How to create agendas from a list of task that have parameters?

Hi Marien,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project forum:)

As you're asking this question on the Microsoft Project forum, I presume you want advice on this product. Project is not intuitive and ideally requires users to attend at least a 2-day introductory course to get you and your users up and running quickly. However, Project can certainly do what you ask, most efficiently, as that is what is is designed to do.  In the meantime, you might like to have a look at my free series for beginners on Microsoft Project.  The Introduction tells you what Project can do and what it can't.  It is in the TechTrax ezine, particularly #1, at this site: http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc  or this: http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMFrame.asp?CMD=ArticleSearch&AUTH=23
(Perhaps you'd care to rate the article before leaving the site, :)  Thanks.)

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at this web address: <http://www.mvps.org/project/>

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on :)

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP (97-11)

Hi Mike,

Thanks a lot for this link, it seems that you know pretty well Project and I will keep it for future help. ;)

In your 1st article I noticed that Project can't know what ressource you want to apply task to.

That's my problem. I need a way of auto assigning tasks according to certain parameters such as Earliest start time, deadline, duration, client to build agendas for people working 7.5 hours shift. The number of possible combinations is great so I'd like someone to recomend a software that could come up with the best combination for me.

I googled it but I keep on falling Windows tasks scheduler help...

Thanks

Marien

You're welcome, Marien :)

No software can possibly know which resource should be assigned.  Every resource has different skills.  Say you have a group of carpenters.  If Project assigned a carpenter, how can Project know that one skilled in making doors should be assigned rather than one skilled in making windows.  Equally, if you have 2 carpenters skilled in making doors, how could Project know that one works much faster than the other, or that one works with greater skill than the other, or that you would prefer Joe instead - see the problem?

What you can do is to assign carpenters to a task from a pool of carpenters, and Project will assign them up to the maximum available and then inform you that further assignments are overallocated, whence you can let Project spread out the load by levelling, or do it yourself.

I'm no expert with Project Server, but I believe it has some facility with skill sets - maybe someone else can add to this.

Equally, I'm no VBA expert, but I guess it may be possible to program something to help along these lines.

Bottom line is that if you want this facility, it's likely to be a long learning curve!

Mike Glen

MS Project (97-11)

See  http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc for my free Project Tutorials

ok, I understand what you say.

I will try below to describe the situation using the carpenter analogy:

My company is composed of carpenters with many abilities. They do Windows, Doors and Tables all day long (7.5hrs a day). Of course, Windows and Doors are much more technical to build than Tables.

As we are growing fast, we need more Windows and more Doors to be built, but we still need to produce Tables. What we decided to do is to hire new carpenters that will only make Tables so that our experienced Carpenters have more time available to make more Windows and Doors. So the training process will be that new Carpenters will be shadowing the Experienced Carpenters on site when making tables before getting to their own location and working all day at making the tables they shadowed.

Here's the tricky part: Every day we need to produce the same number of Tables, with the same ressources and for the same clients. However, each table is different regarding the below parameters:

- When the particular wood required is delivered?

- How long a trained carpenter needs to make the table?

- When the truck leaves to deliver the table to the client?

- Who was building this table before?

So I managed to get those info in an excel spreadsheet. I have a line for each table that need to be build with columns showing when the woods is available everyday, how long it takes to build the table, when is the truck leaving and who is the experienced carpenter currently responsible for this production.

What I would like Project (or another software) to do, is to create, from this list of tasks, the best agenda possible for each of my ressources, taking in consideration the deadlines, duration, availability and trainer involved.

What do you think ?

Hi Marien,

"I thus don't think Project is for you.  Try Googling for some production software."

 

Mike Glen

Project MVP (97-11)

See http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc for my free Project Tutorials

 

 

Hi Mike,

Sorry for not coming back to you earlier,

This last sentence solved my issue perfectly. I was looking for a Production software.

Thanks a lot for your great help,

Marien

You're welcome, Marien and good luck :-)

Mike Glen

MS Project (97-11)

See  http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc for my free Project Tutorials