Resource Availability by Skill

[Debbie V.]

I would like to see a report or view that shows the availability by skill vs.
name. I used Enterprise Resource Outline Code 20 (mv) for Skills. I have
assigned skills to my generic resources as well as specific resources.

One of my generic resources is Lab A at 500%. When I look at availability
it may show that Lab A is not available at the current time, but as soon as I
replace Lab A with a real person, Lab A becomes available. The problem is
that if all of the real people that work in Lab A are booked, then Lab A
isn't available, yet looking at the availability of Lab A, it looks
available. Make sense?

How do I tie the fact that these 5 people work in Lab A, then check the
availability of the 5 people/Lab A? I

 

[Aaron Tamblyn]

Hi Debbie,

If LabA generic resouce stands for LabratoryA then it seems unusual to me
that you are replacing this with specific resources. They are two different
conceptual entities. One is generic material resource and the other is a
human resource, it doesn't make sense to replace LabA with human resources?

Another way to approach this is to:
- have LabA as a resource. (This will represent booking the Lab)
- Create a generic resource called 'Lab Technician' (or whatever name is
more appropriate). You will assign 'Lab Technician' as required for Lab
work.

This would work in your example 'Lab Technician' would be booked 500% and
then replaced by human resources. The 'LabA' assignment booking would not be
affected by this.

It sounds like you want to associate Lab technicians with a specific Lab.
you could do this through an additional Resouce code 'Lab'. This code will
apply for that Resource in all Projects. If that is OK then it is easy
enough to then check the
availability of the 5 people/Lab A by creating a Resource Center view that
will group the resources by Lab. You can select all the resources for Lab A
and click view availability.

If your resources work in other labs as well then it is more complex. I
would investigate using a multi value resource outline code for the lab
(these are resource outline codes 21 - 29.

 

[Debbie V.]

Hi Aaron--

Thanks for your reply. You have given me a different way to look at the
situation and I appreciate that. I'm still processing this through my head
and I'm not sure I totally get it.

If I initially assign Lab Technician to a task when I check availability it
will show that I don't have a Lab Tech available for that time. Then when I
assign a real person instead of the lab technician it will free up the
generic resource, but the real resource will be booked. So, when I check
overall availability, then it will look like I will have a lab tech available
when in fact the specific person is already assigned.

What I experimented with this afternoon was assigning Lab A to the summary
task of performing tests, then Lab Tech to each specific test (subtask).
Then I replaced the Lab Tech with real people that work in the lab. When I
looked at availability it showed Lab A as assigned to all tasks so I could
see that Lab A was tied up for that time frame. We are not tracking costs so
assigning the task to the summary task won't affect that, but will it affect
the %complete calculation?