Scheduling resources on a project only part-time

[Richard Millard]

Hi,

When setting up a new project, I want to be able to setup the project so
that any resources assigned to it will assume that a full day of work on the
project is, for example, 4 hours. Each resource is available for 8 hours a
day of work (according to the resource calendar), but for this particular
project I only want each resource scheduled for a maximum of 4 hours.

Is it possible to do this so that if I assign a resource at 100% to a task,
the resource will only be scheduled for 4 hours of work for this project for
this one day?

Note: I am using Project Professional 2003 with Project Server.

Thank you,

Richard Millard

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Richard --

When you assign the resources to each task in the project, set the Units
value to the percentage of a working day the resource will commit to the
task. In your example, you would need to set the Units to 50% for the
resource assigned to the task. To manage this process most effectively, I
recommend you use the Task Entry view for this purpose. To apply the Task
Entry view, apply the Gantt Chart view and then click Window - Split. Hope
this helps.

 

[Richard Millard]

Dale,

This is what we are doing now, but it gets to be a real hassle because our
resources may be working on multiple projects over the same time period.
For example, we may want to allocate a resource to be available to work on a
particular project for only 1.5 hours a day, while another resource may be
available for 2.5 hours a day.

Is there any way we can default a resources' availability for all tasks on a
particular project? For example, if we assign a resource to multiple tasks
on a project, in our situation it would work best if we could have them
default to 1.5/8.0 = 0.18%. Another resource may be 2.5/8.0=0.31 for all
tasks on a particular project. The way we are currently doing this is to
define all the tasks, assign the resources, and then go and manually change
all the resources' percentages from 100% to the above calculations. If at
all possible, we would like to be able to 'default' the resources' units to
something other than 100% on a project by project basis. Is there any way
to achieve something like this?

Thanks,

Richard Millard

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Richard --

Here's how to set the Max. Units values for resources in an enterprise
project:

1. Open the project
2. Click View - Resource Sheet
3. Set the Max. Units value for each resource working on this project
4. Click View - Gantt Chart
5. Display the Assign Resources dialog
6. Select a task
7. Select the resources to assign to that task without entering a Units
value and then click Assign
8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 for every task in the project

When you assign a resource to a task without specifying the Units value, the
system will enter the Max. Units value as the Units value for the
assignment. Do know that the next time you open this project, the system
will reset the Max. Units value for each resources back to the Max. Units
values stated in the Enterprise Resource Pool, but it will NOT change the
Units values on each task. I think this process should work for you. Hope
this helps.

 

[Richard Millard]

Dale,

Thanks for the suggestion! This sounds like it will work much better than
what we are currently doing...

Richard

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Richard --

You are more than welcome, my friend!