Assignment 1

Assignment 2 Assignment 3 Assignment 4 Assignment 5 Assignment 6

Assignment 3

Adjusting Working Time for Individual Resources

Project uses different types of calendars for different purposes. In this exercise, we will focus on the resource calendar. A resource calendar controls the working and nonworking times of a resource. Project uses resource calendars to determine when work for a specific resource can be scheduled. Resource calendars apply only to work resources (people and equipment) and not to material resources. When you initially create resources in a project plan, Project creates a resource calendar for each resource.

The initial working time settings for resource calendars exactly match those of the Standard base calendar. (This is a calendar built into Project that accommodates an 8 A.M. to 5 P.M., Monday through Friday work schedule.) If all the working times of your resource match the working time of the Standard base calendar, you do not need to edit any resource calendars.

However, chances are that some of your resources will need exceptions to the working time in the Standard base calendar—such as

  • A flex-time work schedule

  • Vacation time

  • Other times when a resource is not available to work on the project, such as time spent training or attending a conference

Any changes you make to the Standard base calendar are automatically reflected in all resource calendars that are based on the Standard base calendar. Any specific changes you have made to the working time of a resource are not changed, however.

Tip If you have a resource who is available to work on your project only part-time, you might be tempted to set the working time of the resource in your project to reflect a parttime schedule—for example, 8 A.M. to 12 P.M. daily. However, a better approach would be to adjust the availability of the resource as recorded in the Max. Units field to 50%. Changing the unit availability of the resource keeps the focus on the capacity of the resource to work on the project, rather than on the specific times of the day when that work might occur. You set the maximum units for a resource in the Resource Sheet view, which you display by selecting the resource and then clicking Resource Sheet on the View menu.

In this exercise, you specify the working and nonworking times for individual work resources.

1. On the Tools menu, click Change Working Time. The Change Working Time dialog box and calendar appears.

2. In the For Calendar box, click Garrett R. Vargas. Garrett R. Vargas’s resource calendar appears in the Change Working Time dialog box. Garrett, the producer of the TV commercial, has told you he will not be available to work on Thursday and Friday, January 14 and 15. He's getting his wisdom teeth out.

3. In the calendar below Select Date(s), drag the vertical scroll bar or click the up or down arrow buttons until January 2010 appears.

4. Select the dates January 15 and 16. Tip To quickly select this date range, drag from 15 through 16.

5. Use the Exceptions tab to set occasional variances to the normal working times for the selected calendar. Examples of such exceptions include holidays, personal time off, vacations, and so on.

 

 

 

 

In Exceptions table you set the Name, Start and Finish dates for the exception.
Note:I haven't changed the illustrations, so the dates in the pictures may not be the same as in the text. Just stick with logical current dates.

Name  Click the next available row in the Name column and type the name of the exception.

Start  Enter the start date for the exception.

Finish  Enter the finish date for the exception.Your screen should look similar the example below, but with

14/01/2010 for the start and 15/01/2010 for the finish.

 

Tip If your team uses the calendar module in Outlook and Project Web Access,
resources can automatically report to you times they are not available to work on
project activities. These times are based on calendar items marked as busy or
out of office in Outlook. Once the times are reported, you can easily update the
resource’s working time in the project plan without retyping anything.

To conclude this exercise, you will set up a “4 by 10” work schedule (that is, 4 days per week, 10 hours per day) for Jon Rodman. You can keep the Change Working time box open from above.

6. In the For box, click John Rodman. Jon is going to start earlier and end later than normal so that he can take every Friday off from October until the end of December.

7. If prompted to save the resource calendar changes you made for Garrett, click Yes.

Use the Tools>Change Working Time, then the Work Weeks tab to set up the normal work week for the selected calendar.

For example, Jon does not work on Fridays from Oct1 to Dec 31, use the Work Weeks tab to change every Friday to a nonworking day.

Name  Click the next available row in the Name column and type the name of the work week change you want to make. (You cannot change the name or dates of the Default row, although you can change the details for the default work week.)

 

Start  Enter the first date on which the work week change should take effect. 10/1/2010

Finish  Enter the last date on which the work week change should take effect. 12/31/2010

 

Details  With the edited work week row still selected, click this button to open the Details dialog box and set Fridays to non-working time. (You can also double-click anywhere in the work week row to open the Details dialog box.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now we want to change Jon's work week times to have him start at 7:00AM and finish at 7:PM

1. First select the Work Weeks tab, and set the start date to 10/1/2010 and finish date to 12/31/2010

dates shown in picture are for illustration only.

 

 

 

 

 

2. Double click one of the dates, or click Details to show the details dialog box below. Select the days Monday to Thursday and set the days to the7:00AM to 7:00PM(with an hour for lunch) working times specified in the illustration below.

Click ok and return to the project. This would be a good time to save your project (ctrl s)

 

Assign Resources to tasks

You do not have to assign resources to tasks in Project; you could work with just tasks. But there are several good reasons to assign resources in your project plan. If you assign resources to tasks, you can answer questions such as

  • Who should be working on what tasks and when?

  • Do you have the right number of resources to do the scope of work your project requires?

  • Are you expecting a resource to work on a task at a time when that resource will not be available to work (for example, when the resource will be on vacation)?

  • Have you assigned a resource to so many tasks that you have exceeded the capacity of the resource to work—in other words, have you overallocated the resource?

 

 

1. On the Project Guide toolbar, click Resources.

2. In the Resources pane, click the Assign people and equipment to tasks link. The Assign Resources Project Guide pane and the Gantt Chart view appear.

3. In the Assign Resources Project Guide pane, click the Assign Resources hyperlink.

The Assign Resources dialog box appears. In it you see resource names you entered in the previous assignment. If the Assign Resources dialog box obscures the Task Name column, drag the dialog box to the lower right corner of the screen. Your screen should look similar to the following illustration:

Tip When you display the Assign Resources dialog box from the Project Guide, you see a slightly simplified version of the dialog box. You’ll see the more complete version of it later .

4. In the Task Name column, click task 2, Develop script.

5. In the Resource Name column in the Assign Resources dialog box, click Garrett R. Vargas, and then click the Assign button. A check mark appears next to Garrett’s name, indicating that you have assigned him to the task of developing the script. Tip Except for assigned resources, which appear at the top of the list, resources are sorted alphabetically in the Assign Resources dialog box.

6. If necessary, scroll the Assign Resources pane down to see the information under step 4, Review Information. Your screen should look similar to the following illustration:

Here you can see the essential scheduling values for this task: duration, work, and assignment units (units are reported here as % of time on task). In the next exercise, you will look at these values more closely to understand the basic scheduling logic that Project follows. Next you assign two resources simultaneously to a task.

7. In the Task Name column, click task 3, Develop storyboards.

8. In the Assign Resources dialog box, click Garrett R. Vargas, hold down the Ctrl key, click Patti Mintz, and then click the Assign button. Check marks appear next to Garrett’s and Patti’s names, indicating that you have assigned both to task 3.

Troubleshooting If you should accidentally assign just a single resource when you intended to assign multiple resources, you can undo the assignment. On the Edit menu click Undo Assignment. You must do this before you perform another action, however, as Project can undo only the most recent action you’ve performed.

To conclude this exercise, you will make initial resource assignments for remaining pre-production tasks.

9. In the Task Name column, click the name of task 4, Pick locations.

10. In the Assign Resources dialog box, click Scott Cooper, and then click the Assign button. A check mark appears next to Scott’s name, indicating that you have assigned him to task 4. Tip To remove or unassign a resource from the selected task, in the Assign Resources dialog box, click the resource name, and then click the Remove button.

11. In the Task Name column, click the name of task 5, Hold auditions.

12. In the Assign Resources dialog box, click Peter Kelly, hold down the Ctrl key, click Scott Cooper, and then click the Assign button. Check marks appear next to Peter’s and Scott’s names, indicating that you have assigned both to task 5. Your screen should look similar to the following illustration:

Your screen should now look similar to the screenshot below.

This is the end of assignment 3