positioning Project Server to a client

[T Ray Humphrey]

I have a client for whom I set up Project Server and MS Project 2007. I set
it up to be used in a more high-level manner, as one person was going to do
all the tracking. Now they need more detail, and I'm wondering the best way
to handle that. I'm hoping someone here has a few ideas.

This client has 30 to 50 projects going at a time. The projects are 5 weeks
to 5 months in length. Each project creates, as a deliverable, market
research findings. As the project progresses, it goes through phases and is
handed off from one department to another, such as design, interviews,
analysis, data processing, document production, etc.

This is currently managed through templates stored in Project Server, from
which projects are created and tailored for the current situation. Resources
are assigned at the task level, but resources don't drive the schedule.
Instead, internal and client deadlines drive the schedule. Resource
assignment is a rough view of who is working on what, and does list all the
projects a resource is assigned to, but doesn't give an accurate view of who
has free time (most Resources appear overbooked as they are assigned to
multiple projects). They have been using this solution successfully for
several months.

What they want now is more detail about which resources are free, and how
much time the resource intends to spend from week to week on various
projects. I thought of the Resource Usage View in Office Project, because it
shows time assigned to tasks, and can be updated. I'm concerned about this
because:

1. I need to make sure that changes to time here don't move change tasks (I
assume I can use task constraints for that, and much of that is already being
done).

2. More importantly, if a Resource is assigned to multiple projects, there
doesn't seem to be a way to view and edit all that resource is assigned to do
all at once. PWA has its Resource Assignments and Resource Availability, and
that grid at the bottom is great, but I guess an editable version is what I'm
after.

So, is there a way to view and edit everything a resource is doing in MS
Project?

Or, am I approaching this the wrong way? I considered creating one big
Project that contains all of their client projects. That would make the
Resources Usage view useful, but that big project would never end, as
completed client projects would "fall off" the back end and new ones would
perpetually be added.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Ray

 

[Ben Howard]

In the main, the only editable areas are
1. Project Properties in PWA.
2. Task statusing (my tasks).
3. Anything in Project Pro.

With this in mind, if your customer's end goal is better resource
forecasting, then you will need to make better estimates for resources in the
1st instance, as you say most people look overallocated. Once this is done,
then publishing the projects will then give you a better view of the resource
allocations. If you then want to fine tune the allocations by taking
feedback from the resource, you have two ways of doing this.

1. Outside of EPM - get the resources to feedback to the PM via email etc.
The PM then modifies the schedule to reflect this - as you say you'll have to
constrain various tasks.
2. Use the resource to define the finish date of the task via task
statusing - again you'll need some constraints.

In terms of deliverables, it would be worth thinking about who these are
defined and the make up of the project - you almost have a task list here
with zero dynamic scheduling required which makes everything both easy and
challenging.

I would then use some of the an anlysis services view to see who is
overallacated there, and you'll need to manually adjust the project schedules
manually. Remember you can allocate someone at 20% over a duration of 5 days
to represent one day's work.

I wouldn't put everything in one master project.