Too many resources

[tonik]

I assigned all resources to a task, total of 93 resources. I get an error
message that this exceeds the maximum number of 256 characters. Is there a
way around this, or do I have to actually list that task several times,
assigning the different resources to each? What is the maximum number of
resources you can assign to one task?

 

[JulieD]

Hi

sorry, haven't got an answer for you - except that it appears that the limit
to the field is 256 characters which means how many resources to can assign
to a task depends on the length of their names but i've got to ask - what
task requires 93 resources?

Cheers
JulieD

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Tonik,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

The limit here is the 256 characters - try using Resource Initials instead


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

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

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

You can have up to 1 million resources in a project but the individual data
fields do have a size limit as Julie pointed out to you. FYI, generally
acepted best practices indicate one should break down the tasks far enough
that there is a one-to-one correspondence, the task breakdown being granular
enough that each task is done by one resource or one resource team that
works together as a unit. Not saying it's impossible for you to have one
task that would require 90+ resources but it would be very, very unusual to
say the least. Try to treat the cause of your problem of running out of
space for names in the field rather than the symptom - ie, try to break your
tasks down farther so each one only has one or two people assigned to it. A
good rule of thumb to help is the "8/80 Rule" if a task lasts less than 8
hours you're micromanaging to excess and if it's more than 80 man-hours it's
really too large to effectively manage.

Hope this helps ...

 

[tonik]

Here's what's really going on.....My workplan is actually just something I
plan to use to track resource availability and overallocation. I am new to
this company that is having problems in this area and need a solution. I
have set each of its projects up as a task (name) in my workplan and have
assigned the resources for that project. This is fine since the other
projects have <10 resources each. This project however has 93 -- more than
I've ever had for any task, and certainly more than I suspected since none of
the others did.

My initial desire would be to just link all workplans into a master workplan
that could update each time the project managers update but only the larger
projects are required to have a workplan in MS Project.....the others are
allowed to use Excel to do their updates, and are not required to update
these and provide input to the EPMO (my group). What that means is, only
those projects large in scale are reported to the EPMO via Project; but the
resources are used across projects (the company is scaling down
tremendously). We still need to be able to track who is on how many
projects, as well as amount of their schedule they are allocated to determine
who is over-leveraged. I thought the best solution was this enterprise-wide
workplan I developed and I would just have to receive updates from PMs
periodically and input them manually into my workplan-- until I got to the
one with 93 resources, which prevents me from putting them all together.

Any further thoughts/helpful ideas?

 

[tonik]

Here is my response back to Julie. Do you have any helpful solution?...

Here's what's really going on.....My workplan is actually just something I
plan to use to track resource availability and overallocation. I am new to
this company that is having problems in this area and need a solution. I
have set each of its projects up as a task (name) in my workplan and have
assigned the resources for that project. This is fine since the other
projects have <10 resources each. This project however has 93 -- more than
I've ever had for any task, and certainly more than I suspected since none of
the others did.

My initial desire would be to just link all workplans into a master workplan
that could update each time the project managers update but only the larger
projects are required to have a workplan in MS Project.....the others are
allowed to use Excel to do their updates, and are not required to update
these and provide input to the EPMO (my group). What that means is, only
those projects large in scale are reported to the EPMO via Project; but the
resources are used across projects (the company is scaling down
tremendously). We still need to be able to track who is on how many
projects, as well as amount of their schedule they are allocated to determine
who is over-leveraged. I thought the best solution was this enterprise-wide
workplan I developed and I would just have to receive updates from PMs
periodically and input them manually into my workplan-- until I got to the
one with 93 resources, which prevents me from putting them all together.

Any further thoughts/helpful ideas?

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

I don't have any ideas to offer. It seems you have painted yourself into a
bit of a corner by trying to simplify things. Consider, even for the
projects where you haven't run into a problem, if each project is
represented by a single task entry in your plan and there is more than one
going on at once, having the same resource on more than one plan doesn't
necessarily mean he's overallocated. For discussion lets say there are 3
projects going on at once, each lasting 2 months. Joe is assigned to all
three. By representing them your way, he is going to show overleeveraged,
triple booked for his time. In fact it could be fine because project A only
needs him the first 2 weeks, project B uses him during week 3, 4, and 5, and
project C uses him the rest of the time. Incorporating the detail task
breakdowns would let you see that but simply showing each project as a
single task won't. Certainly an enterprise level master plan makes a lot of
sense but it requires some cooperation on the part of the fucntional PMs as
well as things you can do on your own (such as getting everyone up to speed
on MS Project and moving the holdouts over from Excel). My best advice is to
bite the bullet and do it by the book - sorry.
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer/Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

 

[tonik]

Thanks for the advice. Those are risks I am aware of but can't really come
up with any other workable solution. There will be no converting "lite"
projects from Excel to Project -- the company does not wish to change this
because the environment is already tense for these PMs with the company still
downsizing, it's hard enough getting them to want to have a workplan and
Change Process at all. This company judges overallocation by % assigned to
project tasks as well as number of projects assigned to. So, by their
standard of measure, a resource can be allocated 10% to each of 5 projects -
being a total of 50% if you look at it one way, or 500% if they are all
scheduled for the same time frame; or the resource can be overallocated just
because they are scheduled tasks on 5 projects. No simple solution for me
except to pray hard and make the best of a virtually impossible situation.
Thanks for considering my predicament, though. It helps to know I at least
considered what might passibly work in this unusual environment. There is
just no easy solution!