Protecting a resource's allocation percentage across multiple proj

J

JoeP

I have a resource who is doing work for multiple, related projects. He can
only invest 50% of his time (e.g., 4 hours/day) across all of these projects.

So as a simple example, if each of the four projects require four hours of
his time, the Resource Usage view would show him spending four hours per day
for four days.

I think what I need to do is have this resource in a master project, and
have all the projects he is working on be linked into this master as
subprojects.

Will this meet my need? What other things must I do to ensure this resource
does not get overallocated and all Finish Dates correctly uphold his 50%
allocation constraint?
 
J

JoeP

Thanks, Jim.

Yes, I have setup a resource pool that is shared by these multiple projects.

But that doesn't fully solve my problem. Here's what I want to accomplish:

If the resource can only devote 50% of their time across all of these
related projects, I want to make sure the Duration smooths across dates in a
manner that protects this allocation.

For example, let's say he has three tasks of one day each that are spread
across three projects. Since he can only work 50% of his time on everything,
the total work days are 3 and it will take him six work days to finish
everything. I want all projects to reflect this.

The only way I can see to do this is to use a combination of a resource
pool, master and subprojects, and manually link each of his tasks so that he
is not overallocated on any given day. This yields the desired results.

But I would really like it if there was some way MS-Project 2007 would
smooth his workload automatically without me having to manually link these
tasks.

I have experimented with several scenarios and see no way to get around this
manual linking technique.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

JoeP, PMP
Oshkosh, WI
 
M

Mike Glen

Hi Joe,

You don't need links. Try Resource Levelling which is designed to do what
you want. You can force the order of tasks by giving them differing
priorities and levelling with Priority,Standard selected in the Levelling
dialog.

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

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

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

JoeP

Mike,

I tried your suggestion, but resource leveling didn't help me. In fact, it
seemed to have no impact.

I have setup a very simple set of example .mpp files and can get them to you
for review if would like. Just let me know the best way to get these to you.

Thanks,

Joe
 

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