Overallocation issue (day by day) MSP2003

[John_JXL]

I am using MSP2003 and often see an issue in resource usage view where (on a
day-by-day basis or even week-by-week) a resource/task is highlighted as
overallocated at that level even though it is not.

I have read previous posts which explain that MS treats any overallocation
against every 60s period and that the recommended fix is to manually edit the
working hours on hour-by-hour basis.

However is there any way to change the setting such that MSP only flags
overallocations on a day-by-day basis (as any smaller time period is not
really relevant to me)? It is quite fiddly and time-consuming to manually
correct overallocations when they do occur even though I am only really
concerned with the day-by-day view.

Does MSP2007 offer any solutions in this area compared with '03?

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

No, sorry: the true solution is to ignore the red coloring if that is what
you want.
You can see overallocations based on the granulatrity you desire by
observing the yellow diamond in the indicators column. Sret r)the
granularity in Tools, Level Resources, ... on a "x by x" setting.

HTH

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
+32 495 300 620
For availability check:
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/Calendar.pdf

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi John,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

I'm not sure I fully understand your problem as I have never seen a manual
edit recommended. If you level on a, say, week-by-week basis, Project
assumes that any overallocation within a week can be managed locally. For
example, if a resource is overallocated such that on one day he has 12 hours
of work on a day, Project will not level this provided there are 40 working
hours of Work or less assigned within that week. He, or local management can
arrange overtime on the one day and give time off on the next day or
whatever to get the task done. So you need do nothing about it.

You might like to have a look at my series on Microsoft Project in the
TechTrax ezine, particularly #19 on leveling, at this site:
http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc or this:
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMFrame.asp?CMD=ArticleSearch&AUTH=23
(Perhaps you'd care to rate the article before leaving the site,
Thanks.)

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: <http://www.mvps.org/project/>

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP

 

[John_JXL]

Hi - thanks for the information - this explains it John.

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

Think of it this way - an overallocation means you have scheduled the
resource to be in two different places at the same time or is doing a
super-human effort to create more work than physically possible in the time
permitted. Joe works an 8 hour day and he's avaiable to you 100%. So he
can do 8 man-hours of work each day. But if you put him on two tasks, each
only 1 hour long, and yet have them BOTH scheduled between 8am and 9am,
during the 1 hour of time from 8am to 9am you are expecting him to do 2
hours of work, 1 hour on task A and another hour on Task B. He's allocated
200% for that 1 hour of time. The only way that you can get the work done
is if one of the tassks is rescheduled to start after the other one finishes
OR if you reduce his commitment to each task to 50% so they now take 2 hours
each and he can work on them at the same time. Either way, there's no way a
task can exist where a resource generates more man-hours of work than the
hours of time he spends on the task, it's physically impossible to get more
than 1 man-hours worth of work for an hour of time spent (with only one
resource working, of course).

 

[John_JXL]

Thanks very much Mike / Steve for the additional information and the links -
this clarifies for me how the functionality works

John.

Think of it this way - an overallocation means you have scheduled the
resource to be in two different places at the same time or is doing a
super-human effort to create more work than physically possible in the time
permitted. Joe works an 8 hour day and he's avaiable to you 100%. So he
can do 8 man-hours of work each day. But if you put him on two tasks, each
only 1 hour long, and yet have them BOTH scheduled between 8am and 9am,
during the 1 hour of time from 8am to 9am you are expecting him to do 2
hours of work, 1 hour on task A and another hour on Task B. He's allocated
200% for that 1 hour of time. The only way that you can get the work done
is if one of the tassks is rescheduled to start after the other one finishes
OR if you reduce his commitment to each task to 50% so they now take 2 hours
each and he can work on them at the same time. Either way, there's no way a
task can exist where a resource generates more man-hours of work than the
hours of time he spends on the task, it's physically impossible to get more
than 1 man-hours worth of work for an hour of time spent (with only one
resource working, of course).

--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm for the FAQs

I am using MSP2003 and often see an issue in resource usage view where (on
a
day-by-day basis or even week-by-week) a resource/task is highlighted as
overallocated at that level even though it is not.

I have read previous posts which explain that MS treats any overallocation
against every 60s period and that the recommended fix is to manually edit
the
working hours on hour-by-hour basis.

However is there any way to change the setting such that MSP only flags
overallocations on a day-by-day basis (as any smaller time period is not
really relevant to me)? It is quite fiddly and time-consuming to
manually
correct overallocations when they do occur even though I am only really
concerned with the day-by-day view.

Does MSP2007 offer any solutions in this area compared with '03?

 

[Mike Glen]

You're welcome, John

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP
See http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc for my free Project Tutorials

Thanks very much Mike / Steve for the additional information and the
links -
this clarifies for me how the functionality works

John.

Think of it this way - an overallocation means you have scheduled the
resource to be in two different places at the same time or is doing a
super-human effort to create more work than physically possible in the
time
permitted. Joe works an 8 hour day and he's avaiable to you 100%. So he
can do 8 man-hours of work each day. But if you put him on two tasks,
each
only 1 hour long, and yet have them BOTH scheduled between 8am and 9am,
during the 1 hour of time from 8am to 9am you are expecting him to do 2
hours of work, 1 hour on task A and another hour on Task B. He's
allocated
200% for that 1 hour of time. The only way that you can get the work
done
is if one of the tassks is rescheduled to start after the other one
finishes
OR if you reduce his commitment to each task to 50% so they now take 2
hours
each and he can work on them at the same time. Either way, there's no
way a
task can exist where a resource generates more man-hours of work than the
hours of time he spends on the task, it's physically impossible to get
more
than 1 man-hours worth of work for an hour of time spent (with only one
resource working, of course).

--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm for the FAQs

I am using MSP2003 and often see an issue in resource usage view where
(on
a
day-by-day basis or even week-by-week) a resource/task is highlighted
as
overallocated at that level even though it is not.

I have read previous posts which explain that MS treats any
overallocation
against every 60s period and that the recommended fix is to manually
edit
the
working hours on hour-by-hour basis.

However is there any way to change the setting such that MSP only flags
overallocations on a day-by-day basis (as any smaller time period is
not
really relevant to me)? It is quite fiddly and time-consuming to
manually
correct overallocations when they do occur even though I am only really
concerned with the day-by-day view.

Does MSP2007 offer any solutions in this area compared with '03?