How to create colour code resources on task bar

[Betegh]

thread913-591102

I was looking to colour code in MS Project 2010 and using the information that was posted in Jan 2004 figured it out. Thought it may help others.

Steps:

1. Make sure each of your resources have distinct names or initials. We use full names at our organization. Important to note that you can only colour code up to 20 resources. If you're looking for more you're out of luck. It would be hard anyways as eventually many colours start to look the same on your monitor.
2.Right click on any column.
3. Select Custom Fields
4. Type: Select Flags (it has to be flags) Please note important to keep it on Tasks and not Resources as you're changing the appearance of a task on the gantt chart.
5. Rename each flag to the Resource name exactly as you have it on your resource list.
6. Under custom attributes select formula
7. Create formula in the box as "the name of the resource as entered" = {Resource Name} Note: I used the insert field -> text -> resource name rather than typing in as it didn't work when typing in for me.
8. select okay
9. Under Format choose Format -> Bar Styles
10. Scroll down to the bottom to enter information rather than selecting insert row at the top. For me if I did it at the top it didn't work and all bars would change colour. Make sure to scroll down.
11. Name Field enter the resource name as entered in the system
12. Appearance Field choose the colour you want. Do not hit okay make sure you do the next step or you'll also have an error.
13. Show For Tasks: Enter the Flag# that you changed names.

Please note, the flag number and resource name must be the same as what you did steps 1 through 6.

Hope this helps people looking to do this in MS Project 2010. Similar as the thread I referenced but slightly different.

 

[JulieInMaine]

Thank you for posting this. A couple of quick comments. In a US English installation some of the field delimiters may be different.

The formula you note in step 7 should not have braces around "Resource Name" and the field name is Resource Names, not Resource Name. The formula should be

"Name of Resource" = [Resource Name]

Also, this formula only works if the resource is the only one assigned. You might find the following formula works a bit better:

IIf(Instr([Resource Names],"Name of Resource")>0,"Yes")

This formula will search the [Resource Names] field and if the "Name of the Resource" appears anywhere in the string, it will return the position of the string. If the resource's name is in the list, the value should be greater than zero.

I hope this helps.

Julie