Who can enter time in a timesheet?

[Kevin Newman]

Let me preface this by saying that we just got Project Server up and running
for the first time yesterday. We are now in the process of defining resources
and security levels (among other things).

We are a repair facility with about 200 employees, many of which have
disparate qualification levels. We were thinking that we could have each of
those individuals record their time against activities using the PWA
timesheet, but now that I have had a day to play with it I have come to the
conclusion that only Team Members can record their time that way. Am I right?
Am I going to have to assign each individual as a resource, and then as a
Team Member in order to make this work? This is really a cumbersome process
due to the disparate skill levels within our organization.

Any solutions? Am I going to have to build a custom interface to allow
individuals to record their time and then use that to update Project Server?

Thanks in advance

Kevin

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Kevin --

You will need to create one or more projects, add tasks to each project,
build the project team with the people who will work on the project, and
then assign those people to tasks. The people you assign to tasks can be in
any Group in PWA as long as they are resources in the Enterprise Resource
Pool. When you publish the project (Collaborate - Publish - All
Information), the tasks will show up on each user's timesheet in PWA, and
they will be able to enter progress against those tasks. Hope this helps.

 

[Kevin Newman]

So you are telling me that they have to be a Team Member assigned to tasks
within the project in order to post time to those tasks via the timesheet.
Thats what I thought. So I will have to assign resources on an individual
level. Many times that is not possible until the last minute due to the
nature of the work we have going through the shop. Since we are a repair
facility we do not even know the entire scope of work until we are done with
the project. These things unfold bit by bit until they are done.

Well no one said it had to be easy.

Would the Resource Substitution Wizard help in this situation?

Best regards,

Kevin

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Kevin --

Given your lack of experience with the tool, I believe the Resource
Substitution Wizard would probably be of no help to you at all, and would
probably create more problems than it is worth. You need to crawl before
you can walk, so get busy creating good projects, building your project
teams, assigning resources to tasks, and publishing those projects. Good
luck, my friend.

 

[Kevin Newman]

Dale,

Actually I have quite a bit of experience with MS Project. I have been using
it since 1994. It's the experience with Project Server that I am lacking. I
am just looking to set this up properly so we get the maximum benefit from
it. Any book suggestions?

Thanks again,

Kevin

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Kevin --

When I said "lack of experience", I was referring to your lack of experience
with Project Server, not with Microsoft Project. I trust I did not offend
you, as that was not my intent.

The Resource Substitution Wizard is not a simple tool to use, and requires a
lot of advance setup in the Enterprise Global and Enteprise Resource Pool
before you can use it. For example, have you populated the RBS field in the
Enterprise Global with your company's reporting structure, and have you
created a custom enterprise Resource outline code that tracks skills and is
used for skill-matching with Generic resources? In the Enterprise Resource
Pool, have you set a value for each resource in both the RBS field and the
custom field for tracking skills, and have you created Generic resources to
describe skillsets and set values for RBS and the skills field for each
Generic resource as well? If you have not done the above, then the Resource
Substitution Wizard will probably be useless to you, and will cause you to
waste time and will lead to frustration on your part. Enough said?

If you want to purchase some definitive books on Project Server 2003 that
will help you to use the tool to it maximum capability, I would suggest you
purchase our company's two books on this subject. One book is aimed
specifically at Project Server administrators to help them set up the system
correctly. The other is aimed at the needs of project managers. Click on
either URL in my signature block for ordering information.

 

[Gary L. Chefetz [MVP]]

Kevin

In your situation, the "Assign myself to a task" feature might be very
useful. Be aware that this requires training to be used well.

--


Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
"We wrote the books on Project Server"
http://www.msprojectexperts.com

For Project Server FAQs visit
http://www.projectserverexperts.com

For Project FAQs visit
http://www.mvps.org/project

 

[Kevin Newman]

Dale,

No offense was taken. Sorry for the misunderstanding. Heres what I have done
so far concerning resources

I have setup the RBS field with the proper structure, and have added a
comprehensive list of our company's generic resources to the Enterprise Pool.
I have also used Enterprise Resource Outline Field 29 and created a
multivalue list and named it "Skills". I copied the lookup table from the RBS
field to the Skills field so that they would match. I am in the process of
adding our individual associates and selecting the skills for each one. That
aspect of this setup is extremely tedious as we have around 200 folks and it
seems like about 85% of them have unique qualification levels. I am about
2/3rds through this process. Once I get this done can I assume that the setup
for the wizard will be complete?

I have some questions:

Does the substitution wizard allow you to assign a resource in such a way as
to overallocate it. I noticed that it does show the availability during a
specific time period, but does it warn you that you will overallocate if you
assign a particular resource.

Do I need to assign a value for the individual (not generic) resources in
the RBS as well as in the Skills field I created? Will this cause any
confusion with the wizard?

Finally, we have some activities that take place on a machine but are not
machining activities. They would most likely be an in process Quality Control
inspection or similar evaluation. Since they don't actually involve the
operation of the machine, but physically occupy it do I just assign the
machine resource with "0" units as I have done in the past to show that the
machine is occupied, or is there a better way? I want to avoid reporting too
many hours and dollars in my Cost/Utilization projections.

Thanks for the pointers to the books. I'll look into them. I found a couple
at Barnes & Nobles the other night as well.

Best regards,

Kevin

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Kevin --

Generally speaking, the RBS field should contain your company's "org chart"
and should be used in the Enterprise Resource Pool to show Project Server
"who reports to whom." The RBS field is specifically used by the system to
control the security of "who sees whom" when accessing resources, and is
also used by the Resource Substitution Wizard. I'm wondering what kind of
outline code you built into the RBS, given the fact that you stated you
copied the lookup table from the RBS into the Skills field. So, out of
curiosity, what did you put in the RBS field?

To answer your questions:

1. No, nothing in the system warns you when you are about to overallocate a
resource. The system warns you indirectly by formatting overallocated
resources in red in any Resource view in Microsoft Project Professional.

2. If you want the Resource Subsitution Wizard to match a Generic resource,
you need to assign values to each resource using the RBS and Skills fields.

3. Since Project Server has no formal mechanism for using equipment
resources, your method sounds good enough to me.

Hope this helps.

 

[Kevin Newman]

Dale,

Thanks for getting back to me again. I used a hierarchical approach to
populating the RBS and henceforth the Skills field. It looks similar to this:

1 - Machining Department
1 - Supervisor
2 - Machinist
1 - Lathe
2 - Mill
3 - Turning Center
4 -
5 -
6 -

So the generic resource for the Lathe would have an RBS of 1.2.1. Each
individual qualified to operate the lathe would have 1.2.1 included in the
Skills field (in addition to references to other qualifications). Is there
anything inheirently wrong with this approach?

I am debating as to whether I need the supervisor reference at all, since it
appears that putting the machinists on a peer level with the supervisor will
result in the supervisor not being able to see the machinists.

As for the overallocation question, I surmised that that was the case. I
just wanted to hear it from an expert.

On question #2 are you telling me that the RBS for both the generic and
individual resources need to be equal?

Thanks again,

Kevin

 

[Kevin Newman]

I think I have something conceptually wrong here

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Kevin --

If you are duplicating the outline code for the RBS and Skills fields, then
one of the fields is definitely redundant. I would think that you could
eliminate the Skills field entirely and only use the RBS field as you have
explained it here.

As far as using the Resource Substitution Wizard, how will Project Server
know which human resources to match with Generic resources if you don't
populate the RBS field for both of them? Just some thoughts. I would
gladly invite the others to share their opinions on how you might best
proceed.

 

[Gary L. Chefetz [MVP]]

Kevin:

Even the sample database that Microsoft includes with the product, in my
mind, misuses the RBS. I say that because I want you to understand that
these recommendations are opinions: If you don't need to base security on
the RBS, don't use it. If you do, keep it simple and reflective of the
security structure you want to enforce, which generally tracks with the ORG
chart, but doesn't have to.

Your structure mixes skills and organizational structure. Not a good
approach, IMO.

--


Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
"We wrote the books on Project Server"
http://www.msprojectexperts.com

For Project Server FAQs visit
http://www.projectserverexperts.com

For Project FAQs visit
http://www.mvps.org/project

 

[Kevin Newman]

Dale, Gary:

Thanks again for all of your help on this. Like I said before I had a
conceptual "brain fart". Since we are still in the configuration phase I am
free to do that, but want to make sure that I get it right before we start
using it in earnest.

I have modified the RBS to conform to our org chart. It has simplified it
immeasurably. I was playing with the Resource Substitution Wizard yesterday
and my results were less than pleasing.

I created a simple project (10 activities), assigned generic resources using
the Team Builder and published it to the server. Then I opened it from
Project Pro 2003 and tried to substitute real resources for the generics
using the wizard. I selected resources based on the appropriate RBS level,
but all of the generics were replaced by a single resource that was really
only appropriate for two of the tasks. I discarded my changes.

What would cause this?

Best regards,

Kevin

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Kevin --

Remember that I warned you about the Resource Substitution Wizard in my
answer to your original question about using it! You are not the first
person who has received unpleasant results in using it.

Let's see if we can troubleshoot your problem. First of all, I am assuming
you set up the RBS field correctly to show your organization's reporting
structure, and I am assuming you also set an RBS value for each human and
Generic resource in the Enterprise Resource Pool. Check the following:

1. Did you set up a Skills outline code in the Enterprise Global file and
select the "Use this code for matching generic resources" option in the
Customize Enterprise Fields dialog?

2. Did you set a Skills value for every human and Generic resource in the
Enterprise Resource Pool?

Let us know.

 

[Kevin Newman]

Dale, Gary

Thank you very much for your help

Kevin

In your situation, the "Assign myself to a task" feature might be very
useful. Be aware that this requires training to be used well.