Resource Auto-Leveling issues/scheduled priorities

[TraceyH]

I have 2 issues-

1) I show a 'red' overallocation condition after auto-leveling when the
assignment is only 3hrs/day. The resource's working time is 4hrs/day and my
project calendar is 4hrs/day. The resource has an 'extra' hour of available
time that is not being scheduled. Why is this happeneing?

2) Even after defining priorites for tasks, the auto-leveling function
insists on pushing some tasks beyond other tasks with lesser priority. This
problem seems to be worse for tasks where I have actual values (actual work
or % complete). I have not baselined the project,and these tasks are not
linked to others or constrained in any way.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

For the "red" resources see
http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm
Faq 34. Overallocation occurs in less than one day, or
Faq 28. Resource Leveling does not remove overallocation

As for the priority thing, before all other things you should be aware that
Leveling does NOT remove any actual work. Project calculates plan, not
history.
But just to make sure... You did select Priority, Standard as a leveling
order, didn't you?
HTH

 

[TraceyH]

Hi,

Thank you for your response; the www.mvps helped somewhat but I still can't
get the auto-leveling to work quite right so I will try to adjust manually.

On my question #2, I think I figured out the problem. I used auto-level and
entered actual work hours in a lump sum into the leveled shedule. When I
cleared the leveling, MS project wrote the actual work values into the
leveled schdule and couldn't figure out how to undo it...so I had actual
values in the future. Too bad Project isn't smart enough to put actual hours
somewhere in the past, and only use the future for unfinished work

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

It will do what you want (put unfinished work into the future), you just
have to tell it to. Project can't do it automatically since it doesn't know
what the cutoff date for "the future" really is. In the Tools, Tracking,
UpdateProject menu select the "Reschedule Uncompleted Work After ..." option
and supply the date you want to shift the work beyond.

 

[TraceyH]

Thanks Steve..this is what I was looking for. I tried it, but the start date
didn't change from my project start date of 9/1/04. The finish date did,
though. What didn't the start date adjust to sometime aftermy cutoff date
(today's date of 12/7)? The tasks in question had not been started yet, asnd
the are set to 'as soon as possible'

 

[TraceyH]

Oh..I figured out why, I think. I had entered a value of zero in the actual
work, so Project thinks the task actually started then...but now I can't
delete the "0" from the actual work so the field is blank...rather than
having a zero value. Any was around this?

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

While you've zero'ed out the work you may have left an entry in the Actual
Start cell. Display the Tracking Table and see if it is, if so, delete the
date or revise it to the date that work did, in fact, begin if it has.

 

[TraceyH]

Thanks...that did it!

While you've zero'ed out the work you may have left an entry in the Actual
Start cell. Display the Tracking Table and see if it is, if so, delete the
date or revise it to the date that work did, in fact, begin if it has.