Total resources per day

[3326ubb]

Hi,
Using MSP2002 professional.
Created Master project by inserting individual project.

Levelling required to be done with a typical constraint on number of
resources.

The activities should be pushed or rescheduled if number of resources (
across all sub-projects ) exceed 40. Because the platform on which these
activities will be carried can not accomodate more than 40 persons of
all vendors together.

Can this be done with available levelling options ? If at all it is
possible, which activities will be pushed ?

Help/advice will be appreciated.

 

[JulieS]

Hi,

Resource leveling compares the total resource assignment units (called Peak
Units) to the resource's maximum units. If Peak exceeds Maximum, the
resource is overallocated and the Resource Leveling command will attempt to
solve the overallocation by delaying tasks.
In the scenario you describe, I am not sure resource leveling will work for
two reasons:
1) If the resources have been set up in the individual project files, even
if they have the exact same name in each project file, MS Project will not
consider those individual resources the same person. So if Jane is a
resource in Project A and Jane is a resource in Project B, even if you
create the master project file, Jane will appear twice in the resource sheet
and will only be overallocated if her Peak Units in Project A is greater
than her Max. Units in Project A or her Peak in Project B is greater than
her Max. in Project B.
2) Unless you have created your resources from all vendors as one named
resource with a maximum unit of 4000%, project will not add the max. units
nor the Peak Units of each resource to reach the 40 person threshold.

You may want to have a look at resource pools for additional information on
how to create project files all using the same resources.

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

 

[John]

Hi,
Using MSP2002 professional.
Created Master project by inserting individual project.

Levelling required to be done with a typical constraint on number of
resources.

The activities should be pushed or rescheduled if number of resources (
across all sub-projects ) exceed 40. Because the platform on which these
activities will be carried can not accomodate more than 40 persons of
all vendors together.

Can this be done with available levelling options ? If at all it is
possible, which activities will be pushed ?

Help/advice will be appreciated.

3326ubb,
Project's leveling function can be limited to a selected span of time
but not for a specified number of resources. So to answer your direct
question, "no", but . . . there is generally always a way if you are
willing and able. I'm not sure it would be worth the effort, but there
should be a way to use a VBA macro to either, a) selectively employ time
based leveling, or b) replicate the leveling function with a custom
algorithm. If I were doing it, I would use the latter.

I'm not sure this would help, but can you break the overall project into
sections or phases wherein there are 40 or fewer resources associated
with each? It will still require a significant amount of effort to
monitor everything but then that's what a Project Manager does.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

 

[3326ubb]

Thank u very much, JulieS & John for your useful hints.
I think the only option will be keeping 40 (or 4000%) resources per
projects ( either master or braking overall project into sections as
respectively suggested by you). I will try this & give you the
feedback.

But John, I am willing to give a macro a try. I may require your help.
I will come back to you after trying.

 

[JulieS]

You're welcome 3326ubb and thanks for the feedback.
Julie

 

[John]

Thank u very much, JulieS & John for your useful hints.
I think the only option will be keeping 40 (or 4000%) resources per
projects ( either master or braking overall project into sections as
respectively suggested by you). I will try this & give you the
feedback.

But John, I am willing to give a macro a try. I may require your help.
I will come back to you after trying.

3326ubb,
OK, I kind of relish custom algorithm development. Sometimes it is
simpler than it seems and sometimes my fellow MVPs say I'm crazy for
even suggesting or trying it

John

 

[3326ubb]

JulieS, John,
I was not successful to write a macro for levelling for particular
number of resources.
Finally I restricted my plan to one resource with 40 units.
The resource details like actual vendor resource name were populated in
Text1 field for generating report.

Levelling done but I was not getting any useful resource usage
information. So to get the same, the project table was exported to
excel with Text1 field information which contained resource names &
resource usage information was obtained from excel sheet.

Thanks for your help.