D
David Parker
I'd appreciate any advice on how to deal with this scenario. I have many
projects on the go at once so I'd like to use separate Project files and
also have a master project to list them all. I'd like to specify a certain
percentage of my day to spend on each one in order to get an estimate as to
how long each will take. These percentage allocations may change over time.
From recording the tasks I did one day I found that 83% of the day was spent
on minor non-project tasks that took less than an hour to complete each and
17% on actual project time. I'd like to feed in these figures but update
them in the future when the balance may be different.
At first I tried doing this by assigning a certain percentage of a resource
(me) to all the subtasks in the various projects. I had a big task of fixed
duration 1 year to represent the 83% "small tasks" work. This seemed to work
for a while but the trouble is I end up sometimes with Project saying I
should spend twice the allocated time on one project to get it done quicker
and that sort of thing. Supposing small tasks comprised less than 50% of the
day it may end up saying I should spend all day doing them so they're done
twice as fast (these tasks are generally things that need doing immediately
and can't be left to the next day or seen in advance). Also I'm not sure how
I'd change the allocations at a particular date, it seems I'd have to do it
on a task-by-task basis.
I'm now trying to get this to work by changing the calendars and aren't sure
how to do this. I created a master project with my resource in. The standard
calendar, resource calendar and information on the calendar tab all show my
full working hours. I then created 2 subprojects and set them to use
different project calendars - one with only morning hours and the other with
only afternoon hours. Each has a task with duration set to 5 days and me
assigned 100% to it.
I would expect both tasks to happen at the same time, with morning task in
the morning and afternoon task in the afternoon, but what happened was
Project put the morning task first and then the afternoon task once the 5
day morning task had been complete. Both used up a full days working hours.
All reducing the time in the project calendars seemed to do was reduce the
duration for the morning project from 5 days to 2 days (though the single
task that's in it still shows as 5 days). I'm confused.
projects on the go at once so I'd like to use separate Project files and
also have a master project to list them all. I'd like to specify a certain
percentage of my day to spend on each one in order to get an estimate as to
how long each will take. These percentage allocations may change over time.
From recording the tasks I did one day I found that 83% of the day was spent
on minor non-project tasks that took less than an hour to complete each and
17% on actual project time. I'd like to feed in these figures but update
them in the future when the balance may be different.
At first I tried doing this by assigning a certain percentage of a resource
(me) to all the subtasks in the various projects. I had a big task of fixed
duration 1 year to represent the 83% "small tasks" work. This seemed to work
for a while but the trouble is I end up sometimes with Project saying I
should spend twice the allocated time on one project to get it done quicker
and that sort of thing. Supposing small tasks comprised less than 50% of the
day it may end up saying I should spend all day doing them so they're done
twice as fast (these tasks are generally things that need doing immediately
and can't be left to the next day or seen in advance). Also I'm not sure how
I'd change the allocations at a particular date, it seems I'd have to do it
on a task-by-task basis.
I'm now trying to get this to work by changing the calendars and aren't sure
how to do this. I created a master project with my resource in. The standard
calendar, resource calendar and information on the calendar tab all show my
full working hours. I then created 2 subprojects and set them to use
different project calendars - one with only morning hours and the other with
only afternoon hours. Each has a task with duration set to 5 days and me
assigned 100% to it.
I would expect both tasks to happen at the same time, with morning task in
the morning and afternoon task in the afternoon, but what happened was
Project put the morning task first and then the afternoon task once the 5
day morning task had been complete. Both used up a full days working hours.
All reducing the time in the project calendars seemed to do was reduce the
duration for the morning project from 5 days to 2 days (though the single
task that's in it still shows as 5 days). I'm confused.