Calendars for multi-resource tasks

[Peter Rooney]

Good morning everyone - welcome to another week at work (groan!)
In my plan, I have 19 resources, each with their own calendar containing
annual leave and other planned non-working days such as Bank Holidays etc.
I've also created a very useful macro with goes through each task in the
plan and, based on what it finds in the resource names field, allocated the
appropriate resource's calendar to the task.
However, what happens if a task is allocated 50% to Resourec A and 50% to
resource B? I can't have one calendar as each resource will have different
holidays, and I don't want to have to create multiple permutations of
calendars for different combinations of my 19 resources.

Before I'm tarred and feathered in thsi forum, I would agree that just
because one resource may be on leave that the other one could carry on
working on it, so it shouldn't stop altogether but what I'm particularly
interested in is the production of information based on the Resource Usage
view, to ensure that work for each individual is not scheduled to take place
when they're not available due to holidays etc.

Would the best way forward be to create seperate tasks representing each
resource's 50% share of each shared task, and with the appropriate calendar
allocated to them?

Thanks in advance, and no, I won't be offednded when the MVPs come in to
tell me why this is a stupid question... if anything, I'd like somebody to
tell me why I shouldn't be doing what I'm trying to do, in short,
easily-explainable-to-management sentences!

Cheers

Pete "Long Question" Rooney

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hoi Peter,

I fail to see why you assign the resource calendars to the task calendar.
The task will be scheduled accoording to tkhe resource calendar(s) by all
means.
HTH

 

[Peter Rooney]

Jan,

Sorry, I don't think I was explaining myself too clearly.
I've created resource calendars for each of my 19 team members, then gone
through the plan, allocating the appropriate calendar to each task i.e. Bob's
calendar is allocated to all of Bob's tasks etc.

My problem is, how do I make sure that the length of a task takes account of
non-working days from more than one resource calendar, if that task is
allocated to more than one resource?

My keyboard must be suffering from Monday-itis too, as well as my brain!

Pete

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Peter,

For once I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you.
When 2 resources are on a task, and both have (different) nonworking times,
Project will schedule both resources' work independently.
For instance, ther eis a 2 day meeting, tomorrow and Wednesday, Peter, Paul
and Mary coming.
Paul has a day off tomorrow
Mary has a day off Wednesday

Then tomorrow Peter and Mary will meet
Wednesday Peter and Paul will meet
Thursday Paul and Mary will meet.

The makers of MS Project never thought people could actually work together
)
There are 2 workarounds:

- One Resource Calendar and a task calendar indeed are scheduled for
simultaneous working time
(Is that what you are doing?) but there is only one task calendar per task
possible

- There is a (lengthy) workaround through Resource leveling which is
described on my website ("Article on MS Project'")

HTH

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

Adding to Jan's comments - when you have Task X and assign Bob as the
resource doing it, Bob's calendar is *automatically* used to schedule the
task. You *do not* need to manually assign the resource calendar as the
task calendar or use a VBA routine, it happens all by itself anyway. I
think of task calendars as exception calendars generally used when the task
schedule needs to be something OTHER than either the Project Calendar (for
tasks without resources) or the Resource Calendars (for tasks with them).
Tasks normally follow their resource's schedules. Task calendars allow us
to override that, schedule the tasks themsleves and then have the resources
follow the task's schedule. The example I use in my classes is filming a
movie. Our project calendar and the resource calendars are all day shift
which works well for most scenes. But Scene 3 is an exterior
night-for-night shot and we need to schedule its shoot during darkness. We
set up a calendar reflecting hours of work from 8pm to 4am and make it the
task calendar for the particular shot, clicking on the "task calendar
overrides resource calendars" switch for the affected tasks.

When you have multiple resources on a task, each resource's work is
scheduled independently according to that resource's individual calendar, as
Jan said, and I'll refer you back to his comments for possible workarounds
for you..

 

[Peter Rooney]

Steve,

So the fact that if, in the Indicators field no calendar allocation is
showing, the calendar for that resource is still applied to the task?
I'm sure that some of my tasks had a specific end date which changed when I
allocated a resource calendar against them via a VBA snippet, pushing the end
date out to take acocount of non working time for the resource?
I hate arguing with MVPs in case they don't speak to me again, but I've just
tried this again, just to be sure...

I created a new task with a duration of 10 days starting on the 7th of Feb.
This gave it an and date of Friday the 18th of February. I then added the
name "Laura Jones" to the Resource Names field.

I then set 09, 10 and 11 Feb in Laura's calendar to Non Working, but the end
date stayed the same.

I then allocated Laura's calendar to the task and only then did the end date
become Wednesday the 23rd.

If you unallocate the calendar from the task, any subsequent changes to
Laura's calendar are again still not reflected in the end date, until you
re-allocate Laura's calendar to the task again.

I'm using Project 2000, by the way.

As I have a macro that goes through the plan ald allocates calendare to
tasks automatically, based on what it finds in the resource names field, I
don't have a problem, but, at least on my PC, allocating a resource and
changing their calendar doesn't affect end dates unless the celendar is
attached and showing in the Indicators field.

I await your wrath, Obi-Wan!

Pete

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Peter,
This is NOT normal behaviour.
When you assign lmaura to the task it will lengthen the durataion UNLESS
unless you have put a task calendar in (f.i. the standard calendar) with the
option "scheduling ignores resource calendars"
If you have NO task calendar at all, the task WILL be scheduled alog Laura's
calendar.
HTH

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

Yep, the resource's calendar governs the task as soon as the resource is
assigned to it. Trying your experiment, as soon as I mark the 9th, 10th,
and 11th as non-working days in Laura's calendar, the end date jumps out to
the 23rd.

I'm trying to figure out what is going on with yours and cannot replicate
the behavior you are getting. Are you certain the Laura is really and truly
assigned to the task as a resource and not just her name entered into a text
field or something like that? Does the entry of the Resource column of the
task entry sheet match exactly character for character the resource's full
entry in the Name column of the resource sheet? I ask because a very
common occurance is when the setting in the Tools, Options menu, General
tab, that says "Automatically add new tasks and resources" is turned on, I
have "Laura Jones" as a defined resource with the initials "LJ" and I try to
assign Laura to a task by typing "LJ" in the Resource Name column of the
Gantt chart table or one of the other places you can assign resources, it
doesn't assign her at all but instead creates a whole new superfluous
resource named "LJ." Same thing happens if you make a typo and try to
assign "Laura Jones" but instead type "Lara Jones" or something like that.
If that's what's happened, when you changed Laura's resource calendar you
didn't really change the calendar of the resource actually assigned to the
task at all, because that resource isn't Laura but an imposter. Without
more information I can't say for sure if that is what's happened but if I
were trouble shooting your plan, bogus resources are the first thing I'd
look for. One thing's for certain, the behavior you're describing is
absolutely not the way Project normally functions.

--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

 

[Peter Rooney]

Steve,

I feel almost guilty taking your time up like this, although I suspect I've
got you interested, if nothing else!

I tried it again, just to be sure.

I created a new task starting Monday 07/02/05 with a duration of 10 days
This gave an end date of Wed 23/02/05 - this was because the Standard
Calendar had Tue 08/02/05 to Thu 10/02/05 set as non working time.

I then typed "Laura Jones" into the Resource Names field, and the end date
changed to Fri 18/02/05, because Laura's calendar shows default hours right
through February.

So, I don't know what happened yesterday, but you're right about the way in
which Project works - HOWEVER - this brings me to another question - how does
Project know that just because I type in "Laura Jones" in Resource Names"
that the calendar I want to use is "01d-Laura Jones" - I thought that this
was the whole point of creating calendars and assigning them to tasks.

Now I'm even MORE confused!

Yours time takingupingly

Pete

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Pete,

It doesn't - you have to tell it. If you assign Laura Jones to a task, then
project will use the Laura Jones calendar to schedule her work. However, if
you want to assign a particular task that has Laura Jones assigned, to a
different calendar ie O1d-Laura Jones, then the latter will prevail if you
select Scheduling ignores resource calendars. But task calendars should be
a rare event for special circumstances, as Project will schedule
automatically based on the resources' calendars you have defined.

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: <http://www.mvps.org/project/>

Hope this helps )

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP





this brings me to another

 

[Peter Rooney]

Mike,

Doh! I've suddenly realised what's going on here. I just remembered the
resource calendars that were displayed in the "Change Working Time" list,
before I created my own set called <<Prefix>> + <<Resource Name>>

THEY'RE the calendars that get automatically assigned when I add the
resource name to the task, NOT the ones that I subsequently created.

I feel very VERY foolish.
However, I've learned something today, so thank you.

Regards

Pete

 

[Peter Rooney]

Steve,
I've just apologised to Mike Glen for wasting his time, and now I have to
apologise to you!

I've suddenly realised what's going on here. I just remembered the default
resource calendars that were displayed in the "Change Working Time" list,
before I created my own set called <<Prefix>> + <<Resource Name>>

THEY'RE the calendars that get automatically assigned when I add the
resource name to the task, NOT the ones that I subsequently created.

I feel very VERY foolish.
However, I've learned something today, so thank you.

Regards

Pete

 

[Peter Rooney]

Jan,
I've just apologised to Mike Glen and Steve House for wasting his time, and
now I have to apologise to you!

I've suddenly realised what's going on here. I just remembered the default
resource calendars that were displayed in the "Change Working Time" list,
before I created my own set called <<Prefix>> + <<Resource Name>>

THEY'RE the calendars that get automatically assigned when I add the
resource name to the task, NOT the ones that I subsequently created.

I feel very VERY foolish.
However, I've learned something today, so thank you.

Regards

Pete

 

[Mike Glen]

No problem, Pete. We love to hear feedback on the outcome of problems as
this may then help other to not follow the pitfall! Glad you've got it
fixed now. Good luck


Mike Glen
Project MVP

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

Hiya Peter:

No apology necessary! Saw your notes to Mike and Jan and rest assured it
was definitely not a waste of time for any of us. The whole topic of
calendars is one of those areas where Project is deceptively simple and it
can be somewhat counter-intuitive in the details..

A helpful hint or two. Your confusion is all wrapped up around what "base
calendars" are and how they relate to resource calendars. When you go to
"change working time" and create a new calendar by either starting from
scratch or copying an existing one, you are creating a base calendar. In a
simple case, perhaps your resources work either one of 2 shifts, day or
swing, Mon-Fri. You can create two base calendars in Change Working Time,
one called Day Shift, showing hours of work Mon-Fri 0800-1200 & 1300-1700
(don't forget to take into account lunches, otherwise you'll have a
cumulative error of over half a day per resource per week that will throw
your work values and thus costs way off) and the other called Swing Shift
that shows hours of work Mon-Fri, 1500-1900 & 2000-0000. Now you switch to
the resource sheet and create your list of resources. As soon as you enter
their names, Project automatically creates a resource calendar in the same
name by copying a base calendar. How does it know which base calendar to
copy? From your entry in the "base calendar" column of the resource sheet.
(Hence the name "base calendar," the resource calendar's are *based* on
them.) So if Laura works day shift, her base calendar is specifed as the
Day Shift calendar while Joe on swing gets the Swing Shift calendar as his
base. If you now go look in the Change Working Time menu you'll find
calendars for all the resource names listed in addition to the base
calendars, having appeared all on their own.

You can edit an individual resource calendars either by opening the resource
name from the Change Working Time menu or by displaying the resource
information in the resource sheet and going to the working time tab. Mary
is taking next week off - you open her resource calendar in whatever way is
most convenient and mark next week non-working. Fred works full-time day
shift but he works a 4-day, 10-hour schedule for his 40 hours. Open his
resource calendar, mark Fridays non-working and change the hours of work to
be 0700-1200, 1300-1800. We have a general schedule change and our regular
5 day work week day shift is now 7 - 4 instead of 8-5. Open the *base*
calendar for day shift, edit it to show hours of work 0700-1130 and
1230-1600 and *all* the resource calendars for day shift workers will pick
up the changes *unless* an individual's hours have already been overridden
for his calendar by a subsequent customizing edit (thus Laura and Mary's
regular hours change but Fred's hours don't).

An interesting aside I've found. If you're editing a base calendar, select
a day, and click the "Use Default" radio button and you get the hard coded
standard calendar hours of 0800-1200 and 1300-1700 - that's hard coded and
can't be changed. BUT if you click a day while editing a resource calendar
and hit the Use Default radio button, you'll get whatever hours of work the
resource's BASE calendar specifys for that day.

HTH
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs