Adding additional requirement infomation to enterprise generic resource assignments

[Greg]

Hi,

I have a question from one of my project managers that I cannot seem to
find an answer for.

We uses generic resources i.e. "VB Programmer" which are assigned to
the plan by the PM and then the Resource manage will later substitute a
real resource.

However, the PM may have additional requirements for the resource i.e
"Must be able to work on the client's site in London every Monday".

How can they impart this information to the resource manager so they
can select the correct person.

In the current process the PM's request resource using a paper form on
which thay can write these additional requirements. As you can imagine
they will not be too happy if the "new" Project Server based system
will not allow what they see as basic functionality.

All help will be appreciated

Greg

 

[Gary L. Chefetz [MVP]]

Greg:

The most popular method is to add notes to the tasks. It's always best to
address these needs prior to turning up the system.

 

[Greg]

Hi Gary,

Thanks for the quick response. Putting a note on a task may be OK if
the resource has only one task but if they have many tasks on the
project then which one does the PM put the note against. I suppose I
could dictate that it is the first task in the plan for that resource
and force the resource manager to look there. Howerver that means that
the reource manager will have to check every first task for every
generic resource on every plan just in case there are any additional
requirements. This seems very clumsy to me, and I am am sure it will to
my PM's and RM's!

Also from a data model point of view, the additional req's are an
attribute of the resource not the task, especially in the case I have
at the moment where the additional req' is that the resource should
have a working knowledge of German.

Please don't get me wrong I am not criticising your comments, and all
help is welcome, but it seems that what I really want to do i.e. add
some extra info to the resource, cannot be done. I am sure that I
cannot be the only one with this type of requirement and I find it
strange that it seems to be so difficult. Maybe it will be available in
2007?

Many thanks for your help.

Greg

 

[Gary L. Chefetz [MVP]]

Greg:

Actually, it sounds like you need to annotate for the resource at a project
level. You can add notes to resources, by the way, and there are skill set
capabilities in Project Server that you might tap into. Multi-value Resource
fields are a good way to catalog information like languages spoken. You can
use generic resource mapping to actual resources to provide a better
likelihood of skills matching. Perhaps you should be using the project's
SharePoint site for this information? It seems this might serve you best.
Again, it's difficult to make hard and fast recommendations in absence of
working knowledge of your system and, more importantly, your organization
and how it works.

I believe we've laid out a number of possibilities here; one of which should
work. Your largest challenge is getting your staff to look for and read this
type of information. Regardless of where you decide to put it, remembering
to check for this information is a matter of training and performance.

 

[Greg]

Gary,

Thanks again for your very fast response.

Information about the resource on a project level is exactly what I am
looking for. You mention that notes can be added to resources, is this
true for enterprise resources? When I try to add notes I get the
message saying that changes cannot be saved for the resource and will
be overwritten next time the project is opened. Am I missing something
here?

With respect to the skill sets, I have looked at these and multiple
value resource fields, but these exhibit the same type of problem, i.e
they cannot be set at a project level. I could add "German Speaking" as
a skill set outline field code, but I cannot (as far as I can see) let
the PM set this against a "VB Programmer" generic resource to indicate
his requirement. The only way I can see to do it using these codes
would be create a generic "VB Programmer" and a generic "VB Programmer
- German speaking". However, with the possible number of permutations
this would be impractical.

I have already come across this with the VB Programmer skill set. We
only have four skills listed for these guys

..NET 1.0
..NET 2.0
ASP
PLSQL

and the idea was to have the PM add a generic "VB Programmer" and then
select the specific skills required for the project. (At present they
tick boxes on the paper form). It would seem though that this cannot be
done without creating generic resources with all possible permutations
of these skills. (4 factorial + 3 factorial .... if school maths memory
serves me). Obviously this is not workable, hence the idea to let the
PM put additional notes against the resource request, and thats where
we came in.

Any ideas you have would be gratefully recieved.

Regards,

Greg

 

[Gary L. Chefetz [MVP]]

Greg:

In the first instance, you must check out the Resource for editing before
you add notes or edit any data about Enterprise Resources. Skills matching
in Project Server is an aid in resource selection, however it doesn't have
the proactive characteristics you'd like it to have.<g> I think either
task-level notes or a SharePoint list or a document that lists special
resource requirements is your best bet.

 

[Greg]

Hi Gary,

Thanks again for your speedy reply and continuing help on this. I am
thinking that the task note may be the only workable solution, I may
create a dummy "Information" task in each of the project templates
which the PMs can use for any additional req's.

Thanks again for your input.

Greg