Questions about Resource RBS

[Haris]

Hi,

I've a couple of queries regarding the Resource RBS code definition and its
use for the time sheet approval feature.

1. In my organization, all the Team Members of departments (eg: Dev, QA)
report their TimeSheets to the Team Lead and the Team Lead reviews and
forwards them to the PM of the project and the PM forwards them to the
Development Manager. A project may have multiple TLs managing multiple TMs
and reporting to a single PM.
I have defined an RBS in the following manner:

Level 1: DM
Level 2: Dev Department
Level 3: PM
Level 4: TL
Level 5: TM
Level 2: QA Department
Level 3: SL (Section Lead)
Level 4: TL
Level 5: TM

Then I have used the Time Sheet approval feature as mentioned in the
following link:

http://www.projectserverexperts.com/Shared Documents/TimesheetApproval.htm

Now TLs can see TMs working under them in the resource center view. But when
a TM updates his/her tasks in his TimeSheet, the updates go to the PM and not
the TL. Neither does the TL see any updates option for Time Sheets in their
view. How can i enable PWA such that TMs report to TLs and then TLs report to
PM & so on.

Looking forward to some help on this.

Regards,
Haris

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Haris --

Project Server 2003 does not support the multi-level timesheet approval
process that you envision. Here's what you can do, however:

1. If you want TM's to submit their timesheets to TL's for approval, the PM
needs to assign each task to a TL who then delegates the task to a TM while
maintaining the Lead Role on each delegation.

2. Timesheet approval is set by default for members of the Resource
Managers group, so you can specify who gets this ability by putting them in
the Resource Managers group. Do know this, however: the timesheet approval
process DOES NOT prevent PM's from updating task updates into a project plan
even if tasks have not been approved using the Timesheet Approval feature.

If you want more information about how to use the timesheet approval
process, I would strongly recommend you purchase our book for Project Server
2003 administrators, available for purchase by clicking either of the URL's
in my signature block. Hope this helps.

 

[Haris]

Dale:

Thank you for the response. I've the things clear to me now, and I've tried
putting the TLs into the Resource Managers group. The Time Sheets link
appears in the TLs account now. But if a TM of a respective TL updates his
time sheet, the update is sent only to the PM who created the project and not
the TL. The purpose is that the TL reviews the tasks and then PM only updates
the plan. Could you guide me as in what am i missing in the process?

Regards,
Haris

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Haris --

The functionality of timesheet approval works this way:

1. A TM submits a task update
2. The TL will see this on his/her Timesheet Approval page AND the PM will
see the update on his/her Updates page
3. The TL approve or reject the timesheet, which will change the formatting
of the numbers on the Updates page for the PM
4. The PM should then update only those task updates that are approved
(make this a company methodology)

Please note in step #4 above that the PM can update ANY task updates,
whether they have been approved by the TL or not. This is the default
behavior of the software and you can't force it to work any other way. Hope
this helps.

 

[Haris]

Dale:

Thanks a lot for the explanation. I guess this is what I was looking for .
Again thanks for the guidance.

Regards,
Haris

 

[Haris]

Hi,

I just encountered another issue regarding the RBS. There are some resources
in my organization who are working on more than 1 projects managed by
different Project Managers. Would the RBS, I defined, affect the reporting of
the particular resources?
Like Project A is managed by PM 1 and Project B is managed by PM 2. A
resource X is assigned on both the projects and his activities should be
communicated and viewable to respective PM only. Is anything additional
required for this purpose?

Regards,
Haris

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Haris --

I believe you will find that PM1 will be able to see Project B and PM2 will
be able to view Project A in the system. This is because of the default
permissions in the Projects section of the My Projects category (Allow users
in this category to view all projects assigned to resources that they
manage." You could deselect this option to set up the environment you wish.
Hope this helps.

 

[Haris]

Dale:

Thanks for the reply, thats what I wanted to do. Now theres another
question. Everything's working fine with the time sheets now. Except for that
while I have submitted my time sheet for the period of last week, by filling
in hours worked for activities and saving changes. And on Monday next week, I
updated the tasks by pressing 'Update All' button. The updates have not yet
been approved by the PM. But everytime I log in to PWA, I see the following
message under the 'Tasks' head:

"Your timesheet has not been submitted for the period 10/3/2005 - 10/9/2005"

Although I've updated the tasks I worked for. What am I missing ?

Regards,
Haris

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Haris --

I believe this bug was fixed in SP1. Have you upgraded to SP1 on both
Project Server and the Microsoft Project Professional client?

 

[A.Pradeep Kumar]

Hi Dale,
when the Team Member updates the time sheet the team leader gets a mail
saying that the resource has updated the time sheet and you need to approve
the time sheet, but team lead is not able to approve or reject the time sheet
.. We have put Team Lead into Resource Managers group even then the team lead
is unable to accept or Reject the time sheet...
Please let me know the steps and the permission that the team lead should
have to approve the time sheet...
One more thing .. can we reset the default permissions to all the group and
categories??

Thanks in advance
With Regards
A.Pradeep Kumar