Forum Discussion
Resource leveling doesnt do anything
Good day folks,
Hopefully you will be able to help me here - fairly new to MSP. Background - I'm using MSP to manage aircraft heavy maintenance input phases. I have my team set up as work resources, each task is set in project with work amount per task and team member resources allocated to each task
The issue I can't get over is I have for example several tasks on the induction phase that will be carried out by one team member - no matter what I do I can't get project to level that team member so it shows the tasks being conducted one after the other - they stay as 'concurrent' and the resource always shows overloaded. It's frustrating the heck out of me :D
Any thoughts? What are the things that can stop leveling from doing it's thing? Let me know if you need to see any settings
5 Replies
Hi Richard
Although it's not possible to know what's happening in your project based only on the information you describe, I'm informing you about a situation in which the conflicting resource does not level, assuming this is your case and may be helpful:
If you have two tasks in overallocation with a resource, both Fixed Duration tasks, and you assign more work to the resource on each task than they can complete based on their working time (rersource calendar), Project won't level the task.
Ignacio
P.D. In the previous example, Resource1 has the same calendar as the Project (Estándar).
Ignacio
Hi Richard, building up on what John and Trevor noted above, what leveling does is remove overallocations by spreading out the work. It looks at the priority field, resource and work calendars, and pushes out lower priority resource assignments to remove overallocations in your schedule. That's a summary of what leveling helps you with.
The first step is always to review the 'resource usage' or 'task usage' views in Project, and move the hours so you are no longer overallocated (manual leveling). By doing this you are solving your problem by thinking through the solution (when tasks should resource A work on, when). You may come up with timing solutions you hadn't considered by doing this.
Project's leveling engine can automate this process with suggested spreading of the work. We always recommend doing the first (manual), and then trying the 2nd to see what kind of results you get. You can always 'unlevel' and go back to your starting point.
Are all of the tasks auto scheduled?
Do you have any resources assigned to summaries?
Are the task and resource calendars different?
What does the over-allocation look like in the resource usage view?
What does it look like in the resource graph view?
Richard_199,
Well we can't have you being all frustrated. I mean, that is just not good, not good at all, but unfortunately Project excels at that with new users :-)
Okay, let's see what you got. I'd like to see some screen shots.
- Gantt Chart display showing a typical bunch of tasks, with resources assigned. Make sure it includes these fields: Indicators, Task Mode, ID, Name, Duration, Start, Finish, Priority, Predecessors, Resource Names. Similar to this:
2. Your Leveling options
Also, do any tasks have progress (i.e. non-zero % Complete)?
Let's start there.
John
- Gantt Chart display showing a typical bunch of tasks, with resources assigned. Make sure it includes these fields: Indicators, Task Mode, ID, Name, Duration, Start, Finish, Priority, Predecessors, Resource Names. Similar to this:
