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richie9648's avatar
richie9648
Copper Contributor
Apr 11, 2023

Reporting Aggregated Resources in MS Project

Hi

I have multiple project plans with resources working across each of these plans - is there an easy way to aggregate these resources into a report which shows their utilisation over a month and also utilisation over the next 3 months as an example?

 

Thanks

  • John-project's avatar
    John-project
    Silver Contributor
    Apr 11, 2023

    richie9648 

    It would help to know what version of Project you are using. Each "offering" of Project has a different way of providing the information you want. For example, if you are using a desktop version of Project and have all your resources in a resource pool file, it is a simple matter of configuring the Resource Usage view in the pool file to get the report you want. If each file has its own resources (i.e. no pool) then, depending on your version, there are various ways to produce the report (e.g. Visual Reports, VBA, etc.)

     

    John

    • richie9648's avatar
      richie9648
      Copper Contributor
      Apr 12, 2023

      John-project Thanks for the response

       

      I am using the desktop version of Project professional 2019.  We dont have a resource pool created although that is what I would ideally like to do as its easier to manage.  Is there a guide of how this can be done ?

       

      Thanks

       

       

      • Dale_HowardMVP's avatar
        Dale_HowardMVP
        MVP
        Apr 12, 2023
        richie9648 --

        In addition to the Help article to which John refers you, if your projects already contain resources (which it sounds like they do), open each project and confirm that each resource name is spelled identically across all of your projects. For example, if you have M Cobb in one project and Mickey Cobb in another project, and they both represent the same person, rename M Cobb to Mickey Cobb. After aligning your resource names, save each project.

        Then create a new blank project, apply the Resource Sheet view, and save the MPP file using a name like Shared Resource Pool. Leave this file open, along with each of your projects. In each project, click Resource > Resource Pool > Share Resources. In the Share Resource dialog, select the "Use resources" option, and in the From pick list, select the name of the blank resource pool file. Select the "Pool takes precedence" option and then click the OK button. Microsoft Project will miraculously copy all of the resources from that project into the blank resource pool file. Save the changes to both the project and the shared resource pool file. Close that project but leave the shared resource pool file open.

        Continue the process outlined in the paragraph above until you have connected every project (referred to as a "sharing file") to the shared resource pool file. At the end of this process, you will have fully populated the shared resource pool file with all of your resources.

        Whenever you open the shared resource pool file and you apply the Resource Usage view, you will be able to see and analyze resource utilization information and resource availability information for each of the resources in that file. Also, you will probably want to insert the Project column into the Resource Usage view so that you can see the names of the projects in which each resource is working.
        Hope this helps.

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