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I have tried over the years to use many different products for viewing project files. What I have finally settled on is converting to text the reports using a Microsoft download called Cute Writer, and using screen captures for the graphs and charts into .pdf. I have also used a product called Ghost Script/Ghost View to make readable files from Porject.

Carla

Just some general guidelines on resources and Project
Project uses the scheduling formula: Work = Duration * Units
After you make your initial resource assignment , each time you edit one of these three variables Project will recalculate one of the two remaining variables.To control which of the values is recalculated you change the task’s type and effort-driven settings.
The take types are:
Fixed Units – Use fixed units when you want resource availability to calculate duration. Leave effort driven selected.
Fixed Duration – Use when you want task duration to remain the same no matter how many resources you add. Leave effort driven selected
Fixed Work – Use when you want to see work hours distributed among resources as they are added to the task.
If you want to control hours per day by resource you can go to the Task Usage view and manually enter hours for each day for each resource.
If you only overallocate a resource and if you do not use overtime hours and do not assign overtime rates your resource will not accrue any overtime costs for the overallocated hours.

Have you made any base calendar changes in the resource pool file? When you assign a resource pool you have a choice on conflict for the pool to take precedence. If you selected for the pool file to take precedence and the base calendar for the pool file is different than the project base calendar it might effect the project file.

Carla

Hi Jimmy,

I have it available at work and they are offering it to users. I have elected to stay with 2003 for all the reasons Hans listed and recommend for users at work to stay with 2003 until there are more organizations using it. We are considering as an organization going to Office 2007 but again Hans listed all the reasons to wait until it is in use my more orgainzations.

How did you remove the names and change the names that were abreviated? I was thinking that the only place you can eliminate them from is the Resource Sheet. Other places only remove single instances of the resource name.

Carla

Do you have your mechanics setup as individual resources or just as a mechanics group resource? If they are setup as individuals and each assigned to the tasks I.e John Doe and John Smith assigned to Task 1 as a ten hour shift that would be 100% for each individually, then John Green assigned to task 1 until the end of the day that would be 100% for that resource. You might have to make the assignments in the resource usage view to accurately assign the task work to the correct resources. Are you using a 10 hour work day for all resources? If so you would want to go to Tools Options and set hours per day to 10. Hours per week would remain the same.

Carla

When you assigned the resource to the task you used 1 in the units field. It must be .99. See the attachement to view where the problem is.

Carla

You might doing a Save As. Project does not actually delete records when you delete a task, resource, etc. The record is kept in the file to speed up saves. If you do a Save As, close the file, re-open the file, and then another Save As, it will get rid of these “Deleted” records. Closing the file in between is important or the “Deleted” records keep getting saved in the new version. Solution from Matt Parks.

Carla

I might be easier to just create the custom named groups from the Project ==>Group ==>More Groups dialog box. There is a check box in the Group Definition dialog box for Show in Menu. Once a custom named group has been saved to the Organizer it will be available to any Project plan created on the same PC.

Carla

I have been working for the last year converting all of our organizations databases to a SQL Server 2005 back end Access front end. We have users in connected offices by T1 lines as far away as 300 miles away and the performance degrades slightly at that distance but is well within an acceptable range. We also have users with laptops and air cards that are using a VPN connection that have acceptable preformance. To replatform the back ends we are using the upsize wizard in Access 2002 to convert to SQL Server 2005. Here is a list of a few things we learned. There are books, but some of these things were not in the books I read:

Memo fields will not upsize. We add the field to the SQL table set the data type to allow for enough characters then use an append query in Access to add the data
When tables are upsized SQL appends the name of the owner to the table name. This is typically .dbo When we relink the tables we just rename them in the Access database window to exclude the dbo. this allows all the old code to work
All code that uses the Open Recordset method will have to have the dbSeeChanges argument added to the line of code. We just search all of the code using the search tool for Open Recordset
A lot of our forms did not work correctly with Access yes/no check boxes. Prior to upsizeing we converted them to text fields with combo boxes on the forms
The SQL words like SELECT, WHEN etc. are not allowed as field names. Someone in our group was naming fields to track who made changes to forms When. This produced an error in every form in that database.
Changes made to linked SQL table design do not dynamically update in Access you must relink the tables in the Access front end.
SQL security can be a new challenge. We are using schemas to manage permissions. This is a new feature in SQL 2005
Realtionships in SQL 2005 are created and controlled in separate diagrams
The upsize wizard requires all tables have a primary key
If you are using Switchboard forms users are not prompted for a SQL login until the first time they try to access data. We have a table called tblStart with one field in it. We put a hidden field on the startup Switchboard to force the login to occur when the database is opened.
When you install SQL 2005 you do not get the management studio unless you select to install workstation features
WE have out Server in the downstairs Server room so I have installed the management studio on my workstation PC so I can manage the SQL from my desk. I started by using remote access to the server, but that is not a good solution.

Carla

I had to work with worldwide teams in different time zones with different holiday and working schedules for a project I was assigned to. I used the 24 hour calendar as a base calendar for each named time zone, and assigned the team members appropriate calendars. I also used the 24 hour calendar with a standard 8 hour work day for the Project Base Calendar. I think what you are already doing is an accurate solution, this is just another way that might give you some ideas.

Carla

Hans,

Had to leave earlier today so did not have time to test until this afternoon. I used the code you supplied and I was able to complete a 6 step consolidated macro successfully. Thank you again for the code to complete the process.

Carla

That is exactly what I was looking for. I might not have gone back far enough. Thank you very much.
Carla

The sheet gets data from another data source and the data is not in a very usable format. I an trying to create a macro that will clean up and format the sheet after an import. I have identified how to delete the numbers that do not need to be there, how to split a text column of data to leave the numbers I need for a grand total, how to create the formulas, now I am looking for a way to identify what rows are left completly blank in the dataset and delete them. This is just a part of a larger process, so sorting does not seem to work with the multiple columns.

Carla

Hi,

After yet another search of the Internet to try to find a solution I found a suggestion to go to Internet Options and in the Advanced tab uncheck Use TLS 1.0. This worked. I do not know what TLS 1.0 is so I will be doing a little more research, but I am glad to have found something what will work.

Carla