Generic Assignments & Actual Work

[mho]

Hello,

I am trying to zero out and delete a generic assignment from a fixed work
task in MSP 2003. When I zero it out, I get the Out of Sync with Actuals
message. When I proceed to delete the generic resource, MSP says the generic
has actuals
associated with it. We do use the PWA tool.

Thank you in advance,
mho

 

[J Burford Fields]

I'll tell you what I do, and maybe somebody else can point out why any
of this isn't a good idea.

I look at those resources in Resource view of MS Project Professional.
Double click on each task to which they are assigned, then set the
units% to zero, and sometimes the units if remaining work doesn't zero
out on each task.

Then I open the resource in the Global Resource Pool, set it's availble
units to 0% and availability to end (yesterday or last month), remove
any linked Windows account or e-mail addresses, then check the inactive
check box before clicking Okay.

I don't actually delete any resource once actual time has been charged
to it, but this prevents them from being used in future considerations,
I think.

J

 

[mho]

Thank you! This will work well when I do not want a resource to charge to a
task any longer.

Have you ever seen the case where MSP tells you that actual labor exists for
a generic resource and not an actual person? For instance, after a task has
started, I want to zero out and delete an assignment titled "SW Engineer"
from a task. MSP then proceeds to tell me that this generic resource has
actuals. How in the world could this be?

 

[RenèJ]

We experience 2 major issues with "managed periods"
1) Out of sync messages for tasks with Generic Resources assigned when the
task is marked as complete.
2) We assign a resource to a milestone to indicate who is accountable for
sign-off. In PWA the resource cannot mark the milestone as complete. And in
MSP the PM cannot mark it as complete without getting the "Out of sync"
message.

Anyone with ideas?

I will double-check on the zero unit assignment as all our Generic Resources
are marked with zero availability.

Thanks!

 

[Mike]

Renè

1) If you progress a task with a generic resource assigned you create
actuals which clearly conflicts with timesheet entered data. So the
question is how to resolve this. Clearly the work has been done by
someone who presumably has filled in a timesheet against a specific
task (perhaps the wrong task). So creating actuals against a generic
would in fact be double counting and essentially wrong. The only option
open to you is to zero out the generic work against the task you want
to progress so that actuals are not created. A comparable situation
occurs when a resource is assigned to more than one task (e.g Project
Mgt and Develop PID) and only fills in time against the main activity
(Project Mgt task) because he chooses not to track his time to the
lower level detail (PM's - do as I say not as I do!). The PID clearly
gets developed but managed periods prevent you from progressing the
task - Need to adopt same approach.

2)Managed periods limit this technique. What the assignment owner can
do with resourced milestones is add a note on the timesheet against the
assignment which will subsequently appear in the PM update page. The
PM can manually update the milestone and remove the assignment which
will prevent actuals synchronisation from removing the progress.

regards

Mike

 

[RenèJ]

Mike

Thanks for your feedback. I am not 100% sure that this will resolve our
specific issue with regards to the generic resource. I will build a "test
case" and simulate the various scenarios in which resources are assigned as
well as capture progress on PWA.

With regards to the milestone - very good suggestion on the Note. The
challenge is that the Milestone task does not appear on a Task Page if no
Work was assigned. We assign 0.1h, but does not want to capture actual 0.1
hours. With the note idea and setting Remaining Work to zero, we could get
around. Will check this out as well.

Will give a report back soon.
Renè

 

[Mike]

Renè

You can assign a resource to a milestone (duration =0), but you cannot
assign work. This allows you to publish the milestone task so that it
appears in a timesheet, allowing you to update with note.

regards

Mike

 

[RenèJ]

Mike

Thanks! The milestone with Note suggestion works very well.

Just for interest - had another strange encounter with Sync Actuals when
"converting" a fully updated schedule to a template. Even when saved as a
template, it does not like replacing named resources with generic resources.
But, I got a workaround - close the file, create a new schedule based on the
template and then make all the changes.

All the best!