Leveling doesn't fill in remaining work hr for non-mgmt tasks

[Kendra]

Hi,

I am having trouble leveling resources, it's pushing the dates out too far.
Here is my scenario below.

Say John has 3 management type tasks:
Task A) 40% Subcontract Oversight task 10/1 - 10/15
Task B) 10% Subcontract Oversight task 10/1 - 10/30
Task C) 10% Subcontract Oversight task 10/1 - 12/30.

I adjust availability in the 'Resource Availability' box to reflect
available unit for John: i.e. 40 % available from10/1 - 10/15; 80% available
from10/16 - 10/30; 90% available from 10/31 - 12/30)

John also has 5 other tasks that falls w/in those time frame (10/1 - 12/30)
& I tried to put appropriate unit allocation - this is a little tricky b/c I
won't have a complete schedule where the start/finish dates will fall w/o
leveling, so I put estimated unit allocation for the remaining 5 tasks.

E.g)
Task 1: 8 hour work, 50% unit allocation
Task 2: 100 hour work, 90% unit allocation
Task 3: 40 hour work, 50 % unit allocation.
etc.

When I level, either it pushes the finish date far out, there is plenty of
free time where John is not working on any tasks - schedule doesn't fill in
those gaps.

It's driving me crazy. Has anyone out there have similar/same type of
problem?

As a temp solution, I may have to break apart some of the large tasks w/
work hours such as 100 & break it up into smaller chunks/tasks to fill in
those free gaps but there are too many of this kinds of tasks but there's got
to be another clever ways that someone else might have thought of.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

Please feel free to contact me at my email: (e-mail address removed) if you have
any leads on this.

Thanks for your time & hope you have a nice day!
Candra

 

[JulieS]

Hello Candra,

I think you are misinterpreting what the Resource Leveling command
does. It will **never** change assignment units nor "fill in"
assignments to fit gaps. The purpose of the Resource Leveling
command is to delay tasks to resolve overallocations -- where a
resources assignment units are greater than the max. units. If you
have John assigned at 40% assignment units and his max. is 100%,
then you may assign John to additional assignments at 60% assignment
units without overallocating him.

In your scenario below, John is assigned at 60% from Oct 1 - 15. By
setting his availability to 40% during that time immediately
overallocates him. The availability setting is not "remaining
availability" it the max. units. If you want to be able to assign
John to additional tasks above the 60% assignment unit he currently
has, you'll need to leave his max. units above 60%.


I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie
Project MVP

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for the FAQs and additional
information about Microsoft Project

 

[Kendra]

Hello Candra,

I think you are misinterpreting what the Resource Leveling command
does. It will **never** change assignment units nor "fill in"
assignments to fit gaps. The purpose of the Resource Leveling
command is to delay tasks to resolve overallocations -- where a
resources assignment units are greater than the max. units. If you
have John assigned at 40% assignment units and his max. is 100%,
then you may assign John to additional assignments at 60% assignment
units without overallocating him.

In your scenario below, John is assigned at 60% from Oct 1 - 15. By
setting his availability to 40% during that time immediately
overallocates him. The availability setting is not "remaining
availability" it the max. units. If you want to be able to assign
John to additional tasks above the 60% assignment unit he currently
has, you'll need to leave his max. units above 60%.


I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie
Project MVP

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for the FAQs and additional
information about Microsoft Project

Hi, I have a Followup Question:

How do you tell MSP to fill in the remaining 80 - 90% (depending on the
date) unit available time slot, so that the schedule can reflect Resource
(John) doing multi-tasking while performing 10 - 20% vendor mgmt task?

Thanks,
Candra

 

[JulieS]

Hi, I have a Followup Question:

How do you tell MSP to fill in the remaining 80 - 90% (depending
on the
date) unit available time slot, so that the schedule can reflect
Resource
(John) doing multi-tasking while performing 10 - 20% vendor mgmt
task?

Thanks,
Candra

Hi Candra,

You must explicitly assign John at 80% or 90% or whatever is
appropriate. As I explained, Project will not assign resources, nor
reallocate resource assignments, nor fill in gaps.

Julie

 

[Kendra]

Hi Candra,

You must explicitly assign John at 80% or 90% or whatever is
appropriate. As I explained, Project will not assign resources, nor
reallocate resource assignments, nor fill in gaps.

Julie


My problem is that the remaining unit allocation varies from day to day, so it's hard to pick the percentage for the remainder tasks. Having said that, I guess I could just keep adjusting the unit allocation until I get the most units utilized for each day, but it seems a bit crude to having to change the unit allocation for those non-management tasks that fall in those time frame, depending on the day, some days the resource is available ranging from 90% - 55% outside of those management task as the resource has 3 different mgmt tasks where the is overlap in the time frame.

Thanks,
Candra

 

[JulieS]

Thanks,
Candra

Hi Candra,

I understand your comments however, I wouldn't be so concerned about
making sure the resource is 100% utilized all the time. I imagine
there are other tasks the resource is doing that you will not be
documenting in MS Project. If John or Jane are like most folks I've
worked with -- they will adjust their schedule as needed to ensure
they get what they can get done when they can get it done. Unless
you can control every minute of every hour, I would just try to work
it as close to possible as you can get. I would try for a weekly
average -- knowing full well things will change from plan.

Julie