISC.
So it leaves the decision to put them on MISC or not strictly up to
you
and
keeps its hands off.

There's simply no way to automate management decision making such
as
resource assignments and resource loading and decision making is what
project managment is all about. MS Project is just a calculation tool
to
help decision makers predict the outcomes of the various options they
might
select but it won't make decisions for you.

--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs


if i create a task called 'other' with prority zero (lower than all
other
tasks), could I use leveling on just that individual task?



:

the task is 'other/miscellaneious" they will do this when i have
not
schedule
them to do anything else. It automatically defaults back to this
'other/miscellaneious" when they are NOT scheduled on any other
tasks.

is it possible?

:

How can it be a task? A task by definition is a block of
physical
work
performed by a resource or resource team. The amount of time
they
are
NOT
working is the remaining allocation. If you had a task that
is
assigned to
both Fred and Ethyl, Fred used 75% and Ethyl 50%, what single
remaining
availabilty number is associated with that task?


--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

message
I would like to view it in the gant view as a task.

:

The REsource Usage view has an option to display a row of
remaining
allocation, that is the difference between what they are
allocated
and
what
their maximum allocation is.

--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs



message
Hello,

Is there a tool in MSProject that shows you when a resource
in
NOT
allocated to a task. Ideally this would be displayed as a
separate
task
with
splits.

Thanks