MS Project quick help needed

[hardcore1976]

I need some quick help with a basic ms project file.

Its hard to explain in full detail but I'll give you an overview

Have 15 difference projects that i want to schedule together using the same resource pool

I know how many days each task will take and i basically want to enter a start date and have ms project fill in the rest. Can't seem to make this happen.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Jerry Sullivan]

You have the right idea. Some people type the dates into the Start/Finish fields which doesn't use the power of MS Project to simplify changes and do planning. It is a much better practice to build a model that gives the Start Date for the Project, defines the relationship between the tasks and then lets MS Project calculate the dates.

You might want to walk-through a basic tutorial on MS Project (in the Help or an online), since it is very difficult to answer your question adequately in a post.


Conceptually, you will need to link the tasks together showing the relationships using the Predesessor fields. Then MS Project can calculate the dates for each task using one of 3 methods:

• Fixed Duration (based on in Days in the Duration field)
• Fixed Work (based on Hours in the Work field)
• Fixed Units (based on % of each Resource assigned)

You'll need to understand the difference between Duration and Work and set your Project to use the Type you want to calculate each Task.

Glad to help more if you have some specific questions.

 

[hardcore1976]

telling me resources are over allocated to tasks and subtasks. I dont see any sub tasks within my project attached a screen grab for you.

 

[hardcore1976]

also for some reason project is making line 56 start before other tasks even though i have input everything in the priority i want it to schedule (descending order) do I need to update the priority somehow? see image

 

[Jerry Sullivan]

telling me resources are over allocated to tasks and subtasks. I dont see any sub tasks within my project attached

The message is telling you that some resources are scheduled to work more than the hours they have available on their calendars. I think that MS Project warning message just uses the term "Tasks and SubTasks" regardless of whether there are any SubTasks.

also for some reason project is making line 56 start before other tasks even though i have input everything in the priority i want it to schedule (descending order) do I need to update the priority somehow?

The sequence isn't determined by the order of the tasks listed. It is determined by the relationships of the Predecessor and any Constraints such as (Must Start By, Must Finish By).

When you use the link tasks button, MS Project assumes that your tasks are sequential as a default.

In the case of Task 56, is shows start date of 1/27/11. Since there is no Predecessor listed, this is probably the start date of your project. If all your Tasks are sequential in the order listed, then you probably want to make Task 54 a Predecessor to Task 56.

 

[hardcore1976]

First of all thank you. Let me give you some background, i entered a start date and project generated the dates for each task. I'll try what you said. TY. How does MS project have the ability to check resources calendars? I haven't set them up other than just a name?

 

[hardcore1976]

Here the error message i'm getting although project has now reordered all the dates in my project even though i had it setup very specifically. Have to figure out how to get it back where I want it.

 

[Jerry Sullivan]

Now I understand that you have projects imported into a single consolidated project. That is why MS Project was referring to SubTasks.

We use Project Server with a shared Resource Pool, so I'm not positive what MS Project does when you just create a new user in a project. It probably uses a default calendar with 8 hours per day, 5 days per week.

You can go to View > Resource Usage to see how much work is allocated to each Resource, and which projects.

 

[hardcore1976]

This is what I see for some reason on only one or two projects its over allocated a bunch of hours and I have no idea why its putting a time contraint on them. I just want the program to tell me when everything will be done when I enter a start date. Doesn't seem to be working the way I want. We don't have server version just my personal version and I've just entered my resources directly into the resources tab no separate pool. I've listed everything in days so I'm not sure why 9 to 5 would matter as hours aren't important. See this image for the detail:

 

[Jerry Sullivan]

As an example, Tyler is scheduled for 64 hours of work on Thurs 2/17. Since one person can't do 64 hours work in a day, you need to:

• Add more resources; or
• Change the project schedule to spread Tyler's work over more days

You can ignore the warning too if you know that the overallocation is okay (for example if Tyler represents a team of 8 people).