Project 2000. Moving From Microsoft Project, страница 8

Units – When resources are assigned, the units setting for the assigned resource can affect the schedule of a task. For example, changing the units of an assigned resource on a fixed units task from 100% to 50% can double the length of your task.

Availability – Resource Availability (Max. Units) settings allow you to specify that a resource is available for an entire project or for a specific date range. Availability settings do not directly affect a task’s schedule, nor do they effect non-working days for a resource (that is, changing a resource’s availability dates does not affect its calendar).

Availability, however, can change a task’s schedule when combined with resource leveling. This is because a resource assigned to a task outside its availability dates is treated as over allocated (that is, A resource’s max available units are set to 0 for non-available time). Thus, leveling may try to adjust tasks and/or assignments to resolve over allocations introduced by the availability settings.

Assignments

Contours – Contours allow you to shape the distribution of assigned work to a predefined pattern. If non-time-phased work values for an assignment are then changed, Microsoft Project can change the schedule of a task to accommodate the predefined pattern. Manually editing the time-phased assignment values on a task results in a custom contour.

Actual Start/ Work – The actual start date of an assignment and/or the actual work of an assignment will fix the schedule of a task to match the values entered in the actual fields.

Delay – Delay may be manually adjusted to adjust individual assignments. For example, if you want a resource to work only the last half of a 10-day duration task, you may delay the resource’s assignment 5 days. When an assignment on a task has some delay, it does not necessarily change a task’s start date, but rather just the start date of the individual assignment.

Leveling Delay – This field shows how much time an assignment is delayed over its regularly scheduled start. Delaying an assignment on a task may (or may not) delay the task as a whole. This value may be changed when a project is leveled or it may be changed manually. Leveling delay is added to any delay value on an assignment.

Try This: Unexpected Scheduling

As a group, develop a Project schedule that behaves unexpectedly using the scheduling areas discussed above. Exchange your schedule with another group and solve their scheduling problem.

1.  Get into groups as arranged by the instructor.

2.  Develop a “problem” schedule using elements listed in the scheduling diagram.

3.  Write down how your group’s project is not scheduling as expected. Also write down each of the reasons it is not scheduling as expected.

4.  Exchange your project with another group. Tell them how you expect for the project to schedule. DO NOT tell them why it is scheduling unexpectedly.

5.  Examine the project you received during the exchange. List the factors involved in the way it is scheduling.

6.  Discuss your conclusions with the group you exchanged projects with.

Working With Microsoft Project 98 Files in Microsoft Project 2000

Like previous versions of Microsoft Project, Microsoft Project 2000 allows you to open project files created in the previous version. In addition, Microsoft Project 2000 allows you to save files created in Microsoft Project 2000 in the Microsoft Project 98 file format. This is a new feature to Microsoft Project. Because of its importance, let’s take a closer look at how Microsoft Project 2000 works with Microsoft Project 98 files.