Sunday, April 29, 2007

MS Project 2007 Server Lane: Resources' Max Unit

Max. Units, the maximum units value specifies how much of this resource is available for this project — for example, part-time or multiples.

Saying this resource is available 100% means he is a full time resource, less than that means he is a part time resource.

For example, if you have a resource who is available 3 days a week then the Max Units for him/her is 60%. If he/she is available for the whole week then Max Units is 100%

You can enter maximum units as a percentage (50%, 100%, 300%), or as a decimal (0.5, 1, 3).

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi!

Max units are ok for part-timers, etc. But how do you include the calculation of "other tings" when it comes to developers being hired 100%?

Let's say I have developer Tom. He has additional responsibility for the build system - these tasks are ongoing tasks and not something set up in project. This means that he is only available 80%.

Tom enjoys his work very much. But as other humans he spend some time getting coffee, reading blogs, doing research, getting more coffee, using the facilities, etc. He also does his share of 3rd level support. As a whole his original 100% position is reduced to 65%.

My point; if I set his availability to 65% - how will this impact the schedule? Let us say that he has one task that takes 40 hours. Will this task be scheduled over 5 days working time, but over 6.5 days calendar time (leaving out the weekend)?

I have currently set the developers availability to 100%, and then use the actual percentage (65% in Tom's case) on the estimate. Is this wrong? A 20 hour estimate is then re-calculated to 38 hours something. But that is the calendar time he will spend on it.

Bilal Okour said...

First
Ok, as I understand from your comment that you have Tom who is working in your organization but he is not fully dedicated for your project, here I can assume two scenarios
1. Ongoing tasks are not assigned to the resource Tom, he can enter his work in these tasks through TimeSheets
2. Ongoing tasks are included in your as recurring tasks
In first scenario Tom is given 80% as Max unit and in this case he is considered as Part Time resource for your Projects only (not for your organization). So you need to do the following
• Assign 80% as Max unit for this resource
• Each time you are assigning him a tasks then the Project will give him 80% and off course the Project will select the Task type to be Fixed Unit by default, efforts driven option is checked also by default
Each time the Project is required to rescheduling then it will touch only the duration of the Task. Only the Task Duration will get affected (increased or decreased). Like this you will maintain a fixed work for this resource and it will not exceed the Max unit.
In the second scenario the Project will do the same thing as in the first one except that each time a resource is assigned to a Task then the Project will assign 100% of the resource units to this Task

Second
You said
“My point; if I set his availability to 65% - how will this impact the schedule? Let us say that he has one task that takes 40 hours. Will this task be scheduled over 5 days working time, but over 6.5 days calendar time (leaving out the weekend)?”
This is not calculated like this, here are my notes on this paragraph
• 65% which I assume that you meant by it the Max Unit for the resource is called capacity, not availability
• The project will calculated the duration as the following (assuming that only Tom will work only this) Duration =work/units  duration = 40/0.65 = 61.5 hours = 7.7 days (approximately)
• The project will estimate schedule taking into consideration that this resource can provide 65% from his efforts to this project. If the work exceeded that the project will alert you that this resource get over allocated
Third
“I have currently set the developers availability to 100%, and then use the actual percentage (65% in Tom's case) on the estimate. Is this wrong? A 20 hour estimate is then re-calculated to 38 hours something. But that is the calendar time he will spend on it.”
This is completely wrong, you have to set the Capacity to (either 65% or 100%), please refer to my first comment.
Besides, there is nothing called Actual, please refer to my first comment


Best Regards
http://ebilal.spaces.live.com

Anonymous said...

I found the "solution" to the problem yesterday, at least for me.

I included the column "work" and added the estimates of the tasks there.

I used max units for the availability (e.g. 65%).

When adding or changing tasks and/or resources now, everyhting seems to work as it should. Work takes 7.5 hours, but for a 50% resource it takes 2 days (duration) to get the job done.

Anyways - thanks for your reply.

Bilal Okour said...

What you did is right, you fixed the Work and Unit and thus you allowed the Project to only play with the duration

Please refer to my post on
http://ebilal.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!1EB5037F50572440!696.entry
It will illustrate this for you

Best Regards
Bilal Okour
http://ebilal.spaces.live.com