yet another query relating to calendars

[Markarina]

using Microsoft project 2007 is there any way to see if an individual
resources working hours has been changed from standard for example, if
I change a resources working hours from being 8:00 till 12:00 and
13:00 till 17:00 to being 8:00 till 12;00 there is no obvious way to
see that this has been done from looking at the resource sheet.

it also seems to be another idiosyncrasy of Microsoft project that
although it recognizes that if the resource can only work half a day
that a one day of work task will take two days to complete however if
a resource is available to work 16 hours a day (yes I know it's not
legal) it does not recognize the fact that a 16 hour work task can be
completed within one day without the resource been shown as over
allocated

 

[Jonathan Sofer]

As in 2003, 2007 does not have an easy way to see resource calendar
exceptions which is why I don't suggest putting exceptions into the resource
calendars. However, 2007 does have a new feature called Task Drivers and
can be enabled under Project>Task Drivers. I seem to recall that sometimes
this feature will stipulate a task driver being a resources non working time
but I am not 100%.

Other options would be to use admin schedules to show resources non project
time and allowing the PM to see the over-allocation and deal with it
manually rather than having the tool push the schedule around on them. I
find PMs can get frustrated and tend to feel a loss of control of their
schedules when they can't see exactly what is causing their tasks to shift.

2007 MSPS has the ability to define administration line items as "Non Work".
A resource can go and schedule their hours against this line item in "My
Timesheets" and this will not only block the working time for that resource
on project schedules the next time they are opened but I believe it also
shows the non working hours the resource has reported in the task or
resource usage views in the schedule.

Jonathan