Error: The resource list is too long.

[Andrew Stokes]

I get the following error in project pro 2007 when attempting to change
project tasks with a large number of resources assigned:
---
"The resource list is too long.
A resource list that contains more than 256 characters cannot be edited or
deleted or used on the To line of a message.
Use the Resource Information dialog box to edit long resource names."
---
These tasks cannot be modified in any way because of this error.

If I count the number of characters for all the resource names assignedto
these problem tasks it does come to more than 256 characters. If I change
resource display names to short names (e.g. J Smith) to limit this string to
less than 256 chars and reopen the project I can change the task with no
error. Does this mean that there is a fundamental limitation to the length
of this string therefore limiting the number of resources able to be assigned
to tasks.

The project is an enterprise project in Project Server 2007 and the
resources have ordinary display names between 10 and 20 chars long.

I believe that this may be the cause of a problem that I posted on Friday
regarding some tasks not showing in the resource center in the Resource
Availability view.

 

[Andrew Stokes]

This problem seems to occur when many resources are loaded at 0%.

I wish to have some resources loaded at 0% as I don't want this assigned
task to modify the resource's availability and show as assigned work as it is
not planned for them to work on these tasks. I do however want these tasks
to appear in the ‘Add Lines’ for their timesheets. We often have cases when
engineers are pulled in to solve problems on tasks without prior planning and
I would like to be able to capture this work.
e.g. task 1 – resource 1[25%], resource 2[75%], resource 3[0%], resource
4[0%] etc.
All resources will see task 1 in timesheets but only resources 1 and 2 will
have their availability affected by task 1.
Maybe I’m using project server in an inappropriate way and causing it to
produce these errors.