Some questions regarding EPM

[Adeel Ahmed]

All,
I have setup Enterprise Project Environment with Microsft Project Server
2007, There are multiple projects running in my company and all projects
plan published in MS Project Server.

Question 1:
I want to view the resources assignments / usage involved in all projects, i
tried built in reports through web interface but that are not clear when you
select many resouces the graphs gets confusing. OR please recommend any
report that gives us the bird eye of all resources and their assignment, so
that I can see which resource are over allocated and busy in another
project.

Question 2:
I have the enterprise project calender and any change in the EC that reflect
on entire projects, But i want my resource maintain their own calender that
should be reflected to the enterprise calender and eventually on the project
plan.
for example: Resource 1 wants a day off so he/she can add their vacation on
their own calender and that calender should reflect on the project and the
resource task finish date should change according to it.

Please give me any recommendation/suggestion to handle multiple projects in
EPM.

Regards
Adi

 

[Andrew Lavinsky]

Q1: Have you tried the Resource Center, View Availability view, which allows
you to drill into multiple resources? Data Analysis is also a good option
for this.

Q2: The Resource Calendar has always been a tricky issue. With security
permissions, you can enable resources to edit their own data, including their
calendar - which is not a great option for a number of reasons. You can
also implement a process where vacation requests are approved and go to the
PMO for inclusion in the calendar. Note that in this case the resource calendar
should be modified only when the resource is out a couple of days - and has
planned to do so. It shouldn't be for sick days, etc. Finally, if you're
using Timesheets, you can allow the input of vacation time through those.
See the following blog for more information: http://blogs.msdn.com/project/archive/2009/02/13/administrative-time-explained.aspx

- Andrew Lavinsky
Blog: http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/epm