Manage Assignments

Additional Information

From the Project - Resources tab, you can manage the resource schedule for a project in the Assignments Detail pane. From this screen, you can add resources to tasks and then schedule time-phased assignments using either a weekly or monthly timescale. Weeks and months are defined in the Scheduling Calendar.

The following explains how to manage assignments.

 

Note: While you can view resources and assignments in any plan view, you can only enter, edit, and delete assignments if you have selected the Current, Current vs. Baseline, or Current vs. Published plan view.

Use the following information and steps to manage assignments:

Enter Assignments

You can enter assignments for any scheduling period (week or month) regardless of when the task is scheduled to start or finish.

To enter an assignment:

  1. Select the cell for a resource for a time period and enter the assignment value.

  2. For employees and labor resource classes, enter a number of hours in the Hours cell.

  3. For vendors and expense resource classes, enter the expense value in the Expense Cost cell.

Assignments entered by week or month are broken down and stored by working day within the period for easy aggregation. Working days are defined by the project’s work calendar.

 

Note: If a work calendar is not assigned to the project, all days are considered working days.

Weekly Assignments

Assignments entered for a week are distributed evenly in whole numbers across the working days within the week, with any remaining hours or cost distributed one-by-one starting from the first date. If an entered assignment contains a fraction, it is added to the first working day. Assignments that are less than the working days in a week, result in front-loaded daily assignment values. The basic algorithm for distributing assignments by week is as follows using a labor resource example:

  • If there are 5 working days in a week and a labor resource is assigned 3 hours, each of the first 3 days will contain 1 hour, and the last 2 days will be 0 (zero).

    Daily values: 1,1,1,0,0.

  • If 12.25 hours are assigned to the same week, each day will initially receive 2 hours for a total of 10 hours, and the remaining 2 hours will be distributed one-by-one from the first day, and the fraction will be assigned to the first day.
    Daily values: 3.25, 3, 2, 2, 2.

Monthly Assignments

Assignments entered for a month are divided by the number of weeks and then distributed by days within each week, using the approach described above. As you switch between timescales, the daily assignments are aggregated accordingly by week or month.

Spread Estimated Values

For each resource assigned to a task, you can enter an Estimated Hours for labor resources or an Estimated Expense Cost for non-labor resources. These values are an overall estimation of the scheduling needed for the task. Once you are ready to schedule assignments for the resources, the Spread Estimated Value feature allows you create assignments from your estimate based on the task's start and finish dates. This process will overwrite any assignments already entered for the resource in the time period.

  1. Select one or more resource rows. If you select a task row, estimates will be spread for all resources assigned to the task.
  2. Right click and select the Spread Estimated Values option.
    The entered estimated value is distributed using the algorithm outlined previously when entering assignments by week, except that the working days for distribution span the task’s start and finish dates.
    For example:
    If a task spans 90 days and 40 hours is estimated for a labor resource, the result will be 1 hour in each of the first 40 days and 0 in the remaining 50 days. If 180 hours is estimated, the spread will distribute 2 hours to each of the 90 days.

Set Assignments as Tentative

When assignments are not confirmed, you can enter the data and then mark the assignment as Tentative. This flag does not affect the assignment; it is used to communicate to other plan reviewers that the assignment is not definite.

Tentative assignments are displayed with a dash () to the right of an assignment value. Due to the different timescale views, a cell could contain tentative and non-tentative assignments; cells with a combination of assignments display with a broken dash () to the right of the assignment value. In addition, the indicator rolls up to task rows.

  • Mark as Tentative: To mark assignments as tentative, select an assignment row, click the right mouse button, and then select Set Tentative.
    All selected assignments and assignments greater to the Start Assignment Period are updated.
  • Remove Tentative Flag: To remove the tentative flag, select an assignment row, click the right mouse button, and select Set Tentative.

Replicate Assignments

You can select two or more assignment entries and then right-click to select the Replicate option to replicate or copy the selected values. The replicate option is enabled for source and target assignments entries that are of the same resource type and entry. For example, employee or labor resource class and entry type would be hours, or vendor / expense resource class and entry type would be expense.

Mixed tentative entries can also be replicated. You can select a source assignment grid, such as hours, that has mixed tentative values (in a month) and then select two or more target assignment grids (hours) and right click the Replicate option.

Review Assignments

Use the following tools to review assignments:

Allocation

An employee resource is over allocated when they are scheduled to work more hours than they are available for the selected time period. Allocation is calculated based on data for all assignments in the system for the employee in the date range. This is calculated when the screen is loaded and when assignments are added, edited, or deleted. Allocation is based on the employee's current work calendar.

Over allocation is displayed as a red, up arrow () to the right of an assignment value. The indicator only displays for assignment and is not rolled up the hierarchy. To view the hour totals that lead to over allocation, hover over the cell.

View Employee Assignments

  1. Select an employee row.
  2. Click the right mouse button and then select the View All Assignments option.
    The All Assignments dialog box displays. For more information, see All Assignments.

Shift Assignments

  1. Select one or more resource rows.
  2. Click the right mouse button and select the Shift Assignments option or click the Tools button and then select Shift / Assignments.
    The Shift Assignments dialog box displays. It allows you to bulk adjust resource assignments across time periods. For more information, see Shift Assignments.

Delete Assignments

To delete assignments, select one or more assignment cells and then press the Delete key.
The assignment values are deleted.