Max hours per year

[indianoviola]

Hi everybody,
I'm currently trying to set a maximum number of hours per year for all the resources in my project (1600 per year). I tried to change the hours per day and the timetable accordingly, but it's not practical nor working properly (depending on the number of working days i'll have more/less than 1600 hours per year).

Any idea on how I could solve this problem?
Thank you,

 

[PDQBach]

As you've discovered, you probably shouldn't "mess" with hours per day and hours per week.

While I understand what you're trying to achieve, I'm not sure that this is the best way to go about it.

If it were me then I would click on:
View > Resource Usage
Format > Timescale

In the popup
On the Middle Tier tab:
Units: Years
Count: 1
On the Bottom tier tab:
Units: Months
Count: 1
OR
Units: Quarters
Count: 1

Then I would do a copy and paste from MS Project into Excel. You'll actually have to do two of them: one for the information on the left hand side and one for the "grid" information on the right.

In Excel, I'd put in the necessary formulae see what adjustments I needed to make, make them in Project and then loop back to the two copy-and-paste tasks in the previous paragraph.

While you're doing this, remember that *everything* depends on the accuracy of the work and duration estimates. If either of those is inaccurate then the resulting displays will be inaccurate.

 

[indianoviola]

Thank you PDQBach,
so, If I'm not wrong, there isn't a "magic tool" in Project that let you block the maximum hours per year of a certain resource.
This is what some colleagues kept telling me. Evidently, it was a bluff


Thank you for your suggestion, I'll see what suits best to my project.

 

[PDQBach]

Not that I know of.

You can change the Max Units but that only comes into play when you are looking at overallocation (it simply sets a number and then checks to see if the resource is below the number or above -- in which case the resource name is displayed in bold red) and when you are doing Resource Levelling -- something which is fraught with peril.

You might be able to do something if you have Project Server (or stand-alone Project 2010) installed ... but I don't and I have very little knowledge in those areas.