Why is Work Remaining reduced when I enter a value in the Work cellin the Resource Usage View?

[kix1956]

Initally I have resource A allocated to two projects. I have task 1 in
plan A assigned to resource A, with work remaining of 2hrs, scheduled
for today. Task 5 in plan B assigned to resource A with work remaining
of 8 hrs scheduled for today results in an overallocation of resource
A, given a standard 8 hr. work day. I open both projects and level
resource A. Now Resource A is scheduled to only work 2 hrs today after
completing task 1, and scheduled to work 8 hrs the next business day
to complete task 5. Okay, so what I want to do is allocate 6hrs of
work for task 5 to today and have resource A complete task 5 the next
business day, completeing the remaining 2 hrs of work. I attempt to
enter 6hrs into the WORK cell for today for task 5 and when I enter
the value, the work remaining is decremented by 6hrs. Given this is
not the Actual work, I would anticipate that if anything Work
remaining would increase by 6hrs, until I subtract the 6hrs from the 8
hrs originally shceduled for the next business day after leveling.
What am I missing?

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

kix1956 --

Given your scheduling requirements, you are not handling this correctly,
which is why you are not getting the results you seek. First of all, you
need to remove the Leveling Delay on Task 5 in Plan B. To do this, complete
the following steps:

1. Open Plan A and Plan B; select Plan B and apply the Gantt Chart view, if
necessary.
2. Select Task 5 and then click Tools - Level Resources.
3. In the Resource Leveling dialog, click the Clear Leveling button.
4. In the Clear Leveling dialog, select the "Selected tasks" option and
click the OK button.

Completing the above steps will recreate the original resource
overallocation on Task 1 in Plan A and Task 5 in Plan B. Next, you will
need to manually contour the Work on Task 5 in Plan B by doing the
following:

1. Click View - Task Usage.
2. For Task 5, manually type the 6 hours of Work for today in the
timephased grid (yellow/white timesheet on the right).
3. For Task 5, manually type the 2 hours of Work for the next business day
in the timephased grid.

By doing this, you are resolving the overallocation by doing something that
Microsoft Project cannot do when leveling: manually contouring Work hours
on a daily basis. When you use the built-in leveling tool in the software,
it can only do two things: (1) delay tasks and/or assignments, and (2)
split tasks and/or assignments. Hope this helps.