Should it be possible to run a Visual report from a common resource pool?

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    • #5233
      Deonne Schoner
      Keymaster

      I am trying to run a report from a common resource pool to show remaining availability from 10 or so projects whose resources share that of the common resource pool.  I can achieve a pivot table report when running the visual report from a project when not linked to a common resource pool but not from the resource pool itself when shared with other projects.

      Set-up is MSP 2010 Pro (Non-server), MS Excel 2007, Windows XP.

      I would appreciate some feedback on this as I am currently trying to show my business the benefit of being able to determine resource availability across multiple projects with MS Project 2010 using a single resource pool as a stepping stone for them to then invest in MS Project server 2010, but it wont look good if I cant get past this issue.

      My questions are;

      1.        Should it be possible to successfully run a report from the common resource pool to derive this information or am I doing something that MSP isn’t designed to do?

      2.       If it should be possible, am I doing something wrong (see below) or is this a bug in the s/w?

      What I have done to date:

      Using visual reports from a project NOT shared with a common resource pool.

      a)      I select ‘Resource Work Availability Report’, deselect Microsoft Visio and select months from the ‘Select level of usage data to include in the report’.  On pressing ‘View’ the green progress bar grows rapidly whilst reporting the messages

      b)      ‘Gathering reporting data…’

      c)     ‘Building local OLAP cubes’

      d)      ‘Opening Excel report for editing’

      e)      Resulting in an excel sheet with pivot table, all good!

      Using visual reports from a common resource pool which has other projects sharing its pool.

      Same as above a thru c except that the progress bar gets to about 90% and the following message appears;

      ‘An unknown error has occurred’

      ‘An error occurred & the requested action could not be completed at this time’.

      Your help is appreciated.

    • #9759
      Deonne Schoner
      Keymaster

      I reproduced your steps exactly and the Excel report opened without any problems.  The only differences are:  1) I used only 3 projects, plus the resource pool.  2) I’m running Excel 2010, not 2007.  So the answer is yes, it should be possible to run a visual report from a common resource pool.

      So now the trouble shooting begins!  Some suggestions…

      • Try again with only a few projects attached to the resource pool.  If it works, it could be that you need more memory (RAM) in your computer.  Project gets pretty memory intensive doing this type of thing.
      • Though I don’t think this is the problem, you might try this on another machine running Excel 2010, or upgrade your own machine.
      • Check to make sure you have the latest Service Pack for Project / Office.  (Windows Update or other method).

      Hope this helps.

    • #9760
      Deonne Schoner
      Keymaster

      Thank you for the speedy responce Matt.

      As you have suggested

      • I have tried to produce a Visual Report  from the common resource pool whilst having only one small project shared with it and I unfortunately get the same response as previously reported.
      • I have checked the service pack status and already have XP SP3 and Project 2010 SP1 so cant see theres a gap there.
      • I have requested our IT department update my laptops MSExcel from 2007 to 2010 tomorrow.

      At least I now know that it can be done which is encouraging.

      Many thanks for the support & I’ll report back once tested with Excel 2010.

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