Administrative Project Recommendations

[Ivor Davies]

Just a general query to gauge a consensus on how to properly setup an
administrative time project in EPM.

My manager wishes to create a project that spans from April 1st 2006 to
March 31 2007 to track our department's administrative time such as vacation,
meetings, time out of the office, etc..

Is the proper convention using the administrative time template to setup the
project as follows:

1) Start Date = April 1st 2006
2) End Date = March 31st 2007
3) Task Type = Fixed Duration
4) Not Effort Driven
5) Constraint Type = Finish no earlier than March 31st 2007
6) Duration = 248 Days

When assigning resources to this task should the UNITs be 100%?

Should the Earned Value Method be Physical % Complete OR % Complete?

How have others setup these projects?

I want to ensure that my manager can ACURATELY REPORT on the ACUTAL WORK for
each resource in our department.

Any assistance or response would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You.

Ivor

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Ivor --

Our company does not recommend using an Administrative project to track
nonworking time, such as vacation and sick leave, because doing so will not
automatically reschedule project work around the nonworking times. To force
the system to automatically reschedule work around nonworking time, you must
enter each instance of vacation or sick leave on the resource's individual
calendar in the Enterprise Resource Pool. Our company DOES recommend using
an Administrative project to capture unplanned work, however, but we don't
recommend it for nonworking time.

If you don't want the automatic rescheduling of work around nonworking time,
then you can use an Administrative project for that purpose. You will need
to create the new project using the Administrative Time template that ships
with Project Server. After you create the new project, do the following:

1. Click Project - Project Information and enter the Start date of the
project.
2. Add/delete/edit the task list, as needed
3. Use the Build Team from Enterprise dialog to add resources to the
project
4. Click View - Enterprise Gantt Chart
5. Set the Duration of each task to the approximate Duration of the project
6. Select all of the tasks then display the Assign Resources dialog
7. In the dialog, select all of the resources and click the Assign button

The system will assign each resource at 100% Units with 0 hours of Work,
which will cause the split task indicator (...) across the Duration of each
task. This indicates you have created an "empty bucket" into which each
resource can enter their planned nonworking time.

8. Save the project
9. Publish the project using Collaborate - Publish - All Information

The Earned Value Method setting is meaningless because you will not baseline
this project. Just some thoughts and ideas. Hope this helps.

 

[Reid McTaggart]

Here is an excerpt from Help in Microsoft Project Pro:

"When you create an administrative project, don't change the settings on
nonworking time categories, such as duration, task type, constraint, linking,
start date, and so on. The task settings for administrative projects have
already been set up correctly to allow efficient tracking of nonworking time."

I think it is important to follow this guidance to the letter, especially
when using managed time periods. Setting a duration on an Admin task can
cause huge problems later. For instance, if a new resource is added after
other resources have reported time against an improperly defined task, when
the new resource reports time on the task the Actual Work Protected in the
project schedule sometimes gets corrupted and piles on huge amounts of false
AWP in the past for the new resource.

I have billed a LOT of hours cleaning up messes caused by Admin projects
that were not used according to the instructions. I also often have to
replace Administrative templates that were not set up correctly.

--
Reid McTaggart
EPM Architect
Microsoft

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Reid --

Thanks for your recommendations.

Here is an excerpt from Help in Microsoft Project Pro:

"When you create an administrative project, don't change the settings on
nonworking time categories, such as duration, task type, constraint,
linking,
start date, and so on. The task settings for administrative projects have
already been set up correctly to allow efficient tracking of nonworking
time."

I think it is important to follow this guidance to the letter, especially
when using managed time periods. Setting a duration on an Admin task can
cause huge problems later. For instance, if a new resource is added after
other resources have reported time against an improperly defined task,
when
the new resource reports time on the task the Actual Work Protected in the
project schedule sometimes gets corrupted and piles on huge amounts of
false
AWP in the past for the new resource.

I have billed a LOT of hours cleaning up messes caused by Admin projects
that were not used according to the instructions. I also often have to
replace Administrative templates that were not set up correctly.

 

[William Busby]

I can attest to the below admonition about the potential for inflation with
incorrectly set up admin projects. In our first year of operation (2005) we
were unaware of these challenges and we experienced inflation to AWP as much
as 1000%. It took weeks to clean up our data and we likely only managed to
approximate reality. We decided to forgo the use of administrative projects
entirely. The ability to publish them has been disabled (thankfully that
option was available to use).

 

[Reid McTaggart]

It is possible to repair this problem and have precisely correct data in the
project. I just did one on Friday morning. The solution involves carefully
organizing and copying blocks of data from PWA into the Task Usage view of
Project Pro.

Administrative projects are useful, but they do have a significant cost in
terms of required discipline, as well as needing expert system administrators
available to spot and fix problems before they fester. Administrative
projects should be used only when their benefits are truly important to the
organization.

The classic case for their use is when all time must be accounted for, and
accurate planning is essential, and admin tasks must always be available on
users' Current Tasks view.
--
Reid McTaggart
EPM Architect
Microsoft

 

[Ivor Davies]

I wish to thank you all for your contributions and feedback - that's why I
love these forums!

It would appear that administrative projects are more trouble that they are
worth.

I will study your recommendations and apply them wherever possible.

Does anyone know if Microsoft has "fixed" administrative projects in 2007? I
surely hope so.

Thanks again for your feedback - it is greatly appreciated!

Ivor