LECTURE -03

SETTING UP RESOURCES

CHAPTER THREE
SETTING UP RESOURCES: GOAL
In this lecture, we will learn how to:
Set up basic resource information for the people who work on

your project
Enter basic resource information for the equipment that will be

used in your projects.

Enter resource information for the materials that will be

consumed as your project progresses.

Set up cost information for your resources.
Change a resources availability for work.
Record additional information about a resource in a note.

CHAPTER THREE
SETTING UP RESOURCES: KIND OF RESOURCES
MS Project works with three types of resources:
Work, Material, and Cost Resources.

People & equipment those are work resources.

As project managers, for our resources, what do we care

about?
When theyre available.
How much they cost.
Those are constraints on the triple constraint triangle.

CHAPTER THREE
SETTING UP RESOURCES: SETTING UP PEOPLE RESOURCES
To enter basic people resource information
On the View Bar, click Resource Sheet.
On the Resource Sheet, click the cell directly below the Resource

Name column heading.

Enter the resource name, type, initials, Max. Units, and other information.

Press Tab to move between fields.

CHAPTER THREE
SETTING UP RESOURCES: SETTING UP WORK RESOURCES

Work Resource

Example

Individual people identified by name

Jon Ganio; Jim Hance

Individual people identified by job

title or function

Mason; crane operator

Groups of people who have common

skills

Electricians; carpenters; Steel fixers

Equipment

Crane; Concrete mixer, Generator

CHAPTER THREE
SETTING UP RESOURCES: EQUIPMENT RESOURCES
It can be a fixed location, for example a design office.
Could also be portable things, things that you have to rent.
Things that you have a finite amount of.
Consumable things that you have to buy, run out of, and buy

more of.

CHAPTER THREE
SETTING UP RESOURCES: SETTING UP PEOPLE RESOURCES
Max Units
The maximum capacity of a resource to accomplish any task.
If you set someone to 100%, then hes 100% available to work on tasks.
50% is part-time

MS Project will show you if hes overbooked overallocated.

CHAPTER THREE
SETTING UP RESOURCES: SETTING UP PEOPLE RESOURCES
The Max Units field in Project

200 % act like

two people

CHAPTER THREE
SETTING UP RESOURCES: SETTING UP PEOPLE RESOURCES
In the Max Units field, instead of 100% or 50%, you can enter

.5, 1, 2
Go to the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the

Schedule tab.
In the Show assignments as units box, click Decimal.

CHAPTER THREE
SETTING UP RESOURCES: SETTING UP EQUIPMENT RESOURCES

You set up people and equipment resources in Project in

exactly the same way.

Practical differences
Equipment can work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Peoplewould quit.
A normal working day for a person. 8 hours? 12 hours max?
Also, equipment typically can only do 1 or 2 different kinds of

tasks. Humans are more flexible.

if you assign people to tasks that they werent hired to do

CHAPTER THREE
SETTING UP RESOURCES: SETTING UP EQUIPMENT RESOURCES

To enter basic equipment resource information from Resource

Sheet view
On the Standard toolbar, click the Resource Information button.
Note: that button changed in the Gantt chart view, clicking on it gave you

Task information.

Click the General tab on the Resource Information dialog box.

In the Resource Name field, type the name of the resource.
Use the fields in the dialog box to enter information.

CHAPTER THREE
SETTING UP RESOURCES: SETTING UP MATERIAL RESOURCES

To set up material resources in Resource Sheet view

On the Resource Sheet, click the next empty cell in the Resource

Name column.
Enter the material resource name, and then press Tab.
In the Type field, select Material.
In the Material Label field, enter the per-unit label appropriate for this

material.
Enter the initials for the resource in the Initials field.

CHAPTER THREE
SETTING UP RESOURCES: SETTING UP MATERIAL RESOURCES

Material resources
Get used up as the project progresses
Youll want to track the rate of consumption, and the associated cost.
Note: you cannot enter a max units value for a material resource its

greyed out.
Its not a person or a piece of equipment that performs X piece of work over

X amount of time.

CHAPTER THREE
SETTING UP RESOURCES: SETTING UP COST RESOURCES
The third and final type of resource you can work with in

Project.
You can use a cost resource to represent a financial cost

associated with a task in a project.

Use a cost resource to represent a cost associated with a

task.
Travel
Entertainment
Training

CHAPTER THREE
SETTING UP RESOURCES: SETTING UP COST RESOURCES
In the Resource Sheet, click the next empty cell in the

Resource Name column.

Type Travel, and press Enter.
In the Type field, click the down arrow, select cost, and press

Enter.

CHAPTER THREE
SETTING UP RESOURCES: ENTERING RESOURCES PAY RATES
Doing this will allow you to answer important questions:
Whats the expected total cost of the project?
Are we using expensive resources to do things that less expensive

resources could do?

How much money will a specific type of resource or task cost over the

life of the project?

How have we allocated a particular type of expense, such as travel?
Are we spending money at a rate we can sustain?

CHAPTER THREE
SETTING UP RESOURCES: ENTERING RESOURCES PAY RATES
Now, you might not always have this information.
Perhaps only HR, or senior management, would know how much the

people working on your project are being paid.

If so, make sure your sponsor understands how youre deriving costs for

the project.

CHAPTER THREE
SETTING UP RESOURCES: ENTERING RESOURCES PAY RATES
To enter pay rates
On the Resource Sheet, click the Std. Rate field for a work resource.
Enter the resources standard pay rate in the format payment/pay period,

for example 100/h for Rs100 per hour.

If necessary, enter the resources overtime pay rate in the Ovt.

Rate field.

CHAPTER THREE
SETTING UP RESOURCES: ENTERING RESOURCES PAY RATES
In the Std. Rate column in the Resource Sheet view
For work resources
5000/w gives you Rs5000 a week
5000 gives you Rs5000 an hour
5000/d gives you Rs5000 a day
For material resources,5000 gives you Rs5000 each.

CHAPTER THREE
SETTING UP RESOURCES: ENTERING RESOURCES PAY RATES
For a Material resource, like sand, aggregates and cement,

wed entered a standard rate.

When we assign resources to tasks in the next chapter, youll set how

many of them are used for a specific task.

Also, for Cost resources, like Travel, the Std. Rate field is

grayed out. You cant enter anything in it.

When we assign that resource to a task, well be able to specify its cost.

CHAPTER THREE
SETTING UP RESOURCES: ADJUSTING WORKING TIME FOR RESOURCE

To adjust working time

On the Tools menu, click Change Working Time.
In the For box, select the resource whose working time you want to

change.
In the Change Working Time dialog box, enter the changes you want,

and then click OK.

CHAPTER THREE
SETTING UP RESOURCES: ADJUSTING WORKING TIME FOR RESOURCE

In Project, you can use different calendars for different

purposes.
A resource calendar controls the working time and the non-

working time for a resource.

You can only apply a resource calendar to a work resource people and

equipment.
You cant apply a resource calendar to a material or cost resource.

CHAPTER THREE
SETTING UP RESOURCES: ADJUSTING WORKING TIME FOR RESOURCE

When you create resources (as we did in the Resource Sheet

view), Project automatically creates a Resource Calendar for

each one of them.
It bases it off of the Standard Calendar.
8:00am-5:00pm Monday through Friday.

Youll likely need to adjust each resources calendar somewhat:

Vacations? Training classes? Conferences?

CHAPTER THREE
SETTING UP RESOURCES: ADJUSTING WORKING TIME FOR RESOURCE

Beware of changing the Standard Resource calendar.

Its used as a template for all of your resource calendars.
If you change it, it will change the existing resource calendars,

not just any new ones.

If youve made special changes to an existing resource calendar,

though, those will persist. It wont overwrite them.

CHAPTER THREE
SETTING UP RESOURCES: ADJUSTING WORKING TIME FOR RESOURCE

For someone whos only available to work part-time, you have

two choices:
In their resource calendar, you could set their hours, for example, 9:00am to

5:00pm Monday through Friday.

Or, you could set their availability to 50%.

Thats in the
Resource Sheet view, under Max Units for the resource.

CHAPTER THREE
SETTING UP RESOURCES: ADJUSTING WORKING TIME FOR RESOURCE

Which is better?
The book recommends setting the resources availability at 50%
This is faster.
Also, youll see in the Resource Sheet view that thats a part-time

person. If its buried in the calendar, you wouldnt see it there.

Using 50% availability also keeps the focus on what youve got in terms

of your total amount of resources available to work on the project,

rather than what their hours are.
Its a preference.

CHAPTER THREE
SETTING UP RESOURCES: ADJUSTING WORKING TIME FOR RESOURCE

Changing the base calendar thats used

If you have to make a lot of the same changes for multiple resources, it

may be easier to change which base calendar youre using.

You can make a new base calendar thats a copy of an existing one, like a

copy of the Standard Calendar.

Then edit your copy of it.
Tools menu > Change Working Time.

Click on the Create New Calendar button.

CHAPTER THREE
SETTING UP RESOURCES: ADJUSTING WORKING TIME FOR RESOURCE

Choose the Make a copy of radio button, and then choose the

base calendar that you want to copy:

Then click OK.

CHAPTER THREE
SETTING UP RESOURCES: DOCUMENTING RESOURCE DETAILS IN NOTES

To create resource notes or hyperlinks

In the Resource Name column, select the name of the resource for

whom you want to enter a note.

On the Standard toolbar, click the Resource Notes button (it

looks just like the Task Note button did, in the Gantt chart view).
In the Resource Information dialog box, enter the note text you

want, and then click OK.

CHAPTER THREE
IMPORTANT TERMINOLOGY
Max. Units: The maximum capacity of a resource to accomplish tasks. A

resource that is available to work full time has a maximum units value of
100% or 1.0.
Night Shift: A base calendar included with Microsoft Project designed to

accommodate an 11:00 P.M.8:00 A.M.graveyard work shift.

Over-allocated: The condition of a resource when it is assigned to do

more work than can be done within the normal work capacity of the
resource.
In Microsoft Project, the work capacity of a resource is measured in units. One

full-time resource has 100% units (recorded in the Max. Units field).

CHAPTER THREE
IMPORTANT TERMINOLOGY
Resource calendar: The working and nonworking times of

an individual work resource.

Resources: People, equipment, and material (and the

associated costs of each) needed to complete the work on a

project.
Sponsor: An individual or organization that provides financial

support and champions the project team within the larger

organization.

CHAPTER THREE
IMPORTANT TERMINOLOGY
Standard base calendar:

A base calendar included with

Microsoft Project designed to accommodate an 8:00 A.M.5:00
P.M. work shift.

Work resources: The people and equipment that do the

work of the project.

CHAPTER THREE
SUMMARY
Recording resource information in your project plans helps

you better control who does what work when and at what
cost.
People and equipment resources perform the work in a

project.
Cost resources account for types of expenses across a

project.
Material resources are consumed during a project.