Resource uge sheet - formatting

[ADBain]

I use a shared resource pool over a number of projects. Many of the tasks in each of the projects have similar names such "calibration"

When I view the resource usage sheet I would like some way to automatically format this sheet to show which tasks belong to which project. I do not need the projects named but all Project 1 tasks in blue or italics, Project 2 in red & so on would be ideal.

I could try "Project 1 - Calibration" - but its a lot of typing if I have to do that for every task.

Any suggestions welcome

 

[PDQBach]

Alas! Well, if you are using P2003 it's "alas!". Control over formatting is somewhat constrained.

Basically, you will be unable (without using VBA) to control the font attributes (colour, size, bold/italic) based on the Project name.

Here's a workaround that you might want to consider:

View > Resource Usage
Insert the Project field

This will let you differentiate between the projects. At this point, you could autofilter on each project in turn (in the Project column), select the displayed rows and set the colour attribute appropriately. (As a warning, you'll find that setting the colour for "Unassigned" can be a challenge ... I just left it unchanged in my tests.)

Don't set a project's rows to the colour red ... MSProject will override your colour selections and set resources to red whenever they are overallocated.

 

[ADBain]

Thanks for the tip - do you know if things are different in 2007.

 

[PDQBach]

They are slightly improved.

1. Same list of "Items to Change" (Format > Text styles ... and look at the first item in the popup) - plus a new one ("Changed cells")
2. Same colours
3. Can set the colour for the background of a cell (new)
4. Can set the background pattern for a cell (new)

P2010 has some improvements (I haven't used it, just read a bit about it) including gazillions of colours.