Resource Information and Groups

[geoff.pratt]

I have a resource pool and standard names that I use and
enforce for using third parties. Users want to use and
track different rates for different consultants from one
TP.
I would prefer them to use one generic resource at e.g.
300% or 800%, but when they are used at the same time and
different rates it causes problems.
I thought that using the Group field to identify the
supplier, combined with date effective rates/costing would
be possible. I have experimented with the Res Info Costs
table but the Effective Date doen't seem to accept date
fields??
How is the Effective Date field in the Costs table used?
Is this the best way to approach the problem?
Using 2002 Std.
Many thanks..........Geoff

 

[Steve House]

The effective date is just that, the date range over which the resource's
rate is to be applied. It doesn't accept date fields but it does accept
date entries just fine. You can enter a standard rate for Joe of $10 from
"NA" to "06/30/04" and $15 from "07/01/04" to "NA." This means any hours he
works before July 1st will cost the project budget $10 per hour, then he
gets a raise and any hours after July 1st will cost $15 per hour.

Your approach with a generic resource could work by using a different rate
table for each member of the group but there's a problem in that there's
only 5 tables to play with. That means if there are more than 5 members of
the group and they all have different rates you're just out of luck.

The Group field can be used to identify the resources that come from a
specific vendor or are members of a certain department but it is really only
a field for sorting, filtering, and reporting purposes. In other words, if
resources Bill, Mary, Joe, and Suzie listed individually in the resource
sheet are all from "Ajax Consulting" and they all have "Ajax" in their Group
field, it does not mean I can assign "Ajax 100%" in the resource assignment
for a task to indicate that one of them is assigned to it. I still have to
designate by name which of the four I'm using. OTOH, I *can* use it to do a
report showing how many hours we're using people from Ajax during the month
of July.

If the members of the group of resources are essentially interchangeable -
we have 5 custodians and it doesn't really matter to us which one the
foreman sends over to clean up the office, we can use the concept of a group
resource "Custodial Staff, 500%" to indicate them. But the group name is
the resource *name* field, not the resource *group* field. We could then
assign "Custodial Staff, 100%" to indicate 1 custodian is assigned.

What we CANNOT do and have everything work out properly is have Bill, Mary,
Joe, and Suzie listed as individuals and also list an aggregte name "Ajax
Consulting, 400%." There is no way to indicate to Project that Mary is one
of the four people in "Ajax Consulting." Putting "Ajax" in the group field
of all those entries would simply mean there are actually 8 resources from
Ajax, 4 of whose names we know and 4 we don't know.

 

[Geoff]

Hi Steve,
Thanks for that. Effective Date works fine as you
explained. And thanks also for your explanation of group
usage.
I have tested your approach in the 2nd para, whereby I use
one of the 5 different rate tables, but I can't seem to
enable/specify a table other than A (the default) to be
the effective rate used. Your approach would work if I
could choose the vendor from the resource list, and select
the applicable rate table to be used when assigning the
resource to a task.
Is there a way of making B,C,D, or E the effective
resource cost table for task selections?
Kind Regards........Geoff

 

[Steve House]

Yes, you go to the usage view and double click beside the resource/task name
to see assignment details. On the dialog box that opens you'll see a field
where you can specify which rate table applies to that resource/task
combination. Here's a problem I forsee though. Suppose you have two
resources from your group on the same task, ie, the assignment is "Ajax,
200%" and one of them gets the rate in table A and the other in table B.
You'll have to choose one or the other as there's no way to split them up
and have both tables apply 50/50.
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer/Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

 

[Geoff]

Thanks Steve
That's brilliant. Works beautifully. It's a powerful
feature.
The problem you forsee will not be a problem for my
projects.

Kind Regards.......Geoff