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From: Prasad on 27 May 2010 13:22
On May 27, 10:53 am, Andrew Lavinsky <(Catapult Systems)> wrote:
> FYi that automatic leveling is generally not recommended as it wreaks havoc
> on schedules.  My preference is to use manual leveling on a resource by resource
> basis.
>
> Also note that this newsgroup is imminently to be retired.  You may wish
> to post future queries here (for all Project versions):
>
> http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/projectprofessional2...
>
> - Andrew Lavinsky
> Blog:http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/epm


Hi Andrew,

I am not really comfortable with manual resource leveling in multi-
project scheduling when many shared resources have limited capacity. I
wonder how much time and effort are needed to manually resolve
resource overloading when we have to schedule about 300 tasks of 10
concurrent projects on 20 shared resources and generate a meaningful
schedule for each of 20 resources. If the resource-leveled multi-
project schedule is to be updated after a week or two, we have to
repeat the laborious effort for many hours.

Why don't the Project schedulers try to use an add-in for quick
automatic resource leveling and save many man hours ever month? I
know, saving such man hours is not good for the current job market.
But, an added advantage with automatic resource leveling is the fast,
extensive and realistic what-if analysis of schedules.

Regards, Prasad

From: Terry Rowley on 27 May 2010 17:34
On May 27, 11:22 am, Prasad <rpvel...(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> On May 27, 10:53 am, Andrew Lavinsky <(Catapult Systems)> wrote:
>
> > FYi that automatic leveling is generally not recommended as it wreaks havoc
> > on schedules.  My preference is to use manual leveling on a resource by resource
> > basis.
>
> > Also note that this newsgroup is imminently to be retired.  You may wish
> > to post future queries here (for all Project versions):
>
> >http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/projectprofessional2...
>
> > - Andrew Lavinsky
> > Blog:http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/epm
>
> Hi Andrew,
>
> I am not really comfortable with manual resource leveling in multi-
> project scheduling when many shared resources have limited capacity. I
> wonder how much time and effort are needed to manually resolve
> resource overloading when we have to schedule about 300 tasks of 10
> concurrent projects on 20 shared resources and generate a meaningful
> schedule for each of 20 resources. If the resource-leveled multi-
> project schedule is to be updated after a week or two, we have to
> repeat the laborious effort for many hours.
>
> Why don't the Project schedulers try to use an add-in for quick
> automatic resource leveling and save many man hours ever month? I
> know, saving such man hours is not good for the current job market.
> But, an added advantage with automatic resource leveling is the fast,
> extensive and realistic what-if analysis of schedules.
>
> Regards,  Prasad

As was pointed out, Project does a terrible job automatically leveling
resources. It is totally unpredictable and seems to cause more
problems than solutions. The only upside I've found to using automatic
scheduling is that I end up learning more about Project while I try to
figure out what the heck went kaplooey (that is a 'technical' term) in
the rest of the schedule when I tried to level it.

I've been using a software package called Schedlyzer (www.optisol.biz)
which has similarities to Project but has much fewer options and,
therefore, makes it simpler to operate. I found Project to be very
powerful, but it is so powerful and has so many different options
available (most I would never use) that it took me forever to lean the
software package.

It was relatively easy for me to import my Project data into
Schedlyzer and begin using the software after a few hours of training.
Schedlyzer is not a direct replacement for Project if you use all of
Projects options, but I found it to met my needs. Also, when I was
first thinking about trying something different than Project, the
Schedlyzer people gave me a 60 day, fully functional trial version of
their program, gave me some on-line webmeeting demos, and were nearly
always immediately avaiable for phone support when I had questions.
They also pretty much setup my schedule for me with the data I
provided them.

If nothing else, I'd suggest looking at their website and getting a
download copy of their free software...you've got nothing to lose.
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