Defining Resources and Roles

In this chapter

Resources Overview

Viewing and Adding Resources

Defining and Assigning Resource

Codes and Values

Setting Up Roles

Assigning Roles to Resources

Defining Custom Resource

Curves

Resources include the personnel and equipment that perform work on activities across all projects. Labor and nonlabor resources, such as engineers and equipment, are always time-based and are usually assigned to other activities and/or projects; material resources, such as supplies and other consumable items, are recorded in terms of cost per unit, rather than hours.

You can create a resource hierarchy that reflects your organization’s resource structure and supports the assignment of resources to activities. You can establish unlimited hierarchical resource codes for grouping and rollups.

In addition, you can set up roles with specific skill sets and use them as resource assignments until specific resources can be assigned. This enables you to schedule and plan costs by role at the project planning stage. You can also assign resource calendars and define a resource’s contact information and price over time. This chapter describes resources, roles, and resource codes.

For information about assigning resources to activities, see “Working with Activities” on page 201.

You can develop a resource plan that integrates resources, costs, and the schedule so you can effectively control your projects. Begin by defining a list of all the resources necessary to complete the projects included in your enterprise project structure (EPS). For each resource, set availability limits, unit prices, and a calendar to define its standard worktime and nonworktime. Define shifts and apply one or more of the shifts to the resources to whom they apply. Group the resources by broad categories so you can easily find a specific resource when assigning resources to a project.

To enable grouping and rollups of your resources across the organization set up resource codes and assign code values. Use this information to produce resource reports and profiles. Analyze the resource allocation, and adjust your project plan to avoid overallocation and peaks and valleys of resource use.

Resources are different than expenses. While some resources are timebased and generally extend across multiple activities and projects, expenses are one-time expenditures for nonreusable items required by activities.

Roles If you are in the planning stage of your project or want to see how certain resource assignments will affect the schedule, you can assign roles as temporary placeholders for resource assignments. Roles are project personnel job titles or skills. They represent a type of resource with a certain level of proficiency—rather than a specific individual. Roles can also be assigned to specific resources to further identify that resource’s skills.

Primary resources An activity’s primary resource is typically the resource who is responsible for coordinating an activity’s work. The primary resource updates the activity’s start date, finish date, and expected end date. In addition, if an activity has any material resources, the primary resource may be responsible for reporting the material resource’s hours/ units.

Primary resources are also responsible for editing the physical percent complete when weighted steps are linked to activity percent complete for the corresponding activities in a selected project.