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Support / Project / Project 2003 Help and How-to / Working with Resources and Assignments / Add Resources to Your Project
 
 

Specify resource availability

Applies to: Microsoft Office Project 2003

 

You can control how much a work resource (work resource: People and equipment resources that perform work to accomplish a task. Work resources consume time [hours or days] to accomplish tasks.) is available to work throughout the life of the project. Availability is reflected by a resource's working time (working time: Hours designated in a resource or project calendar during which work can occur.), starting and ending availability (availability: Indicates when and how much of a resource's time can be scheduled for assigned work. Availability is determined by project and resource calendars, resource start and finish dates, or the level at which the resource is available for work.) dates, and any varying unit (units: The quantity of a resource assigned to a task. The maximum units is the maximum number of units available for the resource. For example, if you have three plumbers, the maximum units is 300 percent or three plumbers working full-time.) availability at different time periods. Microsoft Office Project 2003 uses this information to determine whether a resource is overallocated. To make changes to schedule information for an enterprise resource (enterprise resources: Resources that are part of an organization's entire list of resources. Enterprise resources can be shared across projects.), you must first check out the resource. You can also update changes to resource calendars by using Microsoft Office Project Server 2003.

Note that working time calendars and resource availability do not apply to material resources (material resource: The supplies or other consumable items that are used to complete tasks in a project.).

ShowSet a work resource's working days and times

  1. On the View menu, click the Resource Sheet.
  2. In the Resource Name field, click the resource whose working time you want to change.
  3. Click Resource Information Button image, and then click the Working Time tab.
  4. In the Base calendar box, click the base calendar (base calendar: A calendar that can be used as a project and task calendar that specifies default working and nonworking time for a set of resources. Differs from a resource calendar, which specifies working and nonworking time for an individual resource.) you want to assign to the selected resource.
  5. On the calendar, select the days you want to change.
    • To change a day of the week for the entire calendar, click the abbreviation for the day at the top of the calendar.
    • To change all the working days, click the abbreviation at the top of the first day, and then hold down SHIFT and click the abbreviation at the top of the last day.
  6. Click Use default, Nonworking time, or Nondefault working time.
    • If you click Use default, then the selected days adopt the working and nonworking times of the resource's base calendar.
    • If you click Nondefault working time, type the times you want work to start in the From boxes and the times you want work to end in the To boxes.

 Notes 

ShowSpecify a work resource's start and end dates

  1. On the View menu, click Resource Sheet.
  2. In the Resource Name field, click the resource whose start and end dates you want to enter.
  3. Click Resource Information Button image, and then click the General tab.
  4. In the Available From field, enter the resource's start date on the project.
  5. In the Available To field, enter the resource's finish date on the project.
  6. In the Units field, type the number of maximum units (maximum units: The maximum percentage or number of units that a resource is available to be scheduled for any tasks. The maximum units value indicates the highest capacity at which the resource is available for work; the default value is 100 percent.) that this resource is available during this period of time.

You can enter maximum units as a percentage (for example, 50%, 100%, or 300%), or as a decimal (for example, 0.5, 1, or 3).

ShowSpecify a work resource's varying unit availability

  1. On the View menu, click Resource Sheet.
  2. In the Resource Name field, click the resource whose start and end dates you want to enter.
  3. Click Resource Information, and then click the General tab.
  4. In the Available From field, enter the resource's start date at the first level of unit availability.
  5. In the Available To field, enter the resource's finish date at the first level of unit availability.
  6. In the Units field, type the number of maximum units (maximum units: The maximum percentage or number of units that a resource is available to be scheduled for any tasks. The maximum units value indicates the highest capacity at which the resource is available for work; the default value is 100 percent.) that this resource is available during the specified period of time.

You can enter maximum units as a percentage (for example, 50%, 100%, or 300%), or as a decimal (for example, 0.5, 1, or 3).

  1. In the next Available From field, type or select the resource's start date at the next level of unit availability.
  2. In the next Available To field, type or select the resource's finish date at the next level of unit availability.
  3. In the next Units field, type the number of maximum units available for this resource during the specified period of time.
  4. Repeat steps 7–9 for all the differing resource availability throughout the project.

 Notes 

  • While the Resource Availability table in the Resource Information dialog box changes a resource's maximum units across projects, it does not change resource rates over time. You can enter different rates for a resource in a cost rate table.
  • The Resource Availability table adjusts maximum unit availability across projects, while work contours adjust varying levels of work throughout a specific assignment.
  • You can just enter dates in the Available To fields. In the first row, Project retains "NA" as the available from date. This essentially represents the project start date. In the succeeding rows, Project enters the date after the last available to date.
 
 

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