Open a resource to edit his/her project tasks

[Bubba]

After discussiions with the Resource Managers, they would like the ability to
open a resource and edit the tasks those resources are assigned across
multiple projects at the same time. Does this functionality exist? This is
essentially the opposite to the Project Management perspective where they
open a project file and edit the tasks.

 

[Gary Chefetz]

This would require that you equip your Resource Managers with the project
client and give them access to the necessary projects. Resource managers can
certainly do this, as can Project Managers. It may not play well with your
PMs, however.

 

[Bubba]

We have given the resource managers the ability to open, edit, and publish
projects as this fits our business needs. We are hearing 'opinions' from the
resource managers. Since they manage resources and not projects, they want to
edit the resources. Their complaint is they manage many resources and have to
open and edit each project, then save and publish each project every time
they make a change to a resource.

Is there a way to open a resource, see the projects they are assgined, and
make edits to their assigned tasks that will directly publish to the project
files? This seems impossible, but multiple requests have been made.

Their complain is they must switch between multiple windows to make edits to
the resource assignments. To meet their requests in the middle, is there a
way to create a screen through PWA that a Resource Manager can view his/her
resources and the projects they are assigned, and then select each project to
open, edit, and republish? Essentially it would be a hybrid between the
Project Center and the Resource Center Views, but allowing them to open a
project from this view.

Thanks!

 

[Ben Howard]

Hi Bubba,

I think there are two items here. RMs generally create/edit resources, and
can perform task assignments, ie add resources to projects and replace
generic resources on existing tasks.
PMs are generally responsible for creating/editing tasks, and also making
assignments.
If your RMs are editing tasks (not assignments), or creating new
assignments, then they will need Project Pro to edit each project and
publish, otherwise they can use PWA to replace generic resources on existing
assignments. Both Project Pro and PWA will allow you to publish the projects.

There probably isn't a single screen that allows what you need, but a couple
of screens will help (resource centre on one, Project pro on another).

--
Thanks, Ben.

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[Gary Chefetz]

Bubba:

You can select a resource in the Resource Center and then select View
Assignments from the tool bar. This will allow the resource managers to
determine what projects the resources are assigned to. Next, have your
resource managers select each of the projects for which they would like to
make the changes in the Project Center holding the Ctrl key to multi-select
using the header column or any column that does not contain a hyper link,
then click Open on the toolbar to open the projects in a temporary master
file. By combining these into a master project, the RMs can edit the
resource assignments in all open projects. You'll find that the Resource
Usage view is particularly important in an exercise like this.

 

[Bubba]

Gary,

Thank you! This is certainly getting closer to what I'm looking for. When I
have this temporary master file open I see all assignments across each of the
projects I selected from the Project Center. I am in new territory now so
please bear with me, so is this a view only project? Can I make changes to
the resource assignments and then publish the data to each of those projects?
How do this part work? Any help is appreciated!

 

[Gary Chefetz]

Bubba:

As long as you have all projects open read/write, then you make as many
changes as you like. Then save the changes and publish them. Using a Master
Project, temporary in this case, is the only way I know of that allows you
to manipulate assignments across multiple projects at the same time. It
seems as though your team could use some training. If you don't have budget
for that, then consider picking up our book, Managing Enterprise Projects
using Microsoft Office Project Server 2007, which is available from our site
at http://www.projectserverbooks.com or through Amazon.

 

[Bubba]

Thanks Gary

Bubba:

As long as you have all projects open read/write, then you make as many
changes as you like. Then save the changes and publish them. Using a Master
Project, temporary in this case, is the only way I know of that allows you
to manipulate assignments across multiple projects at the same time. It
seems as though your team could use some training. If you don't have budget
for that, then consider picking up our book, Managing Enterprise Projects
using Microsoft Office Project Server 2007, which is available from our site
at http://www.projectserverbooks.com or through Amazon.