Task work hours derived from Resource available time

[mikeisasking]

I'm creating a plan for a university, which looks at resource time not in hours but as a percentage of time available to the project when doing their planning. I can't figure out how to do this. Here are the details:

>The total number of hours available for the year is 1950 (which I addressed by creating a calendar for all project resources to use)
>Resource 'Z' has been assigned to the project and it will take 33% of his time - doing the math that would be 643.5 hours
>Task 3.1.1 has a fixed duration of 13 weeks
>Resource 'Z' is to be assigned to Task 3.1.1 to use 9% of HIS time - doing the math 57.9 hrs

I would like for the project admin to be able assign resources and enter the percent instead of doing the math each time. If you enter the percentage when assigning the resource (in this case 9%) MSProject will take the duration, convert that to hours (in this case 13wks * 37.5hrs = 487.5hrs) and then use the 9% to determine Work hours (in this case 43.875 hrs).

How can I get it to use the 9% based on the Resource total project hours and not the task total project hours?

 

[JulieInMaine]

You've lost me completely.

If Resource Z can work on the project 33% - why are you assigning him at 9%? The math is fairly simple - work = duration * assignment units. If you know how much work is expected, enter the work and let project calculate assignment units. If you know the duration and the units, assign the resource at 9% and Project will calculate the work. Project has no idea of "total project hours" - it knows task duration, assignments, and work per task. The total Project work is calculated.

 

[mikeisasking]

This is my first interaction with how universities run grant projects - and its different (the term weird also works)

The 9% is Resource Z's work on a specific task. In other words, it is 9% out of 100% of his commitment. If you add up all of Resource Z's assignments on this project, it would be 100% (of his total 33%). Another way to look at this is that they get to use Resource Z on a project and they spread his time over a series of tasks (some tasks get more of him and others get less of him) but they use all of the time they are allowed to use. This 'time' adds up to 33% of his total annual time.

I know the duration and the units and want it to calculate work, but if I assign the resource at 9% it calculates the work at 43.875 hrs (see why above). From the people managing the resources perspective, the answer is 57.9 hrs (which is calculated as:
total avail hours * project commitment % * task assignment % = no. hours on the task)

Worst case is that we could calculate the task hours using the above formula outside of MSProject and enter the work per task. This would greatly decrease the value of using MSP. My goal is to get them off of their current spreadsheet planning to MSP to facilitate planning (and make revising it easier) but also to enable project tracking and reporting.

Does this make more sense?

 

[JulieInMaine]

Sorry - still baffled. Assuming I've read between the lines - I'm guessing you have customized the calendar to a 37.5 hour work week with a 7.5 hour per day. My standard calendar is set to 8:15 to 4:30 with 45 minutes for lunch. My hours per day = 7.5, my hours per week = 37.5.

I create a 13 week task, fix the duration and enter 57.9 hour of work. The resource's peak units is 12%, not 9%. So, where is the 9% coming from?

I don't think you are going to get what you want - as to me, it sounds arbitrary to say its 9% of 643.5 hours to do this 13 week task. Project excels at scheduling - if you are going to say it is 13 weeks (fixed) and 57.9 hours - what do you need Project to calculate?

 

[mikeisasking]

I think it IS arbitrary the way the work hours of the task are estimated. I believe the faculty member builds the task list, then looks at a resource and (going down the task list) assigns 2% on a task and 30% on another task and 9% on another task until it all adds up to 100%. Then they see how much time this particular resource can 'commit' to the project. After that, the simple math arrives at how many hours this resource is assigned this task. Their goal is to consume the resource, not really accurately estimate the task. But the hours, once calculated, are important as they are used to determine project cost.

What I was hoping for is a way to allow them to continue this method in MSP. MSP would do the calculation of 57.9 hours after they had assigned the resource, the percent of time the resource will work on the task, and the task duration. I can get MSP to do the calculation if I enter the percentage, but it uses this percentage against the duration to determine work hours.

It seems from your reaction that this is probably not possible. My goal will be to get them to do true task level estimating but I don't think they will. I'm trying to make this more attractive than spreadsheets but maybe that is the right answer.

 

[JulieInMaine]

No, Project will not calculate work based upon a resource's total "commitment" to the project. Project will calculate work - but the percentage you are referring to is not the percentage Project uses. You can certainly quickly see total hours per resource in a resource view. The only advantage I can remotely see for using Project in this manner is the Gantt chart view and the ability to create "to-do" lists easily. But it does not appear that it is being used for any scheduling purposes.

 

[mikeisasking]

Thank you for you help.

 

[JulieInMaine]

You're welcome. Sorry the answer wasn't more to your needs.