Securing Salary Information

[Jay Reed]

We have a resource pool that is used by a 4 project managers. I would like to
enter salary information for all my resources but place some sort of security
on the salary sheet information so the other 3 managers cannot see my salary
information. Currently, I am the only manager using the salary information to
track costs. Is there a way to hide specific columns with a password?
(specifically, the "Standard Rate" and "Cost/Use" columns.)

I am trying to prevent having to create a separate resrouce pool because I
will then have to detach the current resource pool from all active projects,
attach the new one and then make the resource assignments all over again.j

 

[JackD]

All data in the project can be read by anyone with permission to write to
the file.
You could copy the cost data in and out with an excel spreadsheet, but
unless you clear baseline costs etc. then the others could deduce the
salaries if so inclined. If you really want to keep it secret, do not enter
it in project.

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

I've always felt if they weren't senior enough to see salary information for
the resources used in projects, they aren't senior enough to even be project
managers in the first place. Whether they are using Project's costing
abilities or not, if they are responsible for bringing a project in on
budget they simply HAVE to know what the costs of doing the work will be.
Why would you feel the need to hide from a manager information that is
freely available to any file clerk in human resources?

 

[Jay Reed]

JackD,

Thanks for your response. I am fairly new with MS Project so pardon me if my
questions seem naive. My issue is many of the folks with access to this plan
are peers and they can quickly determine how their salary stacks up against
others. This is a concern for my management which is why I am on this
crusade. If I cannot protect portions of the resource sheet as I asked in my
prior memo, then can I restrict access to the resource pool entirely except
when assigning a resource to a task in their own project schedule?

I am attempting to capture actual costs for individual work requests (of
which there are many) in a software development effort following the
completion of the project.
If it is not possible to restrict access to the resource pool while allowing
resources from that pool to be assigned to individual projects, then is it
possible to make personal copies of the project schedule and the resource
pool so I can add the salary information and calculate my "post project"
costs.

Jay R

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

Unfortunately there's no simple way to do what you want. Anyone that has
access to the plan file has access to the whole package. The only
workaround is to create a "secret" master copy that is the real, working,
scheduling tool that contains full information including costs to be used by
the actual project managers for their planning and tracking and when the
master is changed, manually maintain a copy for public viewing that has the
salary information deleted. You have a further wrinkle in that you want
your resources to be able to enter cost information in the file they can see
so you'll have a bit of a headache updating your master copy as they input
their data but I'm afraid that's something you'll need to live with.

 

[Jon Smith]

A trick I use to hide salary info is to create 2 macros in the shared
resource pool; one that puts the standard rates in for each resource and one
that puts in a zero for standard rates. This is just a simple keystroke
macro to go down the list; if you have additional resources, you'll need to
modify the macro. The reason this will work is macros are the one object
that by default are not stored in the file; they are stored on your hard
drive.

When I typically run cost reports I don't run them in any detail where you
could see the differences in cost between 2 resources, so the summaries will
hide their individual costs.

This technique will work only if you have one rate per resource. (and you
have to remember to run the zero macro before saving the file and getting
out!)

Hope this helps.

r/Jon

Unfortunately there's no simple way to do what you want. Anyone that has
access to the plan file has access to the whole package. The only
workaround is to create a "secret" master copy that is the real, working,
scheduling tool that contains full information including costs to be used by
the actual project managers for their planning and tracking and when the
master is changed, manually maintain a copy for public viewing that has the
salary information deleted. You have a further wrinkle in that you want
your resources to be able to enter cost information in the file they can see
so you'll have a bit of a headache updating your master copy as they input
their data but I'm afraid that's something you'll need to live with.