MS Project - Lesson #3 - Scheduling With ResourcesObjectives - MS Project 2010 · Change the task type settings to control how resources affect task assignments · Apply a preset resource contour to change work value distribution · Working with task information forms When planning a project schedule, adjustments are often needed to reflect necessary changes in project scope, assignments, etc. In MS Project, when an assignment is changed, the schedule is recalculated to display the changes. You can work with the scheduling method and the task type settings when making changes to the initial resource assignment. In the previous lesson, the initial resource assignments were made for our project. But we need to learn how to make adjustments to how those resources are used. It is important that you read every part of this lab carefully, if not twice. Working with Effort-Driven Scheduling How a task reacts to the addition and removal of resources is defined by the scheduling method and the task type settings. In MS Project, the default scheduling method is effort-driven scheduling. Effort-driven scheduling extends or shortens the duration of a task to accommodate changes to resources but doesn't change the total work for the task. Work is the amount of effort, or number of hours, resources put into a task. The total work for a task is determined by the duration estimate for the task and the initialresource assignment using the following formula: Work = Duration * Units For example, say you give a task the duration of one day (or eighthours based upon a normal working day). If the initial resource assignment is two units (200%) of a particular resource, the total work for the task will be 16 hours. 16 hours = 1 Day (8 hours) * 200% As resources are added or removed after the initial assignment, the amount of work is not recalculated, but redistributed among the resources. In other words, the duration is recalculated, not the work: Duration = Work / Units So if you assign two more units of the previous resource or two different resources, the total work remains 16 hours; however, the 16 hours is now redistributed among the four resources (16 hours divided by 4 units equals 4 hours of work per resource). The duration is now .5 days (4 hours). .5 Day (4 hours) = 16 hours / 400% Effort-driven scheduling assumes that the more (or fewer) resources you assign to a task will decrease (or increase) the duration of a task. "If I can use more people, I can get done faster". The key to effort-driven scheduling is when you make that first assignment (when you press assign or press enter when entering resource assignments), that is when the amount of work is calculated and never changes when you make additional assignments or subtract resources. This effect is very important to understand! Let's demonstrate this effect. 1. Log onto Windows. 2. Open your completed file MyLab2_XXX.mpp. (or use the MyLab2_XXX.mpp file from Doc Shar.

1. MS Project - Lesson #3 - Scheduling With ResourcesObjectives
- MS Project 2010
· Change the task type settings to control how resources affect
task assignments
· Apply a preset resource contour to change work value
distribution
· Working with task information forms
When planning a project schedule, adjustments are often needed
to reflect necessary changes in project scope, assignments, etc.
In MS Project, when an assignment is changed, the schedule is
recalculated to display the changes. You can work with the
scheduling method and the task type settings when making
changes to the initial resource assignment.
In the previous lesson, the initial resource assignments were
made for our project. But we need to learn how to make
adjustments to how those resources are used. It is important
that you read every part of this lab carefully, if not twice.
Working with Effort-Driven Scheduling
How a task reacts to the addition and removal of resources is
defined by the scheduling method and the task type settings. In
MS Project, the default scheduling method is effort-driven
scheduling. Effort-driven scheduling extends or shortens the
duration of a task to accommodate changes to resources but
doesn't change the total work for the task.
Work is the amount of effort, or number of hours, resources put
into a task.
The total work for a task is determined by the duration estimate
for the task and the initialresource assignment using the

2. following formula:
Work = Duration * Units
For example, say you give a task the duration of one day (or
eighthours based upon a normal working day). If the initial
resource assignment is two units (200%) of a particular
resource, the total work for the task will be 16 hours.
16 hours = 1 Day (8 hours) * 200%
As resources are added or removed after the initial assignment,
the amount of work is not recalculated, but redistributed among
the resources. In other words, the duration is recalculated, not
the work:
Duration = Work / Units
So if you assign two more units of the previous resource or two
different resources, the total work remains 16 hours; however,
the 16 hours is now redistributed among the four resources (16
hours divided by 4 units equals 4 hours of work per resource).
The duration is now .5 days (4 hours).
.5 Day (4 hours) = 16 hours / 400%
Effort-driven scheduling assumes that the more (or fewer)
resources you assign to a task will decrease (or increase) the
duration of a task. "If I can use more people, I can get done
faster". The key to effort-driven scheduling is when you make
that first assignment (when you press assign or press enter when
entering resource assignments), that is when the amount of work
is calculated and never changes when you make additional

3. assignments or subtract resources. This effect is very important
to understand!
Let's demonstrate this effect.
1. Log onto Windows.
2. Open your completed file MyLab2_XXX.mpp. (or use the
MyLab2_XXX.mpp file from Doc Sharing) Check the
addendum at the end of this lesson to make sure your beginning
file is correct.
3. Save as MyLab3_XXX.mpp, where XXX are your initials.
4. Make sure you are in Gantt chart view and your table is the
task entry table.
5. From the View tab and the Task Views group, click Other
Views and then More Views.
6. The More Views dialog box appears (figure 1). Select
TaskEntry and then press Apply.
Figure 1
7. You will notice that your screen "splits" into two separate
windows or panes again.
8. The top window or pane is your Gantt chart view with the
entry table. The bottom pane is known as the task form window
and contains many different formats. The default format you
are looking at is known as the resources and predecessors detail
view. We will use different detail formats in this window in
coming labs. For now, remember this is the task form window.
9. In the top pane, click on task #3, Inventory Current
Equipment. Notice in the lower pane, the resource assignment
you made from the previous lab, Systems Administrator.
Remember that you initially assigned two units of this resource.
The duration you gave this task was 3 days (or 24 hours). When

4. you made the assignment, the initial scheduling then calculated
the work. Given the formula, work equals duration times units,
24 hours times 2 units equals 48 hours of work and that is what
is in the work column for that resource.
10. Also notice the box Effort driven (next to the Previous
button) is checked. That means that this task is using effort-
driven scheduling. Also notice the textbox below it labeled
Task Type and the phrase Fixed Units. We will be returning to
this box shortly.
11. Again, making sure you have clicked on task #3, open the
Assign Resources dialog box from the Resource tab (the one
with the faces).
12. Change the number of units of the resource Systems
Administrator to 300%. (Either type in 300 or use the up arrow
and then press enter). (Figure 2).
Figure 2
13. Notice in the lower pane the units of the resource changed
to 300% and the work remained at 48 hours, but notice the
duration of the task: it changed to 2 days. Why? Taking our
formula that work equals duration times units, when we make
any change after the initial calculation of work, work is not
recalculated, but the duration is! Therefore (using our algebraic
knowledge), duration is equal to work divided by units, or 48
hours divided by 3 units equals 16 hours or 2 days. Got it?
Also remember the 48 hours is the cumulative amount of work
for the three units.
14. But what happens if we now subtract some of the units? In
your Assign Resources dialog box, change the units of Systems
Administrator to 100%. What happened? Your work is still 48
hours, but since there is only one resource the duration is
recalculated for 6 days (48 hours divided by 1 unit equals 48
hours or 6 days).

5. 15. Change the units of resource for Systems Administrator
back to the original 200%. Your duration should return to the
original 3 days.
16. Since this was the same resource, what would happen if we
added a different resource?
17. Click on SystemsAnalyst and make an assignment of 100%.
(Click Assign button or Press Enter).
18. You should now see in the task form the name of Systems
Analyst appear and in the work column the 48 hours of work is
now distributed evenly among the three resources (2 Systems
Administrators and one Systems Analyst), but it still totals 48
hours. The duration is now 2 days, because each unit will be
working 16 hours or 2 days.
19. Close the Assign Resource and Keep this assignment of the
Systems Analyst to this task. (Duration for project is now 40
days).
Effort-driven scheduling can be turned off for individual tasks
(or all tasks when you first created a project in the Tools -
Options - Schedule). When effort-driven scheduling is turned
off, totalworkincreases (or decreases) when units of different
resources are added (or subtracted) from the task. To see this
effect:
1. Click on task #4, Assess Current Department Needs. In the
lowerpane (in the task form), make sure the Effort driven box is
unchecked.
2. Press the OK button to effect the change. (You must do
this!)
3. Making sure you've clicked in the task #4 in the upperpane.
4. In the lower pane, add one unit (100%) of the Systems
Analyst and one unit (100%) of the Systems Manager to this
task and press OK.
5. Notice the duration remains at two days, but each of the units
is assigned the same amount of work (16 hours). You would do
this if you know each of your resources is doing different work

6. within the task's duration and they are a different resource.
(See figure 3).
Figure 3
6. Keeptheseassignments for this task.
7. But what if we turn off effort-driven scheduling, but add
additional units of the same resource? What happens? Here is
where it can get confusing and you must reflect on what is
happening behind the scenes and the effect task type has on
scheduling.
8. Click on task #7, Research Products and Services. Your task
form should show the resource Systems Analyst, 50% under the
Units column and 28 hours of work (50% of 7 days/56 hours, is
28 hours).
9. Make sure the Effort driven box in is Unchecked the task
form and click on OK.
10. Change the 50% to 100%, and click OK. What happened?
Notice the workstayed at 28 hours (in other words, work was
not recalculated), but the durationchanged to 3.5 days! We
would have expected that work should have been recalculated to
56 hours and the duration to stay the same.
11. Keep this assignment.
The task type setting also has an effect on how tasks are
scheduled. There are three task types: Fixed Units, Fixed
Duration and Fixed Work. Using one of these types, any
variable in the standard equation of Work = Duration * Units
can be controlled.
When Fixed Units task type is used (and it is the default), the
duration of the task is affected. Fixed Unit tasks are also called
Resource-driven tasks. Assigning additional units of the same
resource will decrease the schedule, not the work! Therefore,
work remains at 28 hours, but duration is recalculated by
dividing the work by the new number of units (28 hours divided
by 1 equals 28 hours or 3.5 days). To help you, here is a table

7. to explain the effect of effort-driven with fixed unit task type:
Example: Task X has a duration of 2 weeks, and initial resource
assignment of one unit of Resource A, and therefore an initial
total work of 80 hours.
Fixed Unit With Effort Driven
Duration
Units
Work
Add one unit of same resource (A)
1 week
200% of Resource A
40 hours each
80 hours total
Add one unit of different resource (B)
1 week
100% of Resource A
100% of Resource B
40 hours
40 hours
80 hours total
Fixed Unit Without Effort Driven
Duration
Units
Work
Add one unit of same resource (A)
1 week
200% of Resource A
40 hours each
80 hours total
Add one unit of different resource (B)
2 weeks
100% of Resource A
100% of Resource B
80 hours
80 hours

8. 160 hours total
At this point, this all seems very confusing I assure you.
Actually, fixed units sounds like a bad term for this task type.
But if you notice from the table, the key is really effort driven.
If a task is effort-driven, the philosophy says that the more
resources, regardless of being the same resource or a different
resource, work remains the same, but the duration will be
affected. If a task is not effort-driven, but a fixed unit or
resource-driven task, duration will only be affected if you add
or subtract the number of units of the same resource!
But what if you want to ensure that the duration of a task never
changes? You can control that by changing the task type to
Fixed Duration. Let's see that effect:
1. Keep the assignment you just made on Task #7 (100% of
Systems Analyst), and now click on task #9, Issue RFPs. The
resource assignment is the Project Manager. The duration is 7
days therefore work has been calculated as 56 hours of work
based upon 1 unit (100%).
2. In the task form in the bottom pane, change the task type to
fixed duration by choosing from the pull-down men, and check
the effort-driven box). (Figure 4)
Figure 4
3. Press OK to effect the change.
4. Add the Financial Officer (100%) to this task and press the
OK button. What happened?
Figure 5
The Project Manager and Financial Officer are both assigned 28
hours worth of work over 7 days.

9. If a task has the task type Fixed Duration, the duration of the
task remains the same (fixed) when resources are added or
removed; however work for each resource could be allocated
differently depending on whether it is the same resource or a
different resource. Here is a chart of how effort-driven
scheduling could affect the workload of a resource (but not the
task duration) when designating a task type of Fixed Duration:
Example: Task X has a duration of 2 weeks, and initial resource
assignment of one unit of Resource A, and therefore an initial
total work of 80 hours.
Fixed Duration With Effort Driven
Duration
Units
Work
Add one unit of same resource (A)
2 weeks
200% of Resource A
80 hours each
160 hours total
Add one unit of different resource (B)
2 weeks
50% of Resource A
50% of Resource B
40 hours
40 hours
80 hours total
Fixed Duration Without Effort Driven
Duration
Units
Work
Add one unit of same resource (A)
2 weeks
200% of Resource A
80 hours each

10. 160 hours total
Add one unit of different resource (B)
2 weeks
100% of Resource A
100% of Resource B
80 hours
80 hours
160 hours total
Let's try this table to see if we can predict the effect of our
scheduling:
1. Make sure task #9 (Issue RFPs) is selected in the upper pane.
2. In the lower pane, Select the Financial Officer and press the
delete key to remove the Financial Officer. Press OK.
3. The task form should show the Project Manager back to 100%
assignment and 56 hours of work.
4. In the task form, uncheck the effort-driven box and press OK.
5. Making sure you are still on task #9 again. Add the Financial
Officer and assign him back to the task (100%). What
happened?
6. According to the above chart, if effort-driven is turned off
and the task type is Fixed Duration, adding one unit of a
different resource will not change the duration (it is still 7
days), but eachresource will be assigned the same amount of
work, 56 hours. (Keep this assignment as is).
The last task type is Fixed Work. Fixed work means the
totalwork for the task will remain the same when resources are
added or subtracted. Only the duration and units are affected in
a Fixed Work type task, but inversely. A Fixed Work task can
only be effort-driven.
To see this effect:
1. Click on task #10, Evaluate Bids. Notice that the Project
Manager was initially assigned to this task for 100% or 40 hours

11. of total work.
2. Change the task type to Fixed Work in the task form and
Press OK. (Notice the effort-driven checkbox is grayed out).
3. Assign one unit (100%) of Financial Officer to this task.
What happened? Notice the workstayed at 40 hours, but the
work was distributed between the two resources and the
duration was changed to 2.5 days. Why is the duration 2.5 days
or 20 hours? (Keep this assignment change).
4. Click on the task #13, Purchase Equipment. Notice we have
assigned .5 (or 50%) of the Financial Officer to this task. Since
the initial duration was given as 4 days, 50% of 4 days is 2 days
or 16 hours.
5. Change the task type of this task to FixedWork. Press OK.
6. Change the percentage of the Financial Officer from 50% to
100%. What happened? Why did duration of the task change to
2 days?
7. Change the percentage of the Financial Officer back to 50%.
(Very important for the next section). Duration changed back to
4 days. Why? (Keep this assignment as is). (Your project
should now be at a total duration of 37.25 days; if not, check
previous instructions).
8. If it appears that Fixed Work is similar to effort-driven, you
are not far off the mark.
Again, all this is very confusing, I assure you, but hopefully it
encourages you to think about your initial assignments and what
affect adding or subtracting resources has on your schedule and
workload.
Another chart you can use to determine what changes in MS
Project when you change task types and what is recalculated is:
And you change…

12. …then
MS Project
Recalculates this
If your
Task
Type is…
Duration
Units
Work
Fixed Duration
Work
Work
Units
Fixed Units
Work
Duration
Duration
Fixed Work
Units
Duration
Duration
Perhaps the best advice is the following:
1. Leave all tasks as effort-driven, fixed units unless the
duration absolutely needs to remain fixed. Fixed durations are

13. rare. Tasks such as waiting 1 hour after swimming may seem
like a fixed duration, but can be best handled by using lag
times. (Actually the above is really not a task). A better
example of a fixed duration task would be driving a truck. If we
estimate that to drive a truck from Seattle to Spokane will take
about 4 1/2 hours, it does not matter how many drivers we
assign to the task, it will still take 4 1/2 hours.
2. If you want to assign two resources (or people) to a task and
each is doing different work, it is best to split the task into two
tasks. For example, in the current project, we have assigned the
Project Manager and the Financial Officer to the same task,
Issue RFPs. If the Project Manager is working on the technical
section of the RFP and the Financial Office is working on the
financing requirements of the RFP, then it is best to split Issue
RFPs into two different tasks (such as Write Technical
Requirements and Write Financial Requirements) and assign
each resource to the task they are responsible.
Resource Contours
One other assumption made by MS Project when you assign a
resource to a task: that work is evenly distributed throughout
the duration of the task. For example, in our previous task,
Purchase Equipment, we said that the Financial Officer would
be devoting 16 hours over 4 days to complete the task. Those
16 hours are then evenly distributed over the 4 days (or 4 hours
per day). This is known as a flat contour. A contour defines
how scheduled work is distributed over the duration of a task.
You can change this distribution or use several preset contours
to a resource. To see this contour:
1. From the Task tab and in the Properties group, click on
Details twice to remove the split.
2. You should now have just the Gantt chart view on your
screen.
3. From the View tab and the Task Views group, select Task

14. Usage. Your screen should look similar to figure 6. (You may
need to use the vertical and horizontal scroll bars to get to the
top of the table and to see the appropriate dates on the right).
Figure 6
4. On the left you will see your tasks and under each task are
the names of the resources assigned to the task. On the right
are the work details in calendar form.
5. Move the divider between the left and right panes to the right
of the Duration column. Expand the task name column so that
you can see all of the information.
6. Using the right scroll bar, scroll down to the task, Purchase
Equipment and click on it to highlight it.
7. Click on FinancialOfficer directly below.
8. On the Task tab and on the far right in the Editing group,
click on the Scroll to Task button.
9. To the right, you will see the 16 hours evenly distributed
over four days (4 hours per day). (Figure 7 ). However we can
change that distribution manually.
Figure 7
10. In the first cell that says four hours (make sure you stay in
the same row as the Financial Officer, change the first day to 6
hours, the second day to 5 hours and the third day to 1 hour.
(Figure 8) The fourth day we will not change.
Figure 8
What we have done is created a custom contour, and while MS
Project has preset contours, I recommend that you do these
manually. Keep in mind, however, that your duration may
change based upon the task type.

15. At this point, return to the Gantt chart view. Save your file and
print out the following reports: (use proper header/footer
information)
1. Project Summary Report.
2. A Task Usage Report (under Workload category).
3. A Resource Usage Report (under Workload category).
When submitting required printouts, if you are not bringing
them to class, from the Print Preview Page, take a screen shot
(in Windows <ALT><Prt Scr>) of the report and paste the
screen shot to a MS Word Document. Make sure to crop the
screen to show only the report. After cropping, resize the image
appropriately. If the printout is on more than 1 page, paste each
page individually. Save the Word document containing printouts
as Week_3_Printouts_XXX.docx (where XXX are your initials)
and submit this file to the Weekly iLab Dropbox.
Checkpoint (From Project Information Statistics)
Addendum
Task Information for the Beginning of Lesson 3
Project Information Statistics at the Beginning of Lesson 3
When you have completed this lesson please save it as

16. MyLab3_xxx.mpp and submit the file to the Weekly iLab
Dropbox.
Also complete the following page and submit the Review
Question sheet to the Weekly iLab Dropbox.
Review Questions
Name ____________________________
Answer the following questions (use MS Project help if
necessary):
1) Define effort-driven?
2) Under what circumstances would you turn off effort driven
scheduling?
3) Use a real-world example of when you would make a task as
a Fixed Duration type task?

17. 4) What is the formula for calculating duration?
5) What are the eight preset work contours (hint: In the Task
Usage view right click on a resource name an open the
assignment information box) and what are the procedures in
applying them to a resource on a task?
Turn in this sheet with your MS Project file to the Week 3 iLab
Dropbox.
MS Project Lab #3 Page 6