Future assignments planned ahead

[Gil]

Hi All,

I will appreciate any thoughts on the following question:

I am building my plan for a project that will start next week and last
a few months. I have 5 resources.
Let's say any resource can do any task.
Should I:

1) Assign in advance ALL the tasks to my resources just to have a
complete schedule and then when executing the project to switch
resources as needed? I am afraid that in this way I will not know how
to divide the work evenly, and maybe leave some resource under-
allocated, but at least I will have an idea of when my project will
end.

--OR--

2) Assign resources only for the next couple of weeks and according to
the way the project progress to assign the rest of the tasks? In this
way I can assign the rest of the assignments to a generic resource (or
maybe the team leader which is one of my resources) but either way
resource leveling will not work: With generic resource, Project will
schedule the task to start immediately although there is no human
resource available, and with team leader assigned, resource leveling
will result a finish date far late from reality (future work will be
assigned to only team leader and not to all 5 resources...).

We are using Project server 2007, so features like Team assignment
(though we can't use it because team are rapidly changing in our
organization) or Reassign work are available for us. will it help..?

I hope I explained myself well enough.
Thanks,
Gil

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

Beyond the date up to which you have assigned your real resources you shoudl
indeed assign a generic resource but you have to give it a Max Units of as
many resources as it contains. That way leveling works.
HTH

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
+32 495 300 620
For availability check:
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/Calendar.pdf

 

[Gil]

Hi,

Beyond the date up to which you have assigned your real resources you shoudl
indeed assign a generic resource but you have to give it a Max Units of as
many resources as it contains. That way leveling works.
HTH

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
+32 495 300 620










- Show quoted text -

Jan, Thanks a lot for answering!

After I assign a generic resource (with max units of let's say 500%
instead of 5 resources) to all the tasks left in the schedule,
leveling will indeed work, and will change the duration of the tasks
to present 5 resources, but (with no other limitations or dependencies
to those tasks) will schedule them to the beginning of the project (as
soon as possible), resulting wrong project duration data. I need to
"tell" Project that these tasks will start only after the rest of the
tasks (those with real resources assigned) finishes, because only then
I will replace the generic resource with real resources. What is the
best way to "explain" that to Project?
Gil

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

That's a tough one, Project can't solve that natively.
I see two solutions

- You could have a maco written that saves the resource names field while
replaceing the named resources by the generic one, levels, fixes the result
then resets the resoure names field. heavy bout can be done.

- Simpler and hopefully feasible: put the true resoruces into place up to a
certain known date, the put the availability of the generic resource to zero
upo to that date.

Hope this helps,

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
+32 495 300 620
For availability check:
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/Calendar.pdf

Hi,

Beyond the date up to which you have assigned your real resources you
shoudl
indeed assign a generic resource but you have to give it a Max Units of as
many resources as it contains. That way leveling works.
HTH

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
+32 495 300 620
For availability check:http://users.online.be/prom-ade/Calendar.pdf"Gil"










- Show quoted text -

Jan, Thanks a lot for answering!

After I assign a generic resource (with max units of let's say 500%
instead of 5 resources) to all the tasks left in the schedule,
leveling will indeed work, and will change the duration of the tasks
to present 5 resources, but (with no other limitations or dependencies
to those tasks) will schedule them to the beginning of the project (as
soon as possible), resulting wrong project duration data. I need to
"tell" Project that these tasks will start only after the rest of the
tasks (those with real resources assigned) finishes, because only then
I will replace the generic resource with real resources. What is the
best way to "explain" that to Project?
Gil

 

[Gil]

Hi,

That's a tough one, Project can't solve that natively.
I see two solutions

- You could have a maco written that saves the resource names field while
replaceing the named resources by the generic one, levels, fixes the result
then resets the resoure names field. heavy bout can be done.

- Simpler and hopefully feasible: put the true resoruces into place up toa
certain known date, the put the availability of the generic resource to zero
upo to that date.

Hope this helps,

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
+32 495 300 620






Jan, Thanks a lot for answering!

After I assign a generic resource (with max units of let's say 500%
instead of 5 resources) to all the tasks left in the schedule,
leveling will indeed work, and will change the duration of the tasks
to present 5 resources, but (with no other limitations or dependencies
to those tasks) will schedule them to the beginning of the project (as
soon as possible), resulting wrong project duration data. I need to
"tell" Project that these tasks will start only after the rest of the
tasks (those with real resources assigned) finishes, because only then
I will replace the generic resource with real resources. What is the
best way to "explain" that to Project?
Gil- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

It sounds like it might work (the second option...). Thanks!
Gil