There are several different ways to view resource demand over time.
Most people plan their project using a task view, which will show a
list of tasks in the project a Gantt chart displaying task activity in
the timescale.
To view resource activity in the timescale, you need to switch to a
resource view. The following describes some "out-of-the-box" resource
views that you may find useful once you've assigned resources to
tasks:
The first is the Resource Usage view. To access this view, select
View -> Resource Usage from the toolbar.
This view has two components:
The table (the left-hand section of the screen) lists each resource in
the project followed by the tasks to which that resource has been
assigned. The Work field will display total hours of work assigned to
each task, and provide a summary work value in later versions of
Project.
The timescale component (the right-hand section of the screen)
presents time-phased data for each task. You can adjust the timescale
using the Zoom buttons or by right-clicking on the header rows.
Although Work values appear in the timescale by default, you can add
other values by selecting Format -> Detail Styles from the toolbar.
To get a good sense of the "number of resources" you require, I
suggest viewing Percent Allocation. Assuming that your resource
availability numbers are accurate, this will give you a percentage
value of the total number of FTEs necessary to accomplish the work in
each time period.
The second view you may find useful is the Resource Graph. This view
will present a time-phased histogram for each resource assigned to the
project.
However, instead of a table on the left, the resource name will
appear. You may scroll through the resources by clicking the scroll
bar at the bottom of the left pane or using the arrow keys.
The timescale can be adjusted in the same manner as above. Resource
availability will appear as a bold black line. Resource demand will
appear in blue up to the point where availability is breached, and
overallocated resource demand will appear in red.
Note that this view also shows Work values by default. I recommend
switching to Percent Allocation for more meaningful numbers.
I hope this helps! |
