List of resources in stock

[Gutek]

Hello,
Two weeks ago I started playing with MS Project and I have a really
positive impression. I've been thinking about a problem, I hope someone
can help me with:

Is there a way to create a list of resources in stock? What the resource
sheet offers is only a list of resources, without their available
quantities. I would like to have a list telling me how many items of a
particular resource I have and if my demand for them is higher than the
actual supply, I am alarmed, so that I could insert into the schedule a
task corresponding to resource ordering.

Is is possible to automatically insert such tasks? For instance, I am a
movie producer and the projects checks that I have fewer film reels than
required, so it inserts a task: "Ordering reels" (2 days).

Regards,
Gutek

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

Sorry, and I admit it's a shame, but Project can NOT keep count of stock
data; for material resourcezs you can only have usage (consumption) data.
Sorry, sorry.

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
+32 495 300 620
For availability check:
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/Calendar.pdf
"Gutek" <no_gutkowski_spam@vp.
pl> wrote in message news:[email protected]...

 

[Gutek]

Jan De Messemaeker napisa³(a):

Hi,

Sorry, and I admit it's a shame, but Project can NOT keep count of stock
data; for material resourcezs you can only have usage (consumption) data.
Sorry, sorry.

Isn't there really a way to work this out? Such a feature would be so
useful, that there must be someone who has created a plugin or a macro
to do this. Is there a source of free extensions to Project, that I
could browse through? If Project supported this, it would be perfect for
my tasks.

Regards,
Gutek

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Like you, I think that it's a shame Proejct doesn't do that - but read
Trevor's post, he represents a large number of users who think it is not
necessary.
It's a free world.
The problem is that Project lacks the objects to keep or store the stock
in - I did try to make something workable through VBA but to no avail.
And i have been talking of this featuree to Microsoft for years now.
So once again, sorry.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Trevor,

I could return your argument saying that Project is about Project
Management, not Human resources management, so you should not have Work
resources either.
Making sure a project has the necessary materials available when you need
them IS part of project management. For instance PMI has a chapter on
purchasing.
Greetings,

 

[Gutek]

Hello,
Thank you for reply.
I still do hope it wouldn't be so difficult to customize Project, so
that it could have an inventory tool, at least at some basic level. For
instance, in the resource sheet we can add a numerical column to store
the count of a resource. Now, what I need is to read/write a cell in
this column using some script, be able to compare it with the total
demand of the project (another cell in another sheet), and do something
as a result (insert another task, change the text color, etc.).

I do not have much experience in Project or VBA, but I have some
programming experience and have extended the standard behaviour of some
other software by means of scripting, if such a feature was available.
Can you briefly tell me whether such a scenario can be accomplished
using Project and VBA or not?

Best regards,
Gutek

Jan De Messemaeker napisa³(a):

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Gutek,

The result (having a numerical field in Resource sheet, or if you like as a
property of the resource object) is feasible. What I foung unfeasible was a
timescaled view of Materials availability since the timescaled data can show
cumulative usage but never replenishment - for a reason I really cannot
understand Project does not accept negative numbers in usage.

Still, before talking about code, let's talk input also.
How are you going to enter replenishment? Through a user form?
Can be done, but I prefer to set an analysis straight before pointing you to
VBA code.

Greetings,

 

[Gutek]

Hello Jan,

Thanks again for your posts.
I've just had a quick lesson of VBA and started working on solving my
problem. So far I have not run into the problems you mentioned, maybe
because I took a different way than you did. Everything seems promising,
and if I come up with something interesting, I will share this here. But
until then, I might ask some more specific question on VBA. So here goes
the first one:

Is it possible to automatically run a Macro when a task is updated in
any way, or when a specific event occurs (for instance anytime a
resource assignment is made or modified)?

All the best,
Gutek

Jan De Messemaeker napisa³(a):

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Gutek,

Yes, this is definitely possible. The event you ask for is
Projectbeforetaskchange.
Unfortunately, the way to get there is rather complex.
I first refer to the only book on the market dedicated to VBA for Project:

VBA Programming for Microsoft office Poject, by fellow MVP Rod Gill; it has
a chapter on events.

Roughly:
- Create a Class Module called EventClass Module that has this as first
line:

Public WithEvents App As Application

Then in a normal module create this sub:

Dim X As New EventClassModule
Sub InitializeApp()
Set X.App = Application
End Sub

This sub must run before you can activate the events in the Event Class
Moduel, such as

Private Sub App_ProjectBeforeTaskChange(ByVal tsk As Task, ByVal Field As
PjField, ByVal NewVal As Variant, Cancel As Boolean)

Hope this helps,