two resources do some support regularly

[Kay]

Hi
I wanted to enter two resources, A and B, to spend A=20% and B=30% per
day
on support issues.
So only 70% and 80% are free for real work
I entered a task
Other work
in MSP and then said:
Fixed work
and entered A and B with the percentages as resources.
But MSP does not do as I expected.
if I go in the resource usage, i see weird things.
A has 0.3d per day mentioned, but not every week.
Some weeks, Monday is empty.
B has one mention on Monday and then some weeks nothing.
What am I doing wrong?
How can I enter it?
Thanks
Kay

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

Are you sure leveling is NOT set to automatic this time?

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

 

[Dave]

Have you altered the length of the task? I like to enter these tasks on
a monthly basis (Support January etc) so that the activities are broken
up. Or did you add the first resource and then go back later and add
the second?

Surely, from the model you describe the support task is Fixed Units 20%
and 30% respectively (or fixed duration if you use the monthly approach
I refer to above).

What does the application say the level-of-effort is because if some
days don't have work on them, you haven't got 30% effort applied to the
overall task (unless others have too much work)? What happens if you
adjust the level-of-effort to read 20% and 30% (assuming that they don't
read that)?

The other tasks are likely to be fixed work.

Dave

 

[JulieS]

Hello Kay,

Pardon me for bumping in here, but I personally would question why
bother to enter the "Other" task at all. Project is not ideally
designed to capture everything a resource is doing during the working
day. If resources A & B are available only 70-80% of an average
working day, why not just assign them at a maximum of 70% to 80% to
the tasks in the project that you wish to manage and track.

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

Julie
Project MVP

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for the FAQs and additional information
about Microsoft Project

 

[Kay]

Are you sure leveling is NOT set to automatic this time?

--

Hi
it is the plan I mentioned before.
Kay

 

[Kay]

Hi

Have you altered the length of the task?  I like to enter these tasks on
a monthly basis (Support January etc) so that the activities are broken
up.  Or did you add the first resource and then go back later and add
the second?

altered in which sense?
I know that my guys spent roughly this amount of work on real work.
And I entered it once only.
I added both resources the same time

Surely, from the model you describe the support task is Fixed Units 20%
and 30% respectively (or fixed duration if you use the monthly approach
I refer to above).

I thought it is fixed work. 20% for A and 30% for B.
Units would be then I suppose 50%.

What does the application say the level-of-effort is because if some
days don't have work on them, you haven't got 30% effort applied to the
overall task (unless others have too much work)?  What happens if you
adjust the level-of-effort to read 20% and 30% (assuming that they don't
read that)?

I thought I did
it shows 66.2 days of work
and shows the resources as 20% and 30%

The other tasks are likely to be fixed work.

They are and I did it ths way and it works
Kay

 

[Kay]

Hi Julie

Hello Kay,

Pardon me for bumping in here, but I personally would question why
bother to enter the "Other" task at all.  Project is not ideally
designed to capture everything a resource is doing during the working
day. If resources A & B are available only 70-80% of an average

agreed
but we are so small I thought it would be useful
And I do not want to use an additonal tool and do manual work for
my resource management

working day, why not just assign them at a maximum of 70% to 80% to
the tasks in the project that you wish to manage and track.

I added them this way to the tasks

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

Not well

Kay

 

[Dave]

Where are you reading the figures of 20% and 30%? The figure on the
Gantt chart or Task Form do not represent the overall resource usage.
They represent the highest resource usage over the duration of the task.

In terms of changing the duration of the task, you could have dragged it
out or you could have updated it so that uncompleted work is moved
beyond a status date. The second of these options could certainly have
had the effect you describe.

The terms fixed work/fixed units/fixed duration refers to the way that
Project behaves when you change one of the variables duration/work/effort.

If you make a task fixed units and then change its duration, the amount
of work (in terms of hours) changes. Similarly, if you make a task
fixed work and change its duration then the units goes up. And so it goes.

Figures of 20% and 30% only correspond to a fixed quantity of work if
the task is of fixed duration. If the duration can vary then so does
the work.

In determining that there are 66.2 days of work on this task, how is the
duration of the task determined.

If this is the plan we were discussing before, I have you tried removing
levelling for this task - you may have to put the status date in the
past if some of these gaps are historical.

 

[JulieS]

Hello Kay,

My comments are in-line.

Hi Julie

agreed
but we are so small I thought it would be useful
And I do not want to use an additonal tool and do manual work for
my resource management

[Julie] I understand the desire to not use additional tools beyond
what you need. However, in my experience, the largest issue about
trying to keep track of who was doing what when is not setting it up,
it's getting accurate data from your employees when they are actually
working on the tasks. Can you get to the level of detail in tracking
that you are trying to plan in Project? Will your resources be able
to tell you that on Tuesday they worked 2 hours on task A, .50 hours
on task B, etc? If so, great. If not and if you don't intend to
track at that detailed of a level, why worry about that detailed of a
level in setting it up? Particularly if you are relatively new to
Project trying to capture each detail of each hour of each day will
leave you with very little free time to do anything except manage a
Project *file* -- with no time to manage the actual project.

I added them this way to the tasks

[Julie] I see your earlier posting "split of tasks" (I assume that is
you) and automatic leveling is on. I assume you have disabled that
option. Have you changed the calendar of either the resources or the
project calendar to have certain days as non-working? That may
certainly explain why when you look at the Task Usage view you are
seeing zero work on certain days.

Not well

[Julie] I'm sorry to hear that. Please don't misinterpret this, but
have you had any formal training in using MS Project? As I think all
of the regular posters here will attest, Project is not what I would
classify as an intuitive product. A great deal goes into the
scheduling of tasks and work in project including: calendars, working
time, nonworking time, resource calendars, task type, effort driven,
task calendars, constraints, etc etc etc. That is not to imply that
it can't be tamed, but the level of detail you seem to be wanting to
add just complicates more.

Kay

Best,
Julie