Where to place resources in the RBS who work on multiple projects?

P

pajamasam

i'm in the process of creating my first RBS. my question is this:
at what level would resources who work on multiple projects appear? (these
resources are lables as SUPPORT below)
here's what i have to work with:

1. Company
1.1. Project Admins
1.1.1. SUPPORT
1.1.1.1. PROJECT 1
1.1.1.1.1. Code
1.1.1.1.2. Art
1.1.1.1.3. Design
1.1.1.1.4. Motion
1.1.1.1.5. Production
1.1.1.1.6. Audio
1.1.1.1.7. Marketing
1.1.1.2. PROJECT 2
1.1.1.2.1. Code
1.1.1.2.2. Art
1.1.1.2.3. Design
1.1.1.2.4. Motion
1.1.1.2.5. Production
1.1.1.2.6. Audio
1.1.1.2.7. Marketing
1.1.1.3. PROJECT 3
1.1.1.3.1. Code
1.1.1.3.2. Art
1.1.1.3.3. Design
1.1.1.3.4. Motion
1.1.1.3.5. Production
1.1.1.3.6. Audio
1.1.1.3.7. Marketing

is there a better way of structuring my RBS? i'll greatly appreciate
anyone's help.
 
D

Dale Howard [MVP]

pajamasam --

You are not creating your RBS field correctly. The values in the field
should show the reporting structure of your company and is used to show
Project Server "who reports to whom" within the organization. For example,
consider the following partial RBS outline code:

Corporate
IT
Software Development
SoftDev Team
DBA
DBA Team
Network Operations
NetOps Team

The above scenario shows that people at the team level report to people at
the level above them, who report to the people at the IT level, who report
to those at the Corporate level. Once you have created your RBS outline
code, this will show Project Server the reporting structure of your company.
You must then assign the appropriate RBS value for every resource in the
Enterprise Resource Pool, which will show Project Server "who reports to
whom" in your company. Hope this helps.
 
P

pajamasam

Hi Dale,

I was hoping you would reply to my question. Thanks for clarifying the
proper use of the RBS field. I must admit, the only reason I started creating
an RBS was to enable me to filter the Enterprise Resource Pool, based on
who's working on what project. I'll restructure my outline to properly define
the resource hierarchy.

As you know, the Enterprise Resource Pool can become a bit unwieldy as you
continue to populate it with new resources/projects. My next question would
be this. What do you do in the case where you have resources (on the team
level) reporting to two different Project Managers? I don't want to lump all
of the SoftDev Team under the root node of Software Development. I'd like to
differentiate these resources on the "project" level. Okay...I'll stop now
and eagerly await a reply.

Thanks,
Smitty
 
D

Dale Howard [MVP]

Smitty --

Now I'm confused. When you say "filter the Enterprise Resource Pool", where
do you want to filter the resources? In the Open Enterprise Resources
dialog so that you can check out resources for editing? In the Build Team
from Enterprise dialog so that you can add resources to the project team?
Please tell more about why you want to do this and where so that I can
better answer your question. Thanks!

By the way, a quick way to see the projects to which a resource is assigned
is to do the following:

1. Open a blank project
2. Add all resources in the pool to the project team
3. Save the project in the Project Server database
4. Click View - Resource Usage
 
P

pajamasam

Dale,

Sorry for the confusion. I'll try to clarify best I can. I'd like to be able
to filter the Enterprise Resource Pool via the Open Enterprise Resource Pool
command, so that I can check out resources for editing. Actually, this was a
request from my manager. He hates having to sift through the Entire Resource
Pool to edit certain resources, so he asked me if filtering was possible. I
noticed there's a Filter button and began working on ways to make this
possible, thus bringing me to today's Project road block.

Again, this is the only reason I'm creating an RBS in the first place. We've
done without in the past, but it's nice to learn new features. Is their an
easier way to filter resources? I appreciate you taking the time to assist.

-Smitty
 
D

Dale Howard [MVP]

Smitty --

You can use any custom enterprise Resource outline code for this purpose.
It just depends on whether you want an easy solution or a very "labor
intensive" solution. The easy solution is to use one of the enterprise
Resource outline code fields and to define resource attributes or
descriptions that would help you to select the desired resources in the Open
Enterprise Resource Pool dialog. However you define these attributes would
be up to you, but it could be by team, department, skill, location, or
whatever attribute you choose. Once you have set up the outline code of
resource attributes in this field, you would then need to assign a one or
more values from this field to each resource in the Enterprise Resource
Pool.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you use enterprise Resource Outline Codes 20-29, these
are multi-value (MV) fields, so you can select multiple values for each
resource. When you apply the Open Enterprise Resource Pool dialog, you can
select the new custom field in the Filter section and set your filter as you
wish to show only the resources you desire.

The labor intensive solution would be to set the outline code values with
the name of every project in the database. You would need to use one of the
MV fields for this purpose, and you would have to constantly update the list
of values to include every new project saved in the database, and then
update every resource in the Enterprise Resource Pool to include the new
projects they are working on. How much work you are willing to do is
entirely up to you. Hope this helps.
 
P

pajamasam

For Dale:

Dale, I never replied to you after your last post. The advice you gave
worked perfectly and I was able to accomplish what was needed. I posted the
same question earlier and got a response that I should create an RBS instead
of using Ent. Res. Out. Codes. That had me going in the wrong direction,
thanks for steering me back on track.

-Smitty
 
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