Assigning Resource Percentages

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    • #414920
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Two questions
      1) When assigning resource percentages is this done on a daily effort percentage basis or is it calculated on a weekly basis?
      2) I also set the resource to work 8 hours for a task (this is for a 7.5 hour work day). The software flagged it as over utilization but will it schedule the resource to work on a second day in the week instead?

      I use Project 2013, under Options, i set the resource scheduling to be done in hours, with resources working 7.5 hours a day, 37.5 hours a week.

    • #414922
      Daryl Deffler
      Participant

      Mae
      Simple questions, complex answers. There are a LOT of variables that impact resource leveling.
      I’ve published a series of articles that cover all these variables and provides examples. I would suggest giving them a read. The first article is here:
      https://www.mpug.com/articles/resource-leveling-scheduling-vs-leveling/
      However, without getting into too much details, here are my brief answers.

      1) The resource percentage is based on the Resources availability which is defined by their calendar. In general, if a resource is assigned 50% on a task that will be executed on a day when the resource has 8 hours of available time, the resource will be assigned 4 hours of work.
      Keep in mind this can be affected by tasks with task calendars since the resource would only be assigned working time where both the resource and task calendars overlap. For example, Task Cal=Tue-Sat 12PM-8PM and the Resource Cal= Mon-Fri 8AM-5PM, would result in a resource only assigned 4 hours a day Tue-Fri 12PM-5PM because this is when both calendars overlap.

      2) what constitutes an over allocation is more complex. For most hours driven tasks (duration is driven by the resource availability and work hours assigned), it depends on how the “Look for overallocations” parameter is set in the leveling options. The following article contains a more detailed explanation of how this works and will show you how Project can schedule 16 hour days for an 8 hour a day resource without flagging it as overallocated.
      https://www.mpug.com/articles/resource-leveling-leveling-mechanics/

      It also depends on the task type and the assignment units. For example, lets say Bob is available 80% based on Max Units. Bob is assigned to a 1 hour fixed duration task at 100%. For a meeting lets say. That TASK will be flagged as overallocated because the task configuration and resource allocation has created an over allocation for that one specific hour. Meaning Bob can only work 48 minutes in an hour (max units = 80%) but you’ve assigned him 60 minutes in an hour. Bottom line, a task configuration can also cause an overallocation. More details can be found in this article:
      https://www.mpug.com/articles/resource-leveling-problem-indicators/

      To answer #2, it depends. If you have not leveled yet, try that. If it doesn’t fix the overallocation it may be a task configuration issue. For example, the task is configured as Fixed Duration 1 Day and the resource is allocated more work than can be accommodated in that fixed duration.

      Hope that helps and gives you a starting point.

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