Setting Up Resources in Microsoft Project 2010

Entering Resource Capacity

The Max. Units field represents the maximum capacity of a resource to accomplish any task. Specifying that a resource has 100% maximum units means that 100 percent of that resource’s working time is available to work on assigned tasks in the project plan. Project will alert you if you assign the resource to more tasks than they can accomplish at 100% maximum units (in other words, if the resource becomes overallocated). 100% is the default Max. Units value for new resources.

For a resource that represents not a specific person, but a category of interchangeable people with a common skill set, you can enter a larger Max. Units value to indicate the number of available people. Entering a Max. Units setting such as 800% for such a resource means that you can expect that eight individual people who all belong to that resource category will be available to work full time every workday.

In this exercise, you adjust the Max. Units values to indicate one resource that represents multiple people, and another resource whose capacity to work in this project plan is less than full time.

1. Click the Max. Units field for the Copyeditors resource.

2. Type or select 400%, and then press Enter.

   TIP

   When you click a numeric value in a field like Max. Units, up and down arrows appear. You can click these to display the number you want, or simply type the number in the field.

   Next you’ll update the Max. Units value for Sharon Salavaria to indicate that she works half time.

3. Click the Max. Units field for Sharon Salavaria, type or select 50%, and then press Enter.

   

   TIP

   If you prefer, you can enter maximum units as partial or whole numbers (.5, 1, 4) rather than as percentages (50%, 100%, 400%). To use this format, on the File tab, click Options. In the Project Options dialog box, click the Schedule tab. In the Show assignment units as a box, click Decimal.

With these changes to Max. Units, Project will identify these resources as being overallocated when their assigned work exceeds their capacities. You will work with resource overallocation in Chapters 8 and Chapter 9.