Microsoft Project Timescaled Reports

[Paul harris]

I have a client with a Microsoft Project schedule that has multiple projects
in one schedule:

1. Projects and Areas identified using Outlining
2. Multiple resources assigned against activities
3. Project, Areas, Clients and Funding Sources identified in Text Columns,
thus Projects and Areas are available in both outlining and Text columns.

They require reports with:

The Horizontal axis showing Quarters, Months or Weeks (a report for each)
Vertical axis showing
One Text Column (Say Client)
Second Text Column (Say Funding Source)
Budget/Actual/To Complete
Resource Quantity and/or Resource Cost

My understanding is after some experimenting that:
1. Analyze Time Scaled data in Excel does not export Resources
2. Exporting to Excel does not support timescaled data and long activities
that span multiple periods will not be split over periods
3. This report is not produced by Views without massive amounts of
irreverent detail
4. This report is not produced by Reports

Does any one have a technique for simply creating this type of report?

Regards

Paul Harris

 

[John]

I have a client with a Microsoft Project schedule that has multiple projects
in one schedule:

1. Projects and Areas identified using Outlining
2. Multiple resources assigned against activities
3. Project, Areas, Clients and Funding Sources identified in Text Columns,
thus Projects and Areas are available in both outlining and Text columns.

They require reports with:

The Horizontal axis showing Quarters, Months or Weeks (a report for each)
Vertical axis showing
One Text Column (Say Client)
Second Text Column (Say Funding Source)
Budget/Actual/To Complete
Resource Quantity and/or Resource Cost

My understanding is after some experimenting that:
1. Analyze Time Scaled data in Excel does not export Resources
2. Exporting to Excel does not support timescaled data and long activities
that span multiple periods will not be split over periods
3. This report is not produced by Views without massive amounts of
irreverent detail
4. This report is not produced by Reports

Does any one have a technique for simply creating this type of report?

Regards

Paul Harris

Paul,
In answer to your last question, yes, but let me address your items.
1. The Analyze timescaled data in Excel WILL export resources, you just
need to run it from the Resource Usage view
2. I'm not sure what you mean by, "... multiple periods will not be
split over periods." The utility does export timescaled data and
depending on how the data exists in time, the resulting spreadsheet in
Excel will reflect that. If there is a "dead zone" (i.e. split) in the
data, it will be shown that way in Excel as long as the timescale for
export is set to show it, but remember, you won't see a dead zone of a
week if the data is exported in Months.
3. If I interpret your required report format correctly it shows
indentation of each type of information. You are correct in that no view
or report (built-in or customized) will produce that hierarchy format.

So how do you get what you want? A VBA macro. Using VBA, any type of
Project data can be exported to another application, (typically Excel),
and formatted in virtually any form needed. I've done it many times as
have many other users with some VBA experience. If you do not know VBA,
you can either, learn it (we can help with theat), find a co-worker who
can write the macro for you, or pay someone to develop the code for you.

John
Project MVP

 

[MSPLearner]

If the VBA solution suggested by John does not work for you, try exporting as
pivot table. I have an almost exact situation as yours and experimented w/o
success with time scaled reports.

My solution :

1) Custom Month, QTR, Year fields in Task Table - you can use calculate
function to populate these fields
2) Custom resource fields if needed

Export to excel pivot table and use pivot reports to create reports on the
fly. You may need join Task and Resource tables if you have any custom
resource fields for your reports.

MSPLearner

MSP