Calendar problem 1

[WaterGypsy]

We appear to have a problem with calendars.

Please bear with me while I try to explain it because I'm not really sure I understand the problem....

We are running MSP 2007 and recently amended the bank holidays on the calendars held in the resource pool, now it appears that every time a plan is opened that has different holidays to the ones defined in the resource pool instead of overwriting the calendar in the plan MSP creates a new calendar adding an identifying number to the calendar name (eg: Calendar35 becomes Calendar351, then Calendar352 etc).

Some plans which have been accessed regularly appear to have a few thousand calendars. This is causing significant performance issues.

Does anyone recognise the problem and know if there is a solution?

 

[PDQBach]

I *think* that this problem (or one very similar to it) was mentioned here a *long* time ago.

Yes here it is.

In that case, the issue was related to a resource pool. You didn't mention a resource pool so I don't know if it works as a starting point for you.

 

[WaterGypsy]

Hi .... thanks for that

We are running macros to clean up the projects in that manner, I don't suppose you know why this happens do you?

You mention resource pools - almost with some resignation as if they are the cause of many problems - would that be your experience?

 

[PDQBach]

No, I don't know why it happens ... in fact, the link I gave was the first time I'd heard of anything like that.

Resource pools are occasionally the source of, uh, challenges. There's nothing inherently wrong with them, but they are so easy to mess up: deleting projects and not doing it correctly, moving/renaming project files, etc., as well as (depending on the circumstances) substantial loads on a PC (particularly in the days of significantly slower CPUs).

In the rare times where I've needed them, there have been so many project files and PMs that the best approach was to write some macros that basically raced through each project file, pulled out summary resource loading data and then presenting that in an Excel spreadsheet. The PMO reviewed the spreadsheet for significant overallocations and then dealt with the affected PMs individually. The thing that you have to remember is that overloading is based on the resources' estimates for the various deliverables and resources' estimates can be wildly at odds with reality (everybody pads, for example!).

I can't remember how we maintained consistency in resource names (distributed spreadsheet? project template prepopulated with all resource names?) but I don't recall it being (relatively speaking) a particularly onerous task to periodically consistify errant names. Shortly after I left, the company moved on to Project Server which solves many problems (while bringing in many of its own <grin>).

 

[WaterGypsy]

Thanks for the background ... very interesting indeed ... maybe we need to look at something similar

 

[PDQBach]

How many "real" calendars do you have? Would it be difficult to replicate them? (I'm thinking in terms of the number of calendars and how far into the future they go.)

You *might* want to consider (especially if the a resource's calendar is based on a standard set of holidays plus the vacation time for that resource) creating a new "holidays" calendar and saving that. Then, for each resource: note the additional dates (vacation days, etc.); delete all calendars for that resource; recreate the resource's calendar based on the "holidays" calendar plus the specific dates for that resource.

It's a bit time-consuming but if the existing problem is causing you grief (and lost time!) then it might be a possible approach.

It goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway <grin>) ... you MUST back up the project file before messing with it!

Finally, at a high level (you don't have to post the VBA), I'm interested in knowing what you have your macros doing to fix things and, of course, I'd like to know if that approach seems to have worked. Thanks.