Overview of the Resource Overallocation Service
Everyone knows that Resource Management is a strategic part of successful project management. Project managers and resource managers need an easy, reliable tool to help them identify and resolve resource bottlenecks that may negatively impact the project outcome. Primavera P6 Web 8.2 includes the Check Resource Over-allocation service (among other resource analysis tools), which provides an efficient way to identify and support the resolution of over-allocated resources.
The Check Resource Overallocation service produces an Overallocation Report identifying those resources allocated to the currently open project (s) that are over-allocated and have exceeded their capacity for the time period specified when the service is run. The activities to which the resources are allocated are also displayed. Additionally, allocations for un-opened projects are displayed under the heading of Projects: Other Projects on the Overallocation Report. Template projects, requested projects, and what-if projects are not included when the Check Resource Overallocated service is run.
Project managers and resource managers can actually edit the resource assignments directly from the Overallocation Report. You can also use the report to search for and open a request for resources.
The Check Resource Overallocation service utilizes data from the Publication Services, which runs in the background providing near real-time reporting information to the P6 Extended Schema, which is an extension of your P6 database including tables and views optimized for reporting efficiencies.
This reporting data includes:
- published project data including summary and calculated data
- published global data such as enterprise data, resource/role info, portfolio info, and security data.
The Enable Publication setting must be activated for all projects that you want to include when running the Check Resource Overallocation service. Activating this setting is accomplished by accessing Set Project Preferences from the EPS page. The instructions are provided in the tutorial below.
This Primavera P6 Web 8.2 tutorial illustrates the setup and usage of the Check Resource Overallocation service to identify and resolve resource over-allocation.
Step 1. From the EPS page in Primavera P6 Web 8.2, right click on the project and select Set Project Preferences (you can also select Set Project Preferences from the Actions menu).
Step 2. Select Services and then mark the checkbox to Enable Publication.
Step 3. Summarize the project to ensure that resource information is up to date because most resource data in Primavera P6 is based upon summarized data. You can Summarize the project from the EPS page, Actions menu or by right-clicking on the project. You can also Summarize the project from the Activities page as depicted below by selecting the Actions menu.
Step 4. Before we demonstrate the Check Resource Overallocation service, let’s look at the Team Page for our project where we can view the allocation status in histogram view to help us identify periods of resource over-allocation. The image below depicts that Jennifer Boyle is over-allocated during the weeks of Jan. 7 and 14 of 2018.
Step 5. You can also view the Team Page in spreadsheet format as depicted below. Click on the project link to view the activities to which the resource has been allocated.
Step 6. The image below depicts the activities to which Jennifer Boyle has been assigned.
Step 7. Another feature available in the P6 Web 8.2 toolbox is the Overallocated Resources portlet in the Project Workspace. You can display this portlet by customizing the project Workspace and checking the box to display the Overallocated Resources portlet.
Step 8. The image displayed below illustrates the Overallocated Resources portlet alerting you that Jennifer Boyle is overallocated. Clicking on the link for Jennifer Boyle will display the Team Page as depicted in Step 4 above.
Step 9. Now let’s run the Check Resource Overallocation service (make sure that the project has been summarized). From the Activities page, select Actions menu, Run, Check Resource Overallocation.
Step 10. Choose a time period to check for resource overallocation.
Step 11. Select View Service Status to monitor the status of the service.
Step 12. The screen shot below depicts the Service Status dialog box.
Step 13. When the service has completed, a Notification dialog will display at the bottom left of the screen.
Step 14. Click on the Notifications link at the bottom left of the screen to access the Overallocation Report.
Step 15. The Overallocation Report is displayed. Notice that 2 over-allocated resources in the currently opened projects are displayed along with the activities and allocation details.
Step 16. In the middle panel of the Overallocation Report you can enter search criteria to locate alternate resources.
Step 17. In the far right panel of the report you can view the allocations in a time-distributed manner. The image below shows that Jennifer Boyle is over-allocated during the weeks of Jan. 7 and 14 of 2018.
Step 18. To resolve the over-allocation for Jennifer Boyle, select the activity (Perform interface requirements analysis).
Step 19. After selecting the activity, click the icon Assign Resource by Role or Assign Resource.
Step 20. Select another resource that can fill the role.
Step 21. Make sure that you Save in order to view the results.
Step 22. The image below depicts the Overallocation Report after Saving the above mentioned changes.
Step 23. Make sure that you Summarize the project after making allocation changes.
Step 24. View the Team Page to see that Jennifer Boyle is no longer over-allocated.
Step 25. The Overallocated Resources portlet in the project Workspace also reflects that Jennifer Boyle is no longer over-allocated.
Do you need a better understanding of Resource Management in Primavera P6? Click here to access our free Resource Management video guide. Also, click here to view our new dates for MSS Inc.’s instructor led virtual Primavera training courses.