Question on resource leveling

[Tom]

Sorry about all the questions, but the task of getting this done was
assigned to me yesterday... due today.

Here is the scenario. I have tasks with resources assigned of certain
duration. If I have two tasks starting on 1/1 with a duration of 10 days and
I assign one a resource with 50% and the other 100%, I would want the end
date of the first to be 1/20 and the second 1/10 when leveled.

Is this doable?

 

[JulieS]

Hi Tom,
Sure, it is doable but only with the following changes:
1) 1/1/05 is a Saturday - so you need to make that day a working day. Tools
--> Change Working Time
2) In order to get a 10 day duration task done in 10 calendar days, every
day must be a working day so now every Saturday and Sunday has to be a
working day. Tools --> Change Working Time.
3)Start date of the Project 1/1/05. (Project --> Project Information.)
4) No start or end dates have been manually entered for either task.

Create the two tasks each with a duration of 10 days. Both start on 1/1/05
and end on 1/10/05.
Assign 50% of Resource1 to Task 1 40 hours of work is calculated.
Assign 100% of Resource1 to Task 2 - 80 hours of work is calculated.
Resource1 is overallocated.
Double click on Task 2 - change the priority to a number above 500 (Task 1
has priority of 500).
Choose Tools --> Level Resource
Choose Priority, Standard in the leveling order.
Uncheck "Level only within available slack"
Choose the level now button

Task 1 now starts on 1/11/05 and ends on 1/20/05 and Resource1 is assigned
at 50%
Task 2 now starts on 1/1/05 and ends on 1/10/05 and Resource1 is assigned at
100%.

So yes, it is possible. Is it realistic? No. Is it what you are searching
for?

I understand about being thrown into creating a project file with no time to
learn the product, but it sounds as though you are being asked to make a
project schedule fit arbitrary dates. That is not what MS Project is for and
you are beginning to engage in a battle of wills that you will find very
difficult to win. If you are being asked to create a schedule for a project
where all dates have been pre-determined, you may be best off using Excel
until you have the time to learn MS Project.

Hope this helps and best of luck. Let us know if you have any other
questions.
Julie

 

[JulieD]

Hi

and for a quick introduction (and more) on how to use Project have a read of
Mike Glen's tutorials at
www.tinyurl.com/2xbhc
or if that link doesn't work try
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMFrame.asp?CMD=ArticleSearch&AUTH=23

(start at the bottom of the screen)

Cheers
JulieD

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Tom,

This may come a little late, but I hope it will still help you.
Often people get into problems with Project's resource leveling because they
do half of the work manually and half is to be done by Project.
Why do you want to assign a rresource 50% to a task?
Most of the time people reply "because I know he has other things to do as
well"
Now that's what leveling will calculate for you, you don't have to calculate
that.
So whenever possible when you use leveling only assign people 100% to tasks.
Leveling will give the best results.

HTH

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

A couple of points:

When you have a task with an estimated duration of 10 days and you assign a
resource to it at 50%, Project assumes you had that 50% assignment in mind
when you came up with the 10-day number to begin with and so it doesn't
change it. If you assign at 100% Project says this requires 10 days @ 100%
or 80 man-hours. OTOH, if you assign at 50% Project says this task is worth
10 days at 50% or 40 man-hours. To get the duration to change and reflect
the 20 days you'd hoped for, you need to do it in two steps, assigning him
at 100% and then EDITING the assignment to reduce him to 50%. Otherwise set
it to 20 days right from the get-go, based on the knowledge that that is how
long it will take for a part-time resource to complete it.

Second, resource leveling doesn't do what you seem to think it does.
Leveling only has meaning when resources are OVERALLOCATED, that is, you
have the *same* guy is assigned to both of those tasks at 100% and so he is
expected to be in two places at once, working on two mutually exclusive
tasks at the same time. In that case, leveling would delay one of the tasks
so as to resolve the conflict. But that's all it does - shift the time
frame of the work back and forth. It never adjusts the percentage of
allocation nor does it change the duration the resource will work on the
task.