Assigning and Analyzing Resource Capacity—Exercises

Required Data

Registering Resource Groups

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to familiarize you with the data that must be in place before you can perform the exercises below.

1. Register a resource group.
2. Save your changes.

General exercise for Registering Resource Groups

Creating Activities

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to familiarize you with the data that must be in place before you can perform the exercises below.

1. Create activities in your subproject structure.
2. Give activities appropriate early start and early finish dates.

General exercise for Building Project Plan

Main Exercise

Purpose: The purpose of these exercises is to show you how to assign resources to activities. You will also calculate and evaluate the usage of resources for one or more projects, and compare it to the resource group's capacity. On the basis of your resource capacity analysis, you will identify problem periods. You will try various actions to solve resource allocation problems.

Windows:
Project Navigator/Resource
Project Navigator/Activity
Project Navigator/Project
Resource Group/Activities
Resource Capacity Calculation
Resource Capacity Calculation/Projects
Resource Capacity Calculation/Resource Summary
Resource Capacity Calculation/Resource Detail

1. Open the Project Navigator window and query for your project.
2. Select the required activity in the navigator, and then click the Resource tab.
3. Create a new record. The resource company is set automatically to the project company.
4. Enter one of your registered resource groups, or select one from the List of Values.
5. Enter required resource criteria fields. It's possible to use % for all values.
6. There are two possible values for the duration type: Fixed and Resource. This value can be changed.

Note: The Duration Type field is only in use when interfacing with Primavera. Fixed value means that the activity's start and finish dates are preserved. When using the resource option, Primavera will adjust the activity finish date according to how fast the resource can execute the activity. This finish date can be set to either an earlier or a later date.

6. In the Planned Hours field, specify the planned number of hours that the resource criteria should work on this activity.
7. Save your changes.

Note: If the resource does not have cost or capacity defined for the period of the activity, you will get a warning. You should then specify cost and/or capacity for the activity duration period. To be able to do this quickly, click the Resource ID field, and then click the Zoom button on the toolbar. This opens the Resource Group window, and you can specify cost and capacity in the corresponding tab.

8. Note that the Planned Cost field is automatically updated according to the cost information from the Resource Group/Cost tab, or the Internal Price window if you have selected a project reporting resource. Observe also that to be able to see which cost element that has been used you have to use right mouse button and select Cost Element.
9. Repeat steps 3–8 to add additional resource criteria to this activity.
10. Click the Activity tab.
11. In the Planned Cost Driver list, click Connected Objects. Save your changes.
12. Click the Cost and Hours tabs. Observe the values in the Planned column.
13. In the Planned Cost Driver list, click Activity Resources. Save your changes.
14. On the Cost and Hours tabs, note that the values in the Planned column now correspond with the planned values for the connected resources. Note also that the these planned values update the correct project cost elements.
15. Click the Resource tab again.
16. Revise the value in the Planned Hours field.
17. Save your changes.
18. Note that the value in the Planned Cost field is updated according to your revision.
19. Go back to the Activity tab.
20. Note that the values in the Planned columns on the Cost and Hours tab are also updated according to your revision in the Resource tab.
21. Open the Project window.
22. In the Resources Summary tab, the planned hours and cost for each resource are presented
23. In this table, the planned hours and cost for each resource and subproject are presented and summarized for the whole project.
24. Open the Resource Group window, and query for your resource. (You can also zoom directly to your resource as described in the above note.)
25. Click the Activities tab, where you can see all the activities in all projects to which this resource has been allocated. Use the query function to query only for activities in your project.

Note: For an example of activities with allocated resources, you can refer to Project P101 and Activities 10020 and 10030. Resource Groups E10 and E20 have been allocated to these activities. Note that the planned cost for Resource E10 allocated to Activity 10020 considers the change in internal price that occurs during the period of the activity. The 180 planned hours are assumed to be spread evenly among the activity's workdays, which means that half the planned hours are planned to occur in the first cost period in this example. The planned cost is calculated as follows: (180 *  5/10 * 80) + (180 *  5/10 * 90) = 15,300 USD.

Checking the Resource Allocation

1. Open the Project Navigator window, and query for your project.
2. Select one of the activities that you worked with in the above exercise in the Navigator. Click the Resource tab.
3. Select the desired resource, right-click, and then click Resource Allocation to open the Resource Allocation window. (Alternatively, access this graph from the Resource Group/Activities window. For the required resource, select the appropriate activity. Right-click and then click Resource Allocation.)
4. You can now see the selected activity's allocation of this resource represented in one color, and the allocation of this resource for all other activities in a different color. The normal capacity is shown by a horizontal line. This gives you an overview of this resource's allocation during the activity's length.

Note: The Resource Allocation window considers all activities to which this resource has been assigned, regardless of the project status. Compare with the resource capacity calculation, where you can manually select which projects to include when calculating the resource allocation. This can be useful, for example, if you want to disregard projects that are not yet approved, canceled projects, etc.

Note: Referring to the above example, you should see that Resource Group E10 is allocated for more than its normal capacity during the last five days of the activity as planned, indicating that you might want to do a more detailed analysis of the resource allocation. You might want to do a resource capacity calculation, as described in the next exercise.

Creating a Resource Capacity Calculation

1. Open the Resource Capacity Calculation window, and create a new record.
2. Enter a new calculation ID. Name it XX01, substituting XX with your initials.
3. Note that the calculation can be based either on the early start/finish activity dates or the late start/finish dates. Click Early Start/Finish.
4. Specify whether the resource capacity should be calculated for a weekly or monthly period.
5. Save your changes.
6. Click the Projects tab.
7. For each project that you would like to include in the calculation, create a new record, and enter the desired project ID.

Note: If you only want to consider projects in a specific status, or belonging to a specific company or project program, perform a query in the Projects window to identify suitable projects. Alternatively, in the Activity Resources window, query for all the activities to which your resource is allocated, and thereby identify their projects.

8. Save your changes.
9. Right-click anywhere in the header portion of the Resource Capacity Calculation window, and click Process Projects. A message appears indicating that if you previously calculated resource capacity using this calculation ID, the data will be lost. 
10. Click Yes.
11. You can choose to run this calculation immediately or as a background job. Leave the Run the Procedure in Batch Mode check box clear so that your calculation is performed immediately. Click OK.
12. You can see the results of the calculation on the Resource Summary and Resource Detail tab.
13. Click the Resource Summary tab. Note the values for your calculation. 
14. You can view the calculation results graphically in the Resource Capacity Summary Graph. Right-click anywhere in the header portion of the Resource Capacity Calculation window, and click Resource Graph.
15. In the Resource ID list, note that all resources that have been allocated in the selected projects are available.
16. Alternatively, select a row in the Resource Summary tab or Resource Detail tab, right-click, and then click Resource Graph. The Resource Capacity Summary Graph appears. Only the selected resource will be in the Resource ID list.

Note: For an example of a resource capacity calculation, you can refer to the capacity calculation ID P101, which considers Project P101 and the allocated resources as described above.

Look at the resource capacity summary for Resource ID E20. You will see that the resource has a normal capacity of 30 hours for a number of weeks, but then the normal capacity changes to 40 hours. This change is due to a specified change in capacity for this resource, as defined on the Resource Group/Capacity tab. The capacity for the first period is 6 hours/day, and then it becomes 8 hours/day. To obtain the period's capacity, multiply the defined capacity per day by the number of workdays according to the calendar for this resource (e.g., 6 * 5 = 30 and 8 * 5 = 40).

Looking at the resource capacity summary for the resource ID E20 again, note that Week 47 has a normal capacity of only 24 hours. The decrease in available capacity is a reflection of the resource calendar US5, which includes American holidays. In this calendar, Week 47 has only 3 working days. The normal capacity for this week will then be 3 * 8 = 24. To see calendar details, open the Calendar window.

Analyzing Resource Capacity

1. Open the Resource Capacity Calculation window, and query for your calculation.
2. Right-click anywhere in the header, and then click Resource Graph to open the Resource Capacity Summary Graph window. You will now see the results of the calculation shown weekly or monthly according to your selection. The results are presented in both a table and a graph. The values for each period are shown as one row in the table, or as one bar in the graph.
3. If desired, select some periods in the table, right-click and then click View Graph to reduce the number of periods displayed at a time in the graph.
4. You can choose to show a legend that explains the different colors in the graph. Right-click anywhere in the graph, and then click Enable/Disable Legend.
5. You can easily identify the periods where the resource is overloaded, indicated by the red-topped bars. Alternatively, you can use the query function in the table and query for periods having overload > 0.
6. When you click a bar in the graph, the Resource Period Detail window opens, displaying detailed information about the resource allocation for this period. Alternatively, select one period in the period table to the left of the graph, and then right-click and select Resource Period Detail.

Note: The Resource Period Detail window lists the activities to which you have allocated the resource, but only if you have access to the activity. If you do not have access to an activity, however, the number of hours allocated still will be included in the Load Hours field in the Resource Capacity Calculation window and the Resource Capacity Summary Graph.

7. Try different methods of eliminating periods of resource overload. For example, you can reschedule the activity by giving it another early start date, change the duration of the activity by changing the number of work days, or allocate more resources.
8. Perform new resource calculations, and observe how your changes affect the graph.

Note: For an example of a resource capacity calculation, you can refer to the capacity calculation ID P101, which considers Project P101 and the allocated resources as described above. Look at the resource capacity summary for Resource ID E10. This resource is over allocated during Period 40. By clicking the red-topped bar, you can see that the resource has been allocated to both Activities 10020 and 10030 for a total of 130 hours for this period 40. However, the resource's maximum capacity for this period is 100 hours. Possible solutions are increasing the activity's number of workdays, changing when these two activities occur so that they do not overlap in time, or increasing the defined capacity for Resource E10.