REPORTING: EXTRACTING RESOURCE INFO FROM A MASTER PROJECT

[Mike Oberneder]

I've created individual projects that are sharing resources from a Resource
Pool file. Then I created a Master Project and used the "Insert, Project"
method to add my subprojects to the Master. Now I would like to extract some
information from MS Project, and am finding it hard to get what I want.
Please help me if you can, and I thank you in advance.

The individual projects collected in the Master project use the same
resources, but they are separate projects. Also there are 3 companies that
comprise those resources. I would like to get a report from the Master
Project, that groups by subproject, showing the Company Name and its
resources, and then the hours and cost for each resource. In other words,
the report would show Project (1) at the top of the page, then indented below
that Company (A), Company (B), etc, and indented below each Company it would
show Resource "Jim Dandy", and all his tasks with the associated hours and
cost, then it would show Charlie Brown, and all his tasks and associated
hours and cost. (Names are made up). In this manner, I can quickly have a
table that shows all my Projects, the companies that support each project and
their resources. It would show me how much time I need from each resource,
and how much funding I need for each resource. It also sums upwards to the
Company level, so I can see how many man-yrs and cost I need for each company.

I find it very hard in the Resource Usage view to get this type of data. It
wants to group by ......"Resource", despite the program. In other words, it
just lists "ALL" tasks under each person, but doesn't group them at a
"Project" level.

What I had to do is go back to EACH of the individual projects, and extract
the data into Excel. Very cumbersome. There must be a way to do this at the
Master Project level?? I can see the tasks grouped by "Program" in the Gantt
View. But when I want a report, and swtich to the Resource Usage View I
loose all sense of individual projects, and only get a long list of tasks
under each person.

I hope someone can help me do this at a Master Project level. Its logical
to conclude that MS Project would enable this to easliy occur - its "project
management". It would have to be quick/easy to extract this type of report,
since projects are dynamic, always changing in scope, tasks, schedule, etc,
which quickly invalidates any effort used in obtaining the data table I
discuss above. Another table must be quickly/easily created. I hope this
can be done easily, and its just a matter of my lack of knowledge.

Thanks again for your time and advice.

 

[Mike Oberneder]

Trevor,
Thanks for your response. The Task Usage View is tasked based, and will
give me a summary of the costs for each tasks, but I can't break it out by
"Company" and "Resource". I don't believe the "Task Usage" View will work
since I want the following hierarchy: Project, Company, Name. Those are
"resource-based".

The following is what worked for me, and I hope someone out there with more
experience will tell me a more eloquent way of performing this task, or tell
me that this is the only to accomplish the hierarchy that I listed above.

In the "Resource Usage" view, I clicked on Project-Group, and created a
custom group, wherein I grouped on "Project", Company, and Name. "Project"
and "Name" are in MS Project by default. I created the "Company" column, by
customizing a "Text" field. Now here's what I consider the tricky
(non-obvious) part. When I grouped by Project, Company, and Name, in the
"Field Type" column (under the Group Definition Box), I had to change the
"Field Type" to "Assignment" for the "Project" Field Name. However, you
can't select "Assignment" until you check the box where it says "Group
Assignments, not Resources". Repeating for clarity: In other words, under
the "Field Name" column I have "Project", "Company", and "Name". Then under
the "Field Type" column, I have "Assignment", "Resource", and "Resource".
This now takes my "Project" data, from the task, rather than from the
resource. This gives me the grouping I want, and then I can click on
"Analyze Timescaled Data in Excel" to import to Excel. However, I wish
Microsoft had a canned report that would give this data in a nice neat report.

If anyone knows of a easier way, please let me know. Especially getting the
data following the hierarchy above, into a nice table.

Thanks.

Mike Oberneder