Track nonworking time in different categories

[Andreas Pfander]

I have set up a number projects in Project Server.

One of the goals is to track how much time people actually spends on the
different tasks of the project. To make this reporting complete I would like
to also track the time that is spent on general tasks that are performed
outside a particular project. These may include "Administrative",
"Meetings", "Sustaining Engieering", etc.

I am aware, that resources can report non-working time (which I believe is
time not spent on the project), and that it is possible to transfer
non-working time from the Outlook calender into project to update the
project plan.

However, I am looking for a way so that people can enter their time spent on
these tasks in a timesheet view on a daily basis, so that I can later
analyze how much time was spent on each of these support functions.

Currently I have created a project with all the support tasks and have
assigned all resources to this project. I have entered an arbitrary duration
for the tasks. From what I can see this will mess up the availability of my
resources (they are now all assigned to this fictive project).

Is there any way to have people report time into certain categories while
not assigning them to these tasks and taking away from their availability?

Appreciate any help on this subject.

Thanks

Andreas

 

[Dale Howard]

Andreas --

What you are describing is what many refer to as an "administrative
project", which can be used to track non-project work (such as support, team
meetings, etc.) and non-deliverable project work (such as project meetings,
project management, project administration, etc.). You are definitely on
the right track in creating one to accomplish your stated purpose. In
addition, I believe you should consider doing the following:

1. Set each of the tasks in your administrative project to Fixed Duration
and non-Effort Driven
2. Assign your resources at 0% Units to each task

The second step will cause each resource to be assigned to 0 hours of Work
on each task, but when you publish these tasks, each task will appear on
each user's timesheets in PWA. Your team members can then enter their
actual hours for each task whenever work is actually performed.

I have personally used this technique and have recommended it to my clients,
and it works. Hope this helps.

 

[Andreas Pfander]

Thanks for the help

It seems like this will do exactly what I am looking for

Andreas

 

[Gary Chefetz [MVP]]

Andreas:

I'd recommend not setting the effort to 0 as Dale suggests as this will
cause the tasks to become complete with the first time entry. Instead,
assign the resources at the level of effort you would expect these tasks to
take, and continuously monitor the remaining work on the tasks so that there
continues to be some. If you have set your resource availability in the pool
to 100%, this will not screw up availability, it will actually correct it.

--
Gary Chefetz [MVP]
http://www.msprojectexperts.com

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