Project 2016 for Beginners Part 15: How to Assign Resources to Tasks in MS Project 2016 Video Lecture | MS Project: Become an Expert - Management

Hello again and welcome back to our course
on Project 2016.
In this section we’re going to look at the
basics of assigning resources to tasks.
In the previous section we set up a few resources
for the wedding project.
Clearly there are going to be many more.
But let’s switch back to Gantt Chart View
using the button towards the right hand end
of the Status Bar.
And I’m going to choose one of the tasks
and assign resources to it.
Select Agree budget and approach, right click,
and click Assign Resources.
Now that brings up the Assign Resources dialogue.
And in the dialogue you can see a list of
the available resources.
Later on in the course we’ll look at the
fact that as the number of resources available
in a project grows you may need to filter
this list in order to find a particular resource
or resources that you need.
But at the moment we’ve got such a short
list of resources that it’s easy to find
the one that we want to assign.
I’m going to assign the bride and groom
to this task.
I’m going to work on the principle that
the bride and groom are arranging this wedding
themselves.
I appreciate that in many situations it will
perhaps be family members or other relations
or friends that will be doing some or all
of the organizing.
But I’m trying to make this not too complicated.
To assign a resource all I need to do is to
select that resource, in this case the bride
is already selected and then click on Assign.
Now when I assign a resource to a task like
that it doesn’t automatically close the
Assign Resources dialogue.
You note there a separate Close button.
But what you can see if first of all the number
of units.
Well 100% represents one bride.
So there’s one bride attached to that task
which is just as well really because we only
have one bride available.
And the cost of the bride working on that
task is zero.
Don’t forget that the rate for the bride
chargeable to this project is $0 per hour.
So if she’s working on that task for ten
days then she’s still not going to charge
us any money for doing it.
Now one very important point I’d like you
to bear in mind here and this is going to
become increasingly important later in the
course.
Is that the 100% means that the bride is working
on this task fulltime.
Now in reality it may well be that she is
not working fulltime and that she’s actually
doing her day job most of the time and she’s
just spending a certain amount of time working
on, in this case, the budget and approach
to her wedding.
But for the purposes of this particular project
and this will not be the case for the bathroom
refit, but for the purposes of this project
all I’m going to do is treat that 100% as
being all of the time that she has available.
That doesn’t mean to say it’s a 40 hour
week or an eight hour day or anything else.
It just means that all of the time she’s
got available she is going to spend on that
task while that task is in progress.
Now fortunately while that task is in progress
she doesn’t actually have any other tasks
on the wedding so she can spend all of her
time on it.
If I want to assign a second resource and
the most obvious second resource to assign
is the groom.
I’m going to select the groom and do the
same thing.
Click on Close and the bride and groom are
now assigned to that task.
One of the consequences of assigning the bride
and groom to that task is to do with the amount
of work involved in that task.
I pointed out to you much earlier on in the
course that when you look at work, particularly
for a new project and particularly when this
project was new, in the work column there
was zero hours of work because we had no resources
assigned to that task.
As far as Project 2016 is concerned we have
now taken a ten day task and it defaults to
an eight hour working day.
So ten days for eight hours a day is 80 hours.
And when I assigned two people to it full
time that is 160 hours of work.
So as far as Project 2016 is concerned these
two resources are going to do 160 hours of
work on this task.
Now when you do this and the reasons for this
will become apparent in the next section,
when you do this and you effectively increase
the amount of work from zero hours to 160
hours Project 2016 offers you alternative
ways of dealing with the change that you’ve
made.
And that little exclamation mark on the left
there with the dropdown next to it offers
you alternative ways of dealing with a situation
where you’ve increased the amount of work
in a task.
As far as the wedding project is concerned
this is of little interest really because
we’re not really going to charge for the
brides and grooms time.
So the costings and in fact the scheduling
of this is not going to be changed by the
fact that we’ve assigned two resources to
that task.
We’re not going to say that because the
bride and groom are working on it it’s only
going to take half the time.
We decided it was a ten day task and that
was it.
We don’t make it a five day task because
two people are working on it.
That set of arguments about work and duration
and the amount of work in a task and so on
is what we’re going to look at in the next
section.
And I hope that that section will explain
to you why we get these options here and in
fact which of these options is the right one
to choose.
But on this occasion we’re going to go for
the default option which is Increase the amount
of work but keep the same duration.
When we do that Project 2016 is quite happy.
The warnings gone away.
We’ve got our 160 hours of work.
We’ve still got a ten day task and the bride
and groom are assigned to that task.
My main concern over the next few sections
is going to be the scheduling of this wedding
and the scheduling of projects in general.
And in fact it’s the assignment of work
resources that will be the key factor.
For the balance of this section I’m just
going to quickly show you a couple of other
ways of assigning resources and we’re going
to assign those other two resources that we
set up, one cost resource and one material
resource just to go through the basics of
dealing with those.
We’ll be coming back to cost and material
resources later though as I really do want
to concentrate on work resources and scheduling
now.
Let’s go down to the photography section
and let’s suppose that I want to assign
the photographer to the Select and book photographer
task.
So I’m going to assign the cost of the photographer
to this task.
On the Resource Tab one of the buttons is
Assign Resources.
And that brings up the Assign Resources dialogue
and from here I can assign the photographer.
Now don’t forget that when I assign the
photographer we don’t have a cost assigned
because it’s a cost resource and we haven’t
specified what that cost is until we actually
assign it to the task.
Now we’re going to allow for the fact that
the photographer/videographer we’re going
to use is going to charge right about $1,500.
So enter $1,500, click somewhere else and
we have a cost of $1,500.
Having done that click on Close and that resource
is assigned to the task.
Note how the cost appears in brackets after
Photographer.
I should point out to you by the way that
what you see on the Gantt Chart on the right,
the words to the right of the blocks in this
case, this is all customizable and we will
be looking at customizing the Gantt Chart
later on in the course.
The last assignment that I would like to make
here is the assignment of the rings.
So I’m going to go to Select and buy rings
and right click.
I’m going to use this approach to getting
the Assign Resources dialogue.
And on this occasion I’m going to choose
Ring.
And I’m going to actually assign the number
of rings because we’re actually going to
buy two rings.
Note how as I use that roller there the units
I’ve specified for rings which is the text
that I put in the material column on the Resource
Sheet is shown.
You can just about see it there.
It’s saying two rings.
You can just about make it out.
You’ll see it better in just a moment.
Click on Assign and as you can see two rings
and it knows that each ring we’ve allowed
$500 for.
So that’s $1,000 for two wedding rings.
The other important thing to bear in mind
here is that I could at the same time assign
the bride and groom to this task as well.
So if I select Bride, hold the Control key
down, select Groom, click on Assign and now
click on Close.
I’ve got three resources assigned to that
task.
I’ve got the bride and groom work resources
and material resource, two wedding rings and
note the units there, two ring.
That’s the basics of assignments.
In the next section we’re going to turn
our attention back to work and we’re going
to look at work with particular reference
to different types of task.
That’s it for this section.
I’ll see
you then.