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Contoured Level of Effort Microsoft Project

Contoured Level of Effort Microsoft Project

Contoured Level of Effort

Posted: 27 May 2004 12:18 PM PDT

Don,
I guess I should have been a little more specific. I
have 20 Level of Effort tasks. The other 980 or so are
regular tasks. The 980 will be set up without
constraints (as much as possible) and Project is going to
run through it normal calculations for leveling. It is
the 20 LOE tasks that are concerning me. Basically these
tasks pertain to Leads. Their basic function is to be
support for their people to guide, answer questions, and
the like. The initial phases of the Project they will
have to spend more time. Then as the project begins to
wind down (the last 6 months) is when their level of
support begins to decline.
These LOE tasks themselves are not linked to any
tasks other than the program start. They do not even
effect the program end date. They are basically there
for cost purposes.
I did run a little experiment as you suggested. I
had entered the data for 2 of my LOEs in the manner I
described in my first message and then leveled the
project and they stayed where I put them. Your statement
about the resource being available to me for other tasks
after Dec. '05 and planning to reduce their commitment to
the task is closer to what is happening on these 20 LOE
tasks. Being Leads after Dec. '05 they will probably
start picking up new Projects to work on or may even be
assigned tasks their subordinates were doing in order to
meet the dead line.
So after much rambling on here, it is looking like I
will just have to keep an eye on these 20 tasks to make
sure they don't start moving on me when I level.

Thanks,

Shaun 
approach may not survive leveling and/or replanning. 
mimic reality and let project do its calculations, rather
than to hard-code data. The calculated, levelled plan is
a "model" of the expected project reality; you enter the
constraints and current conditions and let the modelling
engine do its thing. Like weather forecasting. If you try
to hard-code that it will rain next wednesday, then when
the circumstances change either your hardcoding will be
changed and your forecast will be wrong when you make it
rain anyway, or if you manage to force your forecast to
persdist, you' better know how to make it rain on demand!
If you KNOW it's going to rain, put in the paramters that
will make the modelling engine come to the same
conclusion. Pardon my philosophizing, can't help myself :) 
to produce the desired results, rather than hardcoding
the results, you have a better chance of making the
results persist through multiple updates. 
after dec 05 then you could adjust the resources'
availability in the resource calendar. Then project will
limit the resource to half-days in all its calculations
for that timephase. If the resource is available to you
for other tasks and you're just planning to reduce
his/her commitment to task a, that's a little trickier. I
don't think project has a specific parameter to trigger
that in the future. If you're not using a resource pool
and don't mind some slightly kludgy reports, you could
create a second version of the resource (bob is assigned
at 100% til dec 05; halfbob is assigned at 50% after dec
05, and can spend the other half on other tasks). You'll
still have to make halfbob not available prior to dec,
and bob not available after. 

Excel functions

Posted: 27 May 2004 10:51 AM PDT

I don't know an easy way to accomplish that. I'm not a vba guru so
someone else may know the answer.

The best I can suggest is to customize one of the toolbars by adding a
button and linking that button to the macro. That still requires, of
course, the user to click on the button.

Can anybody else offer a workable solution?

On Thu, 27 May 2004 14:41:05 -0700, Johnell
<microsoft.com> wrote:
 



--

Status Reporting via % Complete

Posted: 27 May 2004 05:45 AM PDT

If you are updating the project using your new actual %complete before running the status report, then your new planned finish date compared to the baseline finish shows the variance at this moment in time from your baseline. So if Joey is only half done on a 40-hr task which is supposed to be 3/4 done, then his finish has slipped 10 hrs, and the finish variance gives you the slippage. If you wanted to actually show variance in the % complete, you'd have to do the math (10/40=.25) but the calendar slippage is a valid status parameter. This will not work if the task runs into conflicts where Joey gets pulled off to a higher priority task leaving this one dangling, but you would probably want to deal with that issue before running a status report anyway...

Over-Allocated Units

Posted: 26 May 2004 11:21 PM PDT

Thanks

Sorry, I shouldn't waste your time with these simple questions. Sometimes the quest for a solution blurs your mind. You end up looking for difficult solutions and you forget the standard procedures

Andre

Print Plus / Minus sign

Posted: 26 May 2004 09:30 PM PDT


Hazza,
As I said, it is possible but I'm a little confused. You asked if
someone could write the macro but your latest post says not to worry
about it. Do you want a macro or not? If not, I won't spend time on it.

John

Risks and Issues in WSS

Posted: 26 May 2004 08:12 PM PDT

They probably know better in Project Server land but all that I have heard
is the WSS is the same in the various implementations, it's just what you
get with it that is different. (Not 100% guaranteed but nobody has ever said
anything particularly different to that)

So provided those web parts don't rely on anything in Project Server 2003
(see above :)) they should work with the normal WSS..

Why don't you just try them and see ?

[P.S. You did say "any issues and thoughts come to mind" - hence my
'licensing']

But as always, I'm quite prepared to be proved wrong (by a Project Server
specialist probably - and I wonder where you find them <running and
ducking>)

Mike Walsh, Helsinki, Finland

"JP" <com> wrote in message
news:phx.gbl... 
2003 
Project 
Project 

Simultaneous access/update to MS Project plan

Posted: 26 May 2004 12:13 PM PDT

"(large worldwide company that wants a common toolset used across the organization)

So what concurrent-access enterprise project management tool is the large worldwide company providing to the department? (Pardon my sarcasm

I second R Schneiders reply

Import datas from MS Access/Excel

Posted: 26 May 2004 08:18 AM PDT

Thanks for your answers.

I was about to conclude the same way you did. At least now I know !

See you around

Nico

Rebaselining specific tasks

Posted: 26 May 2004 03:26 AM PDT

Good Lord, Verossa, I'm glad you re-attached your brain, otherwise you would have had one heck of a tedious exercise on your hand

I presume that you just changed the project start-date and re-saved the whole project with a new baseline

James :-)

Setting up activities start/end time

Posted: 26 May 2004 12:29 AM PDT

Hi Jan,

it worked! Now, I would like to display the date and time
by the activity on the Gantt diagram. I have managed to
display the date but not the time. Would you be able to
help?

Bye

Luisa 
time of day 
anyhow) 
bericht 

Maximum amount of allocated hours

Posted: 25 May 2004 11:31 PM PDT

Jan

But why doesn't the program levels by stretching the job with no restrains or with a "a soon as possible" restrain. It is free to split, move or stretch this item?

Leave days or sick days for individuals in project

Posted: 25 May 2004 09:26 PM PDT

Great to hear Glenn and you are most welcome.

Julie 
each 
schedule 
resource 
and 
in the 
other 
personnel 
calendar 
are 

Overbudget on lowered Max Units

Posted: 25 May 2004 07:26 PM PDT

Thanks for the response, Gerard. You gave me something to ponder on

I wanted to add this interesting side effect resulting from setting resources at 75% Max Units. For our project templates, we plan for worse case scenario. In this case, our template tasks are set to 75% Max Units. This way, if a 75% resource is assigned to the task, then we meet our deadline. If a 100% resource is assigned to the task, then we get slack. Great!, right
Meanwhile, our backlog charts include these new projects without assigned resources. So we fill our capacity with 75% tasks. When it comes time to assign the tasks to resources, some of them will be at 100%. Now, we are overbooked! Why?

We booked for 30 hour week tasks (75%) while some resources (100%) are putting in 40 hours of work on their tasks. Arrrgggghhh

--Conrad Santiag


----- Gérard Ducouret wrote: ----

Hello Conrad

If the resources are working 8h/day in the company, I would set them with
Max Unit of 100%. If generally they work only at 75% of their time on
task, due to the leads duties, I would assign them at 75% on these tasks
So you will be able to enter 8hrs/day of Actual Work on a day by day basi
if necessary
<<in the early going on a lengthy task, it is difficult to gauge>> : So yo
know why you must manage short tasks. Some companies use standard for that
For ex some companies have as a standard not to plan tasks longuer than
days

Hope this helps

Gérard Ducoure


"Conrad Santiago" <microsoft.com> a écrit dans l
message de news:com.. 
Max Units. We do this because they are project leads and they have dutie
that arise on projects that are not easily scheduled. While they ar
scheduled to work on one project, they may be called away to do a QC revie
or confirm info on another project. For an 8 hour day, set at 75%, they ar
free to spend two hours a day on such lead duties 
they end up spending 8 hours on a task in one day. Meanwhile, the gant
chart still shows them on a 6-hour day rate to complete the task. Ou
managers do update these tasks daily asking "How much more time do you nee
on this task?". When there is only one or two days left on a task, it i
easy for the resource to gauge how might more time is needed. However, i
the early going on a lengthy task, it is difficult to gauge, resulting i
more hours be spent on a task. As the end of the task approaches, th
resource is either cut short on allotted time or goes over budget 

Exporting / converting report information to MS Excell

Posted: 25 May 2004 06:30 PM PDT

Sorry, but you can't export from a Project "report" into the Excel
format you seek. You can export data (as a workbook or a pivot table)
using File/Save as and then use Mapping to define that export. You can
also use the Export Timebased data to Excel wizard. Reports are
intended to go to paper, or to electronic versions of paper, e.g. PDF,
TIFF, or whatever.

Hope this is useful to you. Let us know.

rms




com.au wrote: 

Pulling in tasks based on early completion (100%)

Posted: 25 May 2004 03:42 PM PDT

Hi Phil,
What you ask for is normal behaviour of Project UNLESS you gave in start
dates for tasks manually
HTH
Jan

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/index.htm
32-495-300 620
"JPhil" <com> schreef in bericht
news:google.com... 

linking tasks to master schedule in MS project 98

Posted: 25 May 2004 01:35 PM PDT

Sorry, but maybe I'm old fashioned remembering how Object Linking and
Embedding didn't work in the old days. I'm not convinced it works even
now. I don't use it and can never make it work. I don't think this a
very reliable way of linking projects.

I'd suggest you use the "Insert/Project" to bring in the entire project
as a link, then use filters or hide parts of the hierarchy to display
the limited info.

Hope this is useful to you. Let us know.

rms




microsoft.com wrote: 

Work Calculations

Posted: 25 May 2004 01:23 PM PDT

I had it set to manual because it was several large projects linking together and was taking a very long time to load. I heard a tip that setting the calc. to manual would help - I did press <F9> to update them.

Project 2003 Std to Professional

Posted: 25 May 2004 12:41 PM PDT

AFAIK, it's not the MPP file that matters with Project Server. It's the
tool you use to connect with Project Server. Project Pro can connect to
Project Server, whereas Project Standard cannot. So yes, it should work ok.

Hope this is useful to you. Let us know.

rms




Larry M wrote: 

Reduce unit after task start

Posted: 25 May 2004 11:19 AM PDT

You're welcome, Shaun.

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/index.htm
32-495-300 620
"Shaun" <microsoft.com> schreef in bericht
news:12a7b01c4431c$b380bb40$gbl... 

Hiding Detail

Posted: 25 May 2004 09:45 AM PDT

If you can open the file you can see everything that is in the file.

On Tue, 25 May 2004 09:45:06 -0700, jlb
<microsoft.com> wrote:
 



--

tracking problem on project plan update

Posted: 24 May 2004 11:51 PM PDT

Hi

If you are inputting Actual Work prior to the task's end-date, then it's far easier to have the task as a Fixed Duration task type. This way, the original task duration is retained, regardless of how many hours you actually worked on the previous days. Any under-booking of hours will automatically be re-scheduled across the remaining duration of the task

James.

How did a split occurred?

Posted: 24 May 2004 06:56 PM PDT

Hello Deluth, hello John,

Another way to do these splits is that one used by a lot of my students who
validate any entry with a savage right click of the mouse anywhere. Anywhere
is often on the Gantt Chart pane. And most of the time, they drift a little
....
Try it : it works well !

Gérard Ducouret

"John Beamish" <JLBeamishAThotmailDOTcom> a écrit dans le message de
news:phx.gbl... 
the 
found 
(the 

Task filter when project opens

Posted: 24 May 2004 03:16 PM PDT

It may have been a sledgehammer ... but that turned out to be the right tool
for some "percussive maintenance" <grin>.

<microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:11c5801c44201$c20d5270$gbl... 

Displaying Tasks for a Single Resource for Many Projects

Posted: 24 May 2004 01:42 PM PDT


Megan,
Maybe I don't fully understand what you want but how about the following:
1. Create a master file as John outlined
2. Open the Resource Usage view
3. Insert these two columns
a. Project
b. Finish
4. Sort by Project, then by Finish

If you don't need the timescale data, just pull it to the right and
print the tabular data. It will show each resource's assignments by
project with the Finish date in ascending order.

Hope this helps.
John

Colour Co-ordination

Posted: 24 May 2004 04:41 AM PDT

Hi Simon,
Glad to know things are looking up ;-).
The rest of the steps for creating the formula for the
Flag field(s) are in the link I sent earlier. (I've
copied it below again to help.)

http://www.woodyswatch.com/project/archtemplate.asp?2-10

It's quite a few steps (too many to list here) but I
think if you follow the steps in the webpage, it will
guide you through.
You may wish to print out the webpage to have all the
steps in front of you.
Let us know how you get along and reply to this thread if
you have any further questions.

Hope this helps.

Julie 
completed everything you said and yes I can get to there
via tools etc....