Generic Resources Over-Allocated on a template?

[jeff Heath]

I’m attempting to follow best practice by creating a generic role loaded schedule template. In the local template all the roles are limited to 30% max units. However, when I switched to enterprise roles, the max units equates to the capacity of the roles. Do I need to tell my PMs to use local roles to reflect the correct Max Units? Thus, after they have assigned the local roles throughout the schedule, they should switch the local roles to enterprise resources?

Thanks for the feedback.

[Larry Christofaro]

Good question Jeff. The enterprise roles should be set as appropriate for the enterprise. There is more to exactly what and how to set them, but that’s for another question. I would use the enterprise roles for your template to keep things consistent. I would then teach the PMs to change the max units for each role to what is appropriate for that project. Assuming that not every project uses 30% of a resource, this to me is consistent with best practice. When the schedule is first created and assignments are initially being set, overriding max units at the resource level makes it easier overall. Once the project is going and they are making minor changes, the assignment units can be set without first resetting the resource max units. They will need to override the max units each time they are going through a rescheduling process (some weekly, some bi-weekly or monthly).

Note this is required if you are managing resource capacity at the enterprise level, which is out of reach for many organizations. If that is the case, then best practice is to whatever level appropriate for your organization. Hope that helps…

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