Resource Leveling

[JodyJ]

I'm hoping this is a straightforward issue. Does MS Project Professional
2003 level a resource across multiple projects?

Here's my situation. I have 2 projects. Once project has 2 tasks assigned
to the same resource, starting on the same date. The other project has 1
task assigned to the resource, also starting on the same date. All this
results in the resource being overallocated. When I level, the project with
the 2 tasks behaves as I expected...one of the tasks is moved out so the
resource is not overallocated within this project. However, the single task
on the 2nd project doesn't move. I get a message "The overallocation can not
be resolved." Project wants me to increase the availability or reduce the
assigned units.

I'm a bit puzzled as I expected that Project would smooth out the workload
for this resource across multiple projects. Hopefully, I am missing
something obvious.

 

[JodyJ]

A little more info. Our calendars are set to an 8 hr work day, 5 days a
week. Units in the Enterprise Resource Pool are set to 81.25% (i.e. we
typically assign 6.5 hrs / day of project work).

In this instance, I leveled day by day. Project left this resource w/ 8.5
hrs of work across the 2 projects.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

JodyJ --

When you level using Microsoft Project's built-in leveling tool, the
software resolves overallocations using only two possible methods:

1. Delay tasks
2. Split tasks

The software cannot level an overallocation if either of the two methods
cannot successfully resolve it, thus, the error message you receive. Also,
if you want to level across multiple projects, you need to have all of the
relevant projects open at the same time.

In your scenario, is there a way that you can manually adjust the resource
assignments and resolve the overallocation yourself? Hope this helps.

 

[JodyJ]

I'm still a little confused. I had both of the projects open. Project
delays one of the two tasks that are in the same project plan but doesn't
resolved the overallocation for the task that resides in the other open
project plan. There are no constraints on any of the tasks so I'm confused
as to why project won't level this task too. It should delay it just as it
did the other one.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

JodyJ --

If Microsoft Project cannot resolve the overallocation using either of the
two methods I described, it generates the error message and leaves the
overallocation as it is. This requires you to adjust the resource
assignment manually on one or both of the tasks in question. Hope this
helps.

 

[Jonathan Sofer - MCP]

Rather than just having the two plans open in the same session try embedding
the two projects into a temporary project thus creating a master plan. If
you try and level it then, it might work.

Do not publish this master plan to the server as it can cause issues in PWA.