Need help on resource allocation

[Johan]

A resource (a number of interchangable persons) is
assigned at 275% to a number of FtoS linked fixed work
activities. MSP 2002.

The resources availability is 275% at all times but for
one day during which it is 185%. This is entered in the
Resource Availability list in the Resource Information
dialogue.

Now MSP shows an overallocation on the specific date with
limited resource availability, fine. I level the project
and expect the resource to work 185% on the task on the
specific date and 275% all other days. But nope, the
resource stops working completely on the specific date and
resumes work when the availability is back to 275%. (The
resource graph shows 185% available work on the specific
date)


The basic problem is very simple: A number of persons are
working on the same tasks. One of them goes on vacation
and I want the other persons to continue working (with an
increase in task duration).

When I used 3 specified resources I can understand that
the others stop working since I've explicitly pointed out
that a resource should do a certain amount of work. But
when I use a generic resource with >100% availability, it
makes me confused.

Could anyone please explain where I'm wrong and how to
solve the basic problem? I would be most grateful.

Best regards
Johan

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Johan,

You stumbled onto a weakness of MS project's leveling, that is that it does
not change assignment units.
From then on, when leveling tries to fit for a given day 275% of a resource
into an availability of 185%, the logic is that this is not possible.
So the task gets interrupted and nothing happens during that day.

One thing you can do is level Week by Week, curiously enough the logic then
changes and you will have a better usage of your people. Of course, for some
tasks you may lose the precision day by day gives, but if the granularity is
good enough, Week by Week may solve your problem

Groeten,

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
Project Management Consultancy
Prom+ade BVBA
32-495-300 620

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

Two small comments on that.

Leveling's prime objective is not to load people 100%, but to load nobody
over 100%.
This being said, leveling Week by Week does a pretty good job on ensuring
100% load but...
many people introduce a lot of links, necessary or not, thus reducing
Leveling's flexibility, and often when a "bad" leveling result- with lots of
"underallocated" situations the reason is that this is the best solution
taking intro account the links.
But I agree that the way "Day by Day" leveling works is (at the least) poor.

HTH
--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
Project Management Consultancy
Prom+ade BVBA
32-495-300 620

this issue also caused me nightmares for weeks.
but ms does put an icon to the left of the resource telling you to adjust this one manually.
i gave up and started leveling week by week as Jan suggested and that

helped but still on a project with 120 people i had managers screaming that
people werent assigned 40hrs per week...

 

[John Beamish]

Exactly: levelling pushes task assignments out but does not pull them
back.

Hi,

Two small comments on that.

Leveling's prime objective is not to load people 100%, but to load nobody
over 100%.
This being said, leveling Week by Week does a pretty good job on ensuring
100% load but...
many people introduce a lot of links, necessary or not, thus reducing
Leveling's flexibility, and often when a "bad" leveling result- with
lots of
"underallocated" situations the reason is that this is the best solution
taking intro account the links.
But I agree that the way "Day by Day" leveling works is (at the least)
poor.

HTH
--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
Project Management Consultancy
Prom+ade BVBA
32-495-300 620

helped but still on a project with 120 people i had managers screaming
that
people werent assigned 40hrs per week...

--

 

[Rod Gill]

Another way to reflect one of your resources going on holiday is to edit the
calendar for the resource and reduce the hours on the relevant day. Project
then extends the finish date and as units of 275% are allocated and
supposedly still available, there is no over-allocation.

--
For VBA posts, please use the public.project.developer group.
For any version of Project use public.project
For any version of Project Server use public. project.server

Rod Gill
Project MVP
For Microsoft Project companion projects, best practices and Project VBA
development services
visit www.projectlearning.com/

 

[Guest]

Thanx guys!

Leveling on a week by week basis works when the resource
takes a day or so off (decrease in avalability). But if he
takes >1 week of I get the same results as with day by day
leveling: the resource stops working completely although
there's plenty of percentage left.

It seems to me MSP should be used with 1 resource per task
only and that resource either being fully available or
completely gone. Doing it this way the S/W does alright.
But I feel real life isn't always organized that flat.

I'll keep on struggling
Johan

 

[JeffP]

If MS Project were a piece of cake this newsgroup would not exist....

Enjoy!