I am helping a colleague "debug" an MS-Project project plan today, where there seem to be unexplained over-allocations. They have chosen quite a complex method for restricting allocations and I don't quite understand what I am seeing.
The units that are allocated to a task, for any particular resource, seem to be governed by settings in three places:
- The Resource Availability in the resource calendar
- The Resource Max Units in the resource sheet
- The max units allocation on the task
I don't understand the relationship between these settings and so I cannot determine what this colleague is actually forcing Project to do.
If Monday is a fully working day, with a default of 8 hours for Resource A. If I then set their availability via the calendar to 50% I assume that they can only spend 4 hours on the project on that day.
If I then set their Max Units on the Resource Sheet to 50%, does that mean they will only spend 2 hours per day (i.e. 50% of their availability, 50% of 4 hours)?
If I then allocate them to a task at 50% does that provide them with 2 hours availability on the task (i.e. 50% matches their max units from the Resource Sheet and so is allowed) or does it provide 1 hour, being 50% of the availability I have inherited from the Resource Sheet/Calendar combination?
In the past I always have 100% resource availability within time blocks they are on the project, and restrict their availability to tasks within the Resource Allocation. I have no experience of this, apparently 3-layer, description of a Resource's task-hours allocation.
It is driving me nuts! What is the relationship between these settings?