Assign work resources to tasks

You might recall from Chapter 5 that the capacity of a resource to work is measured in units (a level-of-effort measurement) and recorded in the Max. Units field. The specific assignment of a work resource to a task involves an assignment units value, normally expressed as a percentage. Unless you specify otherwise, Project assigns 100 percent of the units for the resource to the task—that is, Project assumes that all the resource’s work time can be allotted to the task. If the resource has less than 100 percent maximum units, Project assigns the resource’s Max. Units value.

When you assign a work resource to a task, Project uses the resource’s assignment units and the task’s duration values to calculate the resulting work. If the resource has a pay rate, Project also calculates the resource and task costs for you.

Project calculates work by using this formula:

Duration × Assignment Units = Work

Consider a simple example:

40 hours task duration × 100% assignment units = 40 hours of work

Here’s a slightly more complicated example. If you assign two resources to a task that has a 3-day duration, this is the result:

24 hours (that’s three 8-hour days) task duration × 200% (for two resources) assignment units = 48 hours of total work

The 48 hours of work is the sum of each of the two resources’ 24 hours of work. In other words, both resources will work full time on the task in parallel for its 3-day duration.

After making the initial resource assignment to a task, you have some flexibility in determining how Project should respond when you add (or remove) subsequent resources to the same task. When you add (assign) or remove (unassign) resources, you can tell Project whether you want to change that initial work value and how it might affect other values of assignments and the duration of the task. The topic “Control work when adding or removing resource assignments,” later in this chapter, delves into adding or removing assignments.

You can assign resources in different ways. The Assign Resources dialog shown in Figure 6-1 works well in task-centric views such as the Gantt Chart view shown in Figure 6-2, the Task Sheet view, or the Task Usage view.

After you assign resources, you can see the results of the assignments in a few different ways.

A check mark and cost value appear next to the assigned resource’s name in the Assign Resources dialog. Project calculates the cost of the assignment (the resource’s standard pay rate times the resource’s scheduled amount of work on the task) and displays the resulting value in the Cost field of the Assign Resources dialog.

Another handy view in which you can see assignment details is the Task Form view displayed in Figure 6-3.

If you read Chapter 5, you might recognize that the Task Form is similar to the Resource Form but shows different kinds of information. In this type of split view, information about the item (a task, for example) that’s selected in the upper pane appears in the lower pane. The Task Form displays one of several sets of information at a time, which are referred to as details.

You can see in Figure 6-4 that you can change the displayed details in the Task Form. With the Work details displayed, you can see the essential scheduling values for a task—for example, the values might be 1 week duration, 40 hours of work, and 100% assignment units.

Another quick way to assign resources is to use the Resource Names column in a Gantt Chart view as Figure 6-5 shows.

You select the checkboxes of the resources you want to assign to the active task; to unassign a resource, clear the appropriate checkbox.

To assign a work resource to a task

You can perform the following steps in most task-centric views that include a table. Examples include the Gantt Chart, Task Sheet, and Task Usage views.

1. Select the task to which you want to assign a resource.

2. On the Resource tab, in the Assignments group, select Assign Resources. The Assign Resources dialog opens. You can drag it anywhere you want on the screen.

3. In the Resource Name column in the Assign Resources dialog, select the resource or resources you want to assign and then select Assign.

Or

You can perform the following steps in any task-centric view with the Entry table displayed.

1. Tap or click in the Resource Names column for a task, and then select the arrow that appears. A list of resource names appears.

   Tip

   If the Resource Names column is not already visible, in a Gantt chart view, drag the vertical divider bar to the right.

2. In the list of resource names, select the checkbox for the resource or resources you want to assign to the selected task, and then press Enter.

To view or edit assignment details in the Task Form view

You can perform these steps in the Task Sheet or Task Usage view, or in any Gantt chart view.

1. On the View tab, in the Split View group, select the Details checkbox. Project splits the window into two panes, with the Task Form view in the bottom pane.

2. Tap or click anywhere in the Task Form view. With the focus on the Task Form, note that the label of the Gantt Chart Format tab changes to Task Form Format. Now the commands available on the Task Form Format tab apply only to the Task Form.

3. On the Task Form Format tab, in the Details group, select Work. The Work details appear in the Task Form.

Control work when adding or removing resource assignments

As you saw previously, you define the amount of work that a task represents when you initially assign one or more resources to it. For tasks that are automatically (instead of manually) scheduled, Project gives you an option to control how it should calculate work on a task when you assign additional resources to or unassign resources from the task.

This option, called effort-driven scheduling, works like this:

• The work of a task remains constant as you assign or unassign resources.

• As more resources are assigned to a task, its duration decreases. The total work remains the same and is distributed among the assigned resources.

• Similarly, as resources are unassigned from a task, its duration increases. The total work remains the same and is distributed among the remaining assigned resources.

You have flexibility in how you apply effort-driven scheduling. By default, effort-driven scheduling is disabled for all tasks you create in Project. You can turn on effort-driven scheduling for an entire plan or just specific tasks. You can also use the options in an Actions list (described later in this topic) to control how Project should recalculate work on a task immediately after assigning or unassigning a resource.

Let’s walk through an example of how effort-driven scheduling works. This example includes the Task Form view shown in Figure 6-6 because it’s a convenient way to see assignment units, work, and duration values.

Initially, Toby is assigned to task 5. A quick check of the assignment calculation looks like this:

80 hours (the same as 10 days, or 2 weeks) task duration × 100% of Toby’s assignment units = 80 hours of work

Toby needs some help with this task, so you add Zac to the task, illustrated in Figure 6-7.

Because effort-driven scheduling is turned off for this task, Project adds more work to this task and updates the assignment values:

80 hours (the same as 10 days, or 2 weeks) task duration × 200% (that is, the sum of Toby's and Zac's assignment units) = 160 hours of work

You can use the Actions list shown in Figure 6-8 to control how Project schedules the work on a task when adding or removing resources. Note the small green triangle in the upper-left corner of the name of task 5. This is a graphical indicator that an action is now available. Until you perform another action, you can use the Actions list to choose how you want Project to handle the additional resource assignment.

You can use these options to choose the scheduling result that you want. You can adjust the task’s duration, the resources’ work, or the assignment units.

When a task has multiple resources assigned and you unassign one from the task, you can also use the Actions list shown in Figure 6-9 to tell Project how to schedule the remaining resource assignments on the task.

So far, this chapter has focused on adjusting duration and work values as you add or remove resources from tasks. You can also change the default setting for a task so that as you add resources to the task, its work remains unchanged, and its duration decreases.

Let’s return to the effort-driven scheduling example. Currently, only Zac is assigned to task 10, which has a 2-week duration. In Figure 6-10, notice in the Task Form that effort-driven scheduling currently is off for this task.

When effort-driven scheduling is turned on as shown in Figure 6-11 and another resource is assigned to the task, note the result.

The task 10 duration is reduced from 2 weeks to 1 week. The total work on the task remains 80 hours, but now it is split evenly between Zac and Hany. If this isn’t the scheduling result you want, you can use the Actions list to change how Project responds to the additional resource assignment.

The order of your actions matters when effort-driven scheduling is enabled. If you initially assign two resources to a task with a duration of 3 days (equal to 24 working hours), Project schedules each resource to work 24 hours, for a total of 48 hours of work on the task. However, you might initially assign one resource to a task with a duration of 24 hours and later add a second resource. In this case, effort-driven scheduling causes Project to schedule each resource to work 12 hours in parallel, keeping the total of 24 hours of work on the task. Remember that when it’s turned on, effort-driven scheduling adjusts the task duration only if you add or remove resources to or from a task.

To change the schedule result when you assign an additional resource to a task

You can perform these steps in any task-centric view that includes a table. Examples include the Gantt Chart, Task Sheet, and Task Usage views.

1. Select a task that already has a resource or resources assigned.

2. In the Assign Resources dialog, select the resource you want and then select Assign.

3. Select the Actions button that appears just to the left of the task name and select the schedule result you want.

   Tip

   When you make changes to assignments in the Resource name column, you also see the Actions button. This happens only for automatically scheduled tasks.

To change the schedule result when you remove a resource from a task

These steps apply as long as at least one resource remains assigned to the task. You can perform these steps in any task-centric view that includes a table.

1. Select a task that has multiple resources assigned.

2. In the Assign Resources dialog, select the assigned resource you want and then select Remove.

3. Select the Actions button that appears just to the left of the task name, and then select the schedule result you want.

To manage effort-driven scheduling for a specific task or tasks

1. Select the task or tasks you want.

2. On the Task tab, in the Properties group, select Information.

3. On the Advanced tab of the Task Information dialog, select or clear the Effort driven checkbox.

To turn on effort-driven scheduling for all new tasks in a plan

1. On the File tab, select Options.

2. In the Project Options dialog, select Schedule.

3. Under Scheduling options for this project, select the New tasks are effort driven checkbox.

Assign cost resources to tasks

Recall from Chapter 5 that a cost resource represents a financial cost associated with a task in a project. Cost resources might include categories of expenses that you want to budget and track for accounting or financial reporting purposes.

Cost resources do not incur assignment units, so they do no work and have no effect on the scheduling of a task. In fact, the cost value derived from assigning a cost resource to a task remains the same even if changes are made to the scheduling of the task, such as assigning or unassigning work resources or changing the task’s duration.

The costs that tasks can incur include these broad categories:

• Work resource costs, such as a person’s standard pay rate times the amount of work that a person performs on the task

• Cost resource costs, which are fixed dollar amounts you enter when assigning the cost resources to a task

The costs derived from cost resource assignments represent planned costs. (Indeed, you need to consider all costs that Project has calculated so far in the schedule to be planned costs, such as costs that result from work resource assignments to tasks.) Later, you can enter actual costs if you want to compare them with the budget.

To assign a cost resource to a task

1. In a task-centric view that includes a table, select the task to which you want to assign a cost resource. Examples include the Gantt Chart, Task Sheet, and Task Usage views.

2. On the Resource tab, in the Assignments group, select Assign Resources. The Assign Resources dialog opens. You can drag it anywhere you want on the screen.

3. In the Assign Resources dialog, select the Cost field for the cost resource you want to assign and then enter a cost value for that assignment.

Check the plan after assigning resources

After you create a task list and assign resources to tasks, your plan contains many details. Some of these details are critical to the success of your plan, but they might not be visible in the view you’ve displayed. This topic illustrates several ways of seeing a plan’s key indicators.

Project gives you many ways to see key indicators of a plan. These indicators can help answer questions such as the following:

• Who is assigned to do what work in the plan?

• How long will it take to complete the project?

• How much will it cost?

For many projects, the answers to these questions will likely change as time passes. For this reason, it’s a good practice to quickly be able to show current project status. This can keep you, the project manager, informed, and it can also be useful information for the resources performing the work, the project’s sponsors, and other stakeholders.

After resources have been assigned to tasks in a plan, two common questions arise: How much will this cost? and Who’s doing what work and when? This topic introduces features that help answer these questions. Because these are such important questions for successful project management, we return to these features and related ones in later chapters.

First, let’s focus on costs. As Figure 6-12 shows, you can switch to a Task Sheet view with the Cost table displayed. Sheet views are handy when you want to focus on the content of the table and don’t need to see a chart. If you need a reminder about how to change tables, refer to Chapter 2, “Take a guided tour.”

The Cost table includes various cost values for each subtask. These subtask cost values roll up to their summary tasks and, ultimately, all cost values roll up to the project summary task.

To shift focus from a task-centric to a resource-centric view of costs, use the Cost table in the Resource Sheet view displayed in Figure 6-13.

This view displays the total costs per resource, based on the resource’s pay rates, cost per use, and specific assignments.

Project includes many ways of answering the “Who does what, when?” question. A handy view for this purpose is the Task Usage view with the Summary table displayed in Figure 6-14.

The pivot of this view is the Resource Usage view with the Summary table applied as shown in Figure 6-15.

The Resource Usage view groups the assigned tasks below each resource—this is the same assignment information as shown in the Task Usage view, but it’s grouped by resources instead of tasks. The two usage views give you insight into who does what work and when. You’ll work with them frequently in later chapters.

To check the plan’s costs per task

1. On the View tab, in the Task Views group, select Other Views and then select Task Sheet.

2. On the View tab, in the Data group, select Tables and then select Cost. The Cost table appears, replacing the Entry table.

To check the plan’s costs per resource

1. On the View tab, in the Resource Views group, select Resource Sheet.

2. On the View tab, in the Data group, select Tables and then select Cost. The Cost table appears, replacing the Entry table.

To see resource assignment and other details grouped by task

1. On the View tab, in the Task Views group, select Task Usage. The Task Usage view appears.

2. On the View tab, in the Data group, select Tables and then select Summary. The Summary table appears, replacing the Entry table.

To see task assignment and other details grouped by resource

1. On the View tab, in the Resource Views group, select Resource Usage. The Resource Usage view appears.

2. On the View tab, in the Data group, select Tables and then select Summary. The Summary table appears, replacing the Entry table.

Skills review

In this chapter, you learned how to

• Assign work resources to tasks

• Control work when adding or removing resource assignments

• Assign cost resources to tasks

• Check the plan after assigning resources

Practice tasks

The practice files for these tasks are located in the ProjectDesktopSBSCh06 folder. For practice file download instructions, see the introduction to this book.