Subverting scheduling detail - plan & track by quarter

[Dan_W]

I have used Microsoft Project to create a detailed list of tasks, assigned
resources to all tasks and entered work days per resource per task. The
resources working on this project have variable and unpredictable schedules
that make it impossible to schedule their work on specific calendar days.
Instead, I want to schedule work in terms of requested task-work-days per
quarter (ideally bi-monthly but this does not appear to be an available unit)
then evaluate whether we have sufficient resources to accomplish the work
(e.g., Resource A has 60 days/quarter available but is being asked to
contribute to 10 tasks totaling 80 days in Qtr 1). I'm only interested in
person-work-days per quarter (that's "Work" days and NOT "Duration" days) and
specific start & end dates within a quarter are meaningless. My needs are
pretty simple but I cannot figure out an approach in Project to plan by
quarter and determine if we are over or under resourced by quarter.

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Dan,

Welcome to the Microsoft Project newsgroup

Have you had a look at the Resource Graph view? This should give you what
you want. If you want to aggregate more than one resource, see FAQ Item:
38. Combined Resource Graph

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on

Mike Glen
Project MVP

 

[Dan_W]

Thanks Mike - I figured out that the main thing I needed to do was turn the
automatic leveling off and change the time scale to Quarters & Quarters). I
can then set the start date for the beginning of a quarter then allocate days
of work and view the tally by quarter with the Resource Usage table. I
ignore the fact that the top row (the sum) of the Resource Usage table is red
(it thinks I'm double or triple booked each day) and instead just compare the
total # days quarter to the # of days that I know are available for each
resource.

Also - I wanted to mention how tremendously helpful your TechTrax articles
have been to me as I've been teaching myself Project - the best guidance
series I've found through various web searches. Thanks!

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Dan,

Glad you've found what you want. You could also level with a month-by-month
granularity which could go part way to what you want.

Thanks for your kind words on my series in TechTrax I hope you have
rated them for me!


Mike Glen
Project MVP