Hi,

my Blog Reader has a question:

“I have a project plan with certain milestones which are to be completed on specific dates and I have resources assigned. But as per plan, the resource allocation hours are reduced whereas in my estimation they are way higher. Is there a way where I can fix hours to the resources and then they get allocated accordingly for the tasks I assign those resources to. Let me know if there’s any other turnaround for the same”

Where is problem here? If you have, for example, John as Resource in your Project, can you have his capacity in hours? And, on the other hand, how to put exact number of hours per Task which are needed to fulfill the Task?

Let me answer to the first question. Simply – NO! You can not have capacity in MS  PROJECT 2016 (or other versions) in hours. You can have them only in Units%.

Let me create very Simple Project:

Now, let me create two resources for this Project:

As you can see John has 100% Max units. That mean that if he assigned 100% for Task he is able to work, for example, 8 hours per day (according to working calendar). On the other hand, Mary has only 50% Max units for this Project, so she can work only half of his working hours (again, according to her Calendar). If I assign John to the Task with more than 100%, and Mary with more than 50%, then they will became over allocated. Of course if I assign John with 100% to the Task, and again to another Task with, for example, 20%, and those Tasks are supposed to be executed on the same time, he will also became over allocated.

But there is no field in which I can put capacity in hours. That lead me to another question: “How to put exact number of hours per Task which are needed to fulfill the Task?”

Here I have an easy answer. If you know exact number of hours for the Task must be spent by John and Mary to complete it, simple make this Tasks as Fixed work type, and assign number of hours to John and Mary. Let’s say that John need 40 hours to complete Task 1, and Mary 32.

and then:

and I will get (I will use Task usage View):

As you can see, Duration is now 8 days, because Mary has to work 32 hours, and she will work only 4 hours per day (because 50% of her Units), so the Task will have 4 hours per day * 8 days = 32 hours

To conclude, if you know exact number of hours that Resources must spend to complete the Task, always use FIXED WORK, and assign those hours for each resources.

Regards!