Resource Levelling – partial and by the hour/minute

[MattJKing71]

Hi. I want to move Work from a lower priority task away from times when the Resource is over utilised (at 15 minute interval level – the lowest level Resource Usage will show).

In MSP I have programmed Scheduled tasks for several training courses – each 2 hours e.g. from 10:00 to 12:00 and assigned resources.
Resource Levelling minute by minute moves some courses out to later times or dates (still in the same week) so no Resource is double-booked 🙂 I then changed these from Auto Scheduled and Priority 999 to Manual, so they can’t move.

I then added an Auto Scheduled task to run concurrently, with all the same Resources but at with [25%] after each resource name, to limit the max amount of utilisation (per day???). The total Work assigned to the task is also 25% (just the usual/default MSP working hours, no public holidays) and in Resource Usage few an equal amount of Work is allocated for this task, to each resource e.g. 0.25d/10h per day or 0.06h per 15 minutes. This task is lower Priority than the Manually

What I then want to do is Resource Level/move around those 0.06 hours to different times of day/days in same or neighbouring weeks, when the a resource is overallocated e.g. from 10:00 to 12:00 on the Tuesday – but AUTOMATICALLY. Manually I can do this in Resource Usage e.g. 0.6h, 0.6h, 0.6h, 0.6h, 0.6h becomes, 0.0 0.9 0.9 0.6 0.6. But, depending on what settings I use on the Task, Auto Levelling leaves over-utilisations in (because I’ve manually edited allocations? or levelling doesn’t work at per 15m intervals?) e.g., adding the Training course Work (@100% allocation): 0.31h per 15 minute interval and Auto Levelling either doesn’t change the values assigned or shoves all the Work to as late as possible/increases.
In reality, I have my scenario is far bigger scale – thus manually would need copious amendment.

[Daryl Deffler]

Matt;
I’ve been out of MS Project for a few years now, but let me suggest the following.
Scheduling/Leveling is an extremely complicated component in MS Project. There is a series of articles available along with two webinars that go into it in detail. I know the author. 😉
Here is a link to the first of the series. https://www.mpug.com/resource-leveling-scheduling-vs-leveling/
Links to all the articles and webinars are located in each article.

I’d suggest reviewing these to get more of an understanding of how the many options actually work. The articles explain the scheduling / leveling priorities which will help you configure your training courses and other tasks so they stay put, or moved as expected. For example, the task scheduling priority of 1000 is the highest priority tasks in leveling and with a priority of 1000, project will not move them, but in most cases, will simply move other lower priority tasks instead.

I’ve also found thru many experiments that MS Project levels things much better when looking at larger intervals, such as weekly. Yes, the schedule may show overallocations on a specific day, but overall, across the week, the resource will not be overallocated. For example, resource allocation may look like: 14h, 10h, 8h, 8h, 0h
Generally speaking, the tighter you try to control the scheduling intervals (15 min), the worse Project schedules. The broader the intervals (weekly), the better Project works. Also, one point I used to make to PMs I worked with. Don’t try to micro manage/schedule the work. What’s critical is that Project forecasts the amount of work in the week correctly. It really doesn’t matter if, within that week, Project shows a task occurring on Monday or Tuesday. The resource will perform the task when needed and the work will be done in that week.
Hope this helps
Daryl Deffler

[MattJKing71]

Thanks Daryl!
Actually, yours was the first article Google found (before I joined MPUG recently).
I think the short answer is it can’t be done automatically. I can get MSP to divide the work evenly over the time of the Task, but not shift work for that task to another time where the resource is temporally over-scheduled.
For context, this is a draft plan and being used as a resource plan/to identify where overallocation can’t be managed without replanning other Tasks. I have the Level 1 and 2 Tasks programmed in, plus training and holiday (as Work, not via Calendar – just easier to move it around). And a placeholder task for activities that haven’t been planned yet – so total 15% over the project timeframe and per day/hour at times that Resources aren’t overallocated. This is the first task where I move work (manually in Resource Usage view) to neighbouring days/weeks if there’s overallocation.
Many thanks,
Matt.

[Author]

Posts