Timesheet entry by "approver"??

A

Andy Novak

We assign multiple resources to tasks for informational purposes
(i.e., use Resource Usage report so that folks can see what tasks they
have to work on in date order). We don't care at all about the number
of hours - just focus on duration and dates (hours increase or
decrease each time a resource is added or taken away, but the duration
stays the same).

However, for web progress reporting, we would like to be able to just
assign an "approver" to a task; one person who reports progress so
that we aren't dealing with all these multiple assignment records.
Moreover, would like to use the %complete method instead of reporting
hours worked each day.

What's the best way to do this?

Thanks,
Andy Novak
University of North Texas
 
D

Dale Howard [MVP]

Andy --

One way that you could accomplish what you wish would be to set up the
account for each of your team members using Project Server authentication
rather than Windows User Account authentication. Then in the Microsoft
Project plan, assign tasks to the real people who will perform the work.
The "approver" could then be able to log into Project Web Access as each
resource and enter their % complete value each week. This is not a very
secure environment, but by your own description, I don't think that will
pose a problem to your organization.

By default, the method of tracking progress is set to % Work Complete, so
you should not need to change that unless your Project Server administrator
has changed it for some reason. I would recommend, however, that your
Project Server administrator "lock down" the % Work Complete method of
tracking progress so that none of your project managers can inadvertently
change the method of tracking in one of their project plans. Hope this
helps.
 
G

Gary L. Chefetz [MVP]

Andy:

If I'm reading you correctly, another alternative might be to create two
tasks for each actual task, one that you publish, which would be the one
assigned to the "approver" and one informational for resourcing. Hammock the
resourcing task to the approver task without predecessor or successor links
and add a custom flag field to identify yes=publish and no=don't publish.
Use the flag field to filter your view to make publishing easier.
 
A

Andy Novak

Thanks Dale and Gary for your response. Let me pose a another
possible way to do this (I have no idea but thought I'd ask).

What about using Generic Resources for this purpose? If I remember
correctly, Generic Resource assignments don't go to the server for
time reporting. If that were true, perhaps I could assign all the
"generics" for informational purposes (HR Tech, HR Func, Tech Svcs,
DBA, etc.) and assign the "real" resource for time reporting. But,
then again, I may still have assignment records to deal with.

Would it be possible to completely replicate the RESOURCE USAGE view
as another view using a DIFFERENT column that contains the generic
resource group names for reporting purposes (reporting BY "generic"
resource group)? Then, I could assign only the "approver" to the
Resource Names field.

Thanks,
Andy
 
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