How do I set up budgets of hours?

[Nick S]

I'm trying to find out if project is the right tool for me. I need a tool to
budget my people (6 or so people) to a variety of projects. I am not
interested in tracking tasks within the project. I only need to allocate my
resources to multiple projects and schedule out the hours they should need to
dedicate to complete those projects over days, weeks or months. Again, I
would not plan on entering any tasks within the project. The project itself
is the task (basically, the project is research which could take 20 hours for
one project to 300 hours for another).

Each person may have 30 to 35 projects assigned to them at any point in time
and their list of active projects is continually rolling. I am looking to be
able to assign projects to people (no tasks within it....or very few), budget
the hours they will spend on the project on a particular day or within a
particular week, track actual hours, hours to complete, projections of going
over budget, reports on employees available capacity, etc.

Is project the right tool or is something else more appropriate?

 

[Nick S]

So you believe I'd be better off having a custom Access Database designed? I
know Excel would work, but without somme sophisticated macros, Excel would
lack any report functionality. You don't think there are any off-the-shelf
software packages designed just for this?....thanks for the assistance.

 

[Catfish Hunter]

I don't think Projects is you best choice. It sounds like Access would be
your best option. You could even put this in Excel.

 

[Catfish Hunter]

I'm sure there are some off the shelf programs that would work. I don't thimk
Projects would fill your needs. It sounds like you need a cost & time
tracking program in one package. Good Luck.