Steve
Sun Jul 09 10:50:33 CDT 2006
Remember that MS Project is not an employee time scheduling and tracking
program, it's a project work scheduling program. If your project is to
design a new widget, anything that does not contribute to that widget design
does not exist as far as project management is concerned except in that it
limits the amount of time the resources can put in on the project at hand.
There are a number of problems with your approach, not the least of which is
your overhead task isn't really the sort of task one encounters in a
project. Projects are always, without exception, a time limited undertaking
resulting in a finite result. Your project to build a bridge is done when
the bridge is done and after that point the project no longer exists.
Within a "task" also always has a measurable deliverable - you can look at
it and tell if it's finished or not. Your overhead task has no finite
deliverable and no identifiable end, even though you have chosen to end it
in December that is only an artifact of your accounting system, the work
itself never ends and getting it done at a faster rate won't get it
completed before the end of December because no matter how much you have
done, you'll never have done all that will ever need to be done.
Second, MS Project does not assign resources or decide what percentage they
should be assigned at. Only the human manager can make the decision as to
what portions of a resources time to devote to what activity, the software
never does it for you.
Nor does the software ever change the resource assignment percentage except
in response to manually editing either the work required or the duration
estimated. Even when a resource is overallocated and the leveling tool
resolves it, it doesn't do it by changing assignment levels but rather it
delays the work of one or more of the tasks in conflict, moving low priority
tasks so that higher priority tasks are worked first. But it never, ever,
changes the percentage the resources are assigned to their tasks. So there
is no way for MS Project to manage the assignments the way you are asking it
to.
So the bottom line is, sorry but neither Project, nor any other PM software
that I'm aware of, will do what you want it to.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit
http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs
"jcatlos" <john.catlos@fishersci.com> wrote in message
news:1152066876.851735.211200@a14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Here is my problem...hopefully someone can help...
>
> PROBLEM: I want to create an OVERHEAD task (for "fixing defects") and
> be able to assign a resource UP TO 85% of their time on this task. The
> duration of this task should run from January thru December. That in
> itself is easy. Here is the real issue: I want the overhead task to
> account for other tasks that may be scheduled for this resource and NOT
> overload the resource more than 85%.....here is a simple example:
>
> Day 1: resource has no other tasks, so they should be alotted 85% of
> their time to this task of "fixing defects".
>
> Day 2: resource has a task that takes up 50% of his day, so the
> overhead task of "fixing defects" should only be 50% of this day
>
> Day 3: resource has a task that takes up 75% of his day, so the
> overhead task of "fixing defects" should fill the remaining 25% of his
> day.
>
> Day 4: resource has a task that takes of 100% of his day, so there is
> no time alotted to the "fixing defects" task.
>
> Is there an easy way to set up this overhead task so that is is "smart
> enough" to know to fill any FREE TIME for each day of this resource
> with the "fixing defects' overhead task, up to a value of 85% for this
> task.
>
> Note: This resource is available 100% of each day....but he can only
> use UP TO 85% on this "fixing defect" overhead task.
>
> any help would be greatly appreciated on providing exact steps to do
> this. thanks in advance!
>