Resources Transferring Non Working time from Outlook

J

John Burrell

Should I allow all resources the capability of
transferring their non work Calendar from out look? How do
I deal with vacation time? Meetings - are they considered
non working time. Appreciate someones expertise on this.
thx
jb
 
D

Dale Howard

John --

If your resources transfer their non-working time from Outlook to you, you
should know that you will not be able to enter their non-working time on
their personal calendars in the Enterprise Resource Pool, UNLESS you have
Administrator permissions. If you are an administrator in your Project
Server environment, then you need to have the Enterprise Resource Pool open
in Microsoft Project 2002 before you process the non-working time updates
from PWA.

If you don't have Administrator permissions in your environment, you could
at least use the "transfer nonworking time from Outlook" feature to allow
your resources to inform you of their planned vacation and personal leave
time. After you have viewed their nonworking time updates in PWA, you will
need to delete each update manually. Hope this helps.
 
J

JB

Hi Dale,
thx for the input. I do have admin rights. What is the
best way for me to update resource calendars? I wan't to
have this working in project correctly, wheere I can
eliminate the secretary's duty.

Thank you,
jb
 
D

Dale Howard

JB --

Do as I suggested in my previous message. When you receive a nonworking
time update from a team member, open Microsoft Project 2002 and then open
the Enterprise Resource Pool (remember to include the resource who is
sending you the update). Process only the nonworking time update from the
resource, and when prompted about which project to use, select the
Enterprise Resource Pool. The nonworking time update will flow
automatically onto the resource's personal calendar in the pool. Save and
close the pool. Hope this helps.
 
J

jb

If the project manager does not have admin rights that
does them no good. Would you say that whenever there is a
calendar change the resource should include
the Admin and then the admin will have to go into the
resource pool and change the calendar? I mean there are
more pms, if they forget one. How do we deal with meetings?
thx
jb
 
D

Dale Howard

jb --

Yes, the nonworking time from Outlook will always need to be sent to
whomever serves as your company's resource pool administrator (normally the
Project Server administrator as well). Unfortunately, this does not align
well with most company's processes for submitting and approving nonworking
time, which usually goes to the team member's resource manager, or sometimes
to the project member, if the resource is a member of a dedicated project
team. Many of us have found that Microsoft's implementation of transferring
nonworking time through PWA just doesn't work very well. It's probably
better to use other methods, such as an e-mail or a paper form or telephone
call to the resource manager, who then informs the Project Server
administrator. This is one issue where there is no one right answer, and
lots of ways to do it.

Concerning meetings, I consider meetings to be work, even if some people are
sleeping during the meeting! HA! I recommend that you include meetings as
tasks (or recurring tasks) in either your regular project plans, or in a
special project plan known as an Administrative Project. But definitely
include meetings as work, as they are definitely NOT nonworking time.
 
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