Hi,
again one of my Blog readers has a problem:
“I followed your instructions but I am running into a small issue. While my master project shows all the sub-projects and the attached resource pool in the resources sheet, when I attempt to assign the resource to the task using the pull down menu, none of the resources are showing. Do you know what is causing this and how do I fix it?”
Of course I’ll do it in MS PROJECT PRO 2013!
First I’ll create the Resource Pool and I’ll save it:
and:
I’m going to crate two Projects, and I’ll connect them with Resource Pool, but I’m not going to assign them to Tasks:
and:
and finally:
I’ll will save that Project as First Project.mpp (I’m not going to show you a picture of that, you know how to do the saving, don’t you?)
I will now create Second Project with Resource pool, like I did for the first Project, and I’m going to save it as Second Project.mpp:
After closing MS PROJECT, and reopen it, I’m going to create Master Project with two Subprojects:
and:
I’ll do the same for my Second Project and I’ll get:
Now suppose that I want to assign Resources to Tasks in some of my Subproject:
I choose to open resource pool! Now when I try to assign Resources to Tasks in Gantt View, I can do it:
What will happen if I don’t want to open the Resource Pool?
Now if I try to assign Resources to Tasks I’ll get:
As you can see, if I don’t open the Resource pool I can not assign them to Tasks. And that perfectly normal behavior of MS PROJECT 2013
Regards,
Nenad Trajkovski 
Hi Nenad,
Good post and very helpful however a minor change to the screen shots would save a big headache which is what the comment revolves around! I had a similar issue with this whereby when adding the the sub projects to the master the drop down link was blank in the master project, and you could not assign from the resource pool even though i could see the resources in Resource sheet . I think the confusion here is that the screen shots do not show that you added resource names to task in the First and Second project before saving (Screen shots only show up to “Predecessors” column), if this is not done this does not appear to pull through the options into the master document when you bring in the sub projects,
Thanks
Nick
NEnad,
Why not create the resource pool inside the master project ?
Because I want that Esch project has its own Resource pool with up to 50 different Resources!
Hello Nenand,
So I make a subproject with its own tasks. Then I make a Master Project and add the subproject into it (check mark on Link Projects). Also note that the Master Project and subproject file are using the same resource pool file.
So, let’s say I make some some changes in the subproject file (e.g. % complete or duration changes), save the changes and close the file. Then, let’s say my boss wants to view the progress in the Master Project, he opens the Master Project file, but he doesn’t see the updated changes. He will need to click the small arrow before the task name to expand the subproject and only then does the information updates.
Is there a way that automatically updates the subprojects? And I am using Project 2013 by the way.
I hope you understand my question, otherwise I can send you an email with a pictorial representation of what my problem is.
I can’t reproduce this issue! It works Perfect to me!
NOPE… mmsiddiq is right. I’ve tried a dozen ways. The Master does NOT update with the new info from the subs unless you view at least one level of the subproject. And this is ANNOYING!
Is there a secret setting or trick?
I don’t know a trick. As I say it works fine for me! I really do not know what is going on!
Hello Nenad,
How does one remove a resource pool from a master project completely from MS Project 2013. I can’t keep other sub projects that formerly were connected to the resource pool from looking for it when I open those files. I have already gone to Assign Resources and have selected “USe Own”. When I do this the correction does not take place and the files are still linked to a resource pool that has been deleted??
I have used your blog for information frequently. You have much better information than anyother “Official” site that I have looked at.
Dave
I’ll wrtie a Post about that next week, OK?
Excellent!
Hi Nenad,
Thanks for the post, very informative – is it possible to touch upon the new reporting features in Project Professional 2013? Much appreciated!!
I wrote about that! I can do it again, but please be more spcific, what are you interested in?