Using MS Project to manage software development projects. Assigning people to work on tasks

We've covered the basics of project management in Microsoft Project 2010. Now it's time to understand resource management.

Resources come in different types. For example, during construction, these will be materials (bricks, cement, boards, nails, etc.), own and hired labor, machines (delivery of goods, digging a pit, etc.), funds, etc. Distributing them among tasks, you will be able to determine the total cost of the project and control budget expenses.

Let's look at a simplified resource management model using the example of website development (see Fig. 1).

Figure 1 - Website development tutorial project

Resource management

To get started with resource management, you first need to make a list of them. To do this, select the Resource Sheet item in the View drop-down list of the Task tab (see Figure 2). You may find it more convenient to use another way to navigate between the components of the project - through the context menu of the leftmost bar.

Figure 2 - Go to the resource sheet

The resource sheet looks like a regular Excel spreadsheet. Let's start filling it out.

The website development project includes costs mainly for employee salaries. In Project 2010, you can assign different types of payment for work: hourly and piecework (i.e., fixed). Let our company employ people who can perform all types of work except website promotion, which will be done by a student for 3,000 rubles. Let's label each employee on the resource sheet.

In the Resource Name field, indicate the employee's title (position or surname) - programmer. Type - labor. Max. units - 100%. The standard rate is 100 rubles/hour (the figure is arbitrary). Accrual is proportional. Basic calendar - Standard.

Let’s similarly fill in the lines for the “idea generator”, designer, layout designer and content manager. And for a student engaged in promotion (SEO), we will assign the type Costs. This will allow you to specify a fixed amount in the future.

We will not consider indirect costs of the project (electricity, Internet, telephone, rent, etc.) for now. The final result can be seen in Figure 3.

Figure 3 - Resource Sheet

To assign available resources to tasks, return to the Gantt chart view and click the Assign Resources button on the Resource tab (see Figure 4).

Figure 4 - Resource assignment button

A window with the previously entered list will open (see Fig. 5). It is quite convenient to work with it, because... it allows you to work with other program windows, and at the same time does not fade into the background when navigating through the project.

Select the task, then the required resource, and click the Assign button.

Figure 5 - Assignment of resources

You, of course, can assign an SEO resource to promotion in this way, but it will not take part in accounting for the total cost until you specify a specific amount in the Costs field (see Fig. 6). Once resource allocation is complete, you can close the floating window.

Figure 6 - We assign fixed costs for promotion

The Gantt chart will display all resources next to the time period (you can assign several), but this is not very informative. I would also like to see specific monetary costs. Of course, the Project 2010 developers had this in mind.

In the context menu of the task list header, select Insert Column (see Figure 7).

Figure 7 - Inserting a new column

From the huge list of available options, select Costs, or enter the word from the keyboard (see Fig. 8).

Figure 8 - Selecting a column type

Project 2010 will calculate the costs of website development in accordance with the actual employment of employees and their wages, which will be displayed in a new column (see Fig. 9).

Figure 9 - Website development costs

The project summary task line will show the total costs of the project. If you adjust the duration of work or the salaries of employees, the program will automatically recalculate the totals.

In this form, you can use Project 2010 to prepare estimates for the customer.

Conclusion

We have only looked at the basic resource management capabilities of Microsoft Project 2010. But the program contains great potential for a manager: foreign exchange resources of variable cost, overhead costs, availability and overload of resources, many tricks and tricks for effective management. By using the basic functionality of Project 2010, you will gradually gain experience and be able to significantly improve the organizational part of your work.

Project Professional 2019 Project Professional 2016 Project 2010 Project Online Desktop Client Project Professional 2013 Project Standard 2010 Project Standard 2013 Project Standard 2016 Project Standard 2019 Less

In Project Professional 2016, some resources may require approval from Resource Manager. If you're connected to Project Online, you may have multiple resources that need to request resource engagement before that resource can be used in the project. Project shows this indicator when you need to request an engagement. Engagement is an agreement between the project manager and the resource manager to allow a specific resource to work on a project for a certain period of time, a certain percentage of the resource's time, or for a certain number of hours.

Assigning a temporary employee to a task

Let's say you want to assign someone to a project temporarily. You can specify how much time this employee will spend on work in the Resource Assignment field.

Are there many people assigned to work on the task?

If you have a single task that has many users assigned to it, you may not be able to make changes to the Resource Names column. This column can only handle 256 characters, and if there are many resources assigned to a task, this limit may be exceeded.

For tasks that require many assigned resources, it is best to make your own assignments and make changes to those assignments in the Task Details dialog box.

The article was provided by the editors of the information and analytical magazine "Project Management" as part of a joint project with the Financial Academy "Active".

Modern methods and tools of project management, articles on developing skills and competencies in the field of managing projects, programs and project portfolios are available when purchasing an issue of the magazine or with a semi-annual and annual subscription.

Who is this article for?

There are a lot of manuals for working in MS Project. Almost all of them talk about technology: how to use the application, what entities exist in it, what connections are used between tasks, etc. However, when it comes to practice, the project manager is faced with the need to make decisions of a different nature - what tasks should be included in the schedule, how to find the golden mean between the detail of the schedule and the ease of working with it, what techniques are best to use to minimize labor costs for planning? How, after all, can we ensure that the project meets its deadlines?

This article is for those who do not need detailed instructions on using MS Project. The article is intended for practitioners who will be interested in learning about the experiences of other project managers. Below are some techniques and principles that have been developed over many years of experience that lead to a practical project schedule.

Project planning

Although a project schedule can serve a variety of purposes, here we focus on the task of managing deadlines. How to plan and ensure project completion on time. At the same time, the tasks of calculating the total labor costs and cost of the project remain outside the brackets. Solving both problems simultaneously using one project schedule is possible, but difficult, because The requirements for the detail and completeness of the schedule, depending on the goals set, are different.

If we talk about deadline management, we can formulate the following requirements. Good project schedule:

Suitable for informing the customer and the project team. To do this, it must be clear, compact, logical, and well structured.

Easily modified in case of changes in deadlines and composition of tasks. It is easy to keep up to date.

Allows you to control deadlines, detect problems and make decisions about them.

In order to create such a schedule, we propose the following action plan:

1. Make decisions about the planning method 1.1. Planning from the start

A more familiar method for most. Useful if you know the start of a project, but only have an approximate idea of ​​when it will end.

Set the start date in the project properties. All new tasks are automatically moved to the beginning, because... By default, the constraint type for them is set to “As soon as possible.” After building a sequence of tasks using connections, the project stretches. By manipulating the duration and sequence of tasks, you get the desired completion date for the project.

This is a more comfortable way of planning from a psychological point of view. It is easier to plan first what is closer and clearer, and then, based on the immediate results, move on to subsequent tasks.

The downside is that tasks that could be done later end up in the plan too close to the start of the project. Some people think that this is correct, because... It's better to do everything as quickly as possible. Complications are likely to arise, and completing tasks early creates time reserves. In some cases this is true. But this also leads to negative consequences.

At the beginning of a project, as a rule, you need to focus on conceptual and strategic tasks, putting aside all the non-essential ones, so as not to become scattered, lose focus and not waste resources. Secondly, work done in advance may turn out to be unnecessary, or not done as required due to lack of information. For example, documents written at the beginning of a project will have to be rewritten because the customer's requirements have changed.

To avoid early start of tasks and distribute tasks over time, you can use restrictions on tasks such as “Not earlier than”, “Fixed start date”.

Sometimes delays and shifts between tasks are used.

Picture 1

However, it is better to use delays as little as possible.

The delay value is set arbitrarily; the logic of their application and evaluation is not directly visible from the graph. This graph is more difficult to read. Subsequently, as the schedule changes, the length and necessity of delays may need to be re-evaluated. You are forced to manage them manually, the complexity of maintaining the schedule increases, and the likelihood of errors increases.

If the delay is really necessary, then it is better to add a wait task explicitly. In the example given, after Trial Operation, instead of a delay of 5 days, you can add the task “Preparation of acceptance tests”. Then it will be clear why 5 days are required, who should do it, and what the consequences of changing the deadlines for this task are.

1.2. Planning from the end

If the final date of the project is strictly defined, then it is more correct to plan “from the end”. The end date for the project is set, and all new tasks are automatically set to the As Late as Possible constraint type.

The planning logic in this case is different, but in some sense more correct. You ask yourself the question: “what is needed to complete the project?” Then you determine what is needed to achieve these intermediate results, add previous tasks, which in turn are joined by previous tasks, etc. A consistent chain of work is built that leads to the results of the project.

This method is good because it builds a clear logic of the work-result-work chain. Consistently building a plan from the end allows you to understand why each task is needed and how its result will be used. And tasks don't start earlier than necessary.

Many will say that putting off tasks until later is risky. What if a task takes longer than planned and the result is late? And she will definitely be late, and then the next task will shift and the end of the project will inevitably shift. To avoid this, temporary buffers are added to the schedule. More on this below.

2. Get rid of unnecessary things and simplify the plan

Anything that does not help plan the project timeline is considered redundant.

2.1. Examples of tasks that you can get rid of

Let's look at the “Project Management” task group. It is clear that the project management task is necessary, but it does not determine the duration of the project, but the project determines its duration. If we are focused on planning deadlines, we can remove it.

Figure 2

Task "Support". As a rule, this is a task that begins after commissioning and, as a rule, has a fixed duration (according to the contract) or is tied to certain control points. You can include it in the project plan, but minimize its detail. This task can be easily replaced in the plan by two control points: Start of operation And End of support.

Figure 3

Ultimately, a plan is needed to set tasks and check the fact and quality of execution. This is a very good criterion to determine at what level of detail to do it. The plan should include only those tasks that the RP is going to set and check their implementation. Smaller tasks are moved outside the plan - to Excel, to JIRA, or to a linked team plan in MS Project.

2.2. An example of excessive detail

It is possible to describe tasks down to individual steps and actions, but what does this give? From the point of view of estimating duration - nothing. Rather, it leads to an error, because Each task contains a significant error.

Figure 4

• “Letter to Pyatnitsina” - “Response to Pyatnitsina.” You can safely exclude it from the plan. If some tasks depend on receiving a letter from Pyatnitsina, and this is really a show-stopper, then we introduce the milestone “Receiving a list of key users from Pyatnitsina.” The fact that we need to contact Pyatnitsina to get the list may remain behind the scenes.
• “Scheduling a meeting” – 1d. It should probably take a few minutes. Instead, one could insert one task for preparing a presentation and the milestone “Meeting with directors of societies.” There is no need to group tasks. Instead of four lines - two.
• “Release of organizational and administrative documentation” can be one task. In the notes on the task, you can list who needs to send the letter. The duration of the task is determined by the total time for preparing all documentation. And this information will be more accurate; there is no need to stretch this task over a week.

3. Establish relationships between tasks

Connections between tasks build the logic of the plan. End-to-end communication means that the results of the previous task are necessary to begin the next one. In theory, there should be no tasks in the plan that have no followers, except for the final completion milestone of a project or phase. Every task is done in a plan for something, its result is always in demand.

3.1. Use a minimum of connection types

In MS Project, you can use different types of connections between tasks “Finish-to-start”, “Start-to-start”, etc. If possible, avoid diversifying the use of different types of connections. It is difficult to read a graph with different types of connections. Its graph behavior when modified becomes difficult to predict. The simpler, the more monotonous, the better.

3.2. Don't use links with summary tasks

Let's look at a simplified example of a project consisting of two stages. Sometimes the plan looks like this:

Figure 5

As a result, we have a suboptimal plan. Ivanov and Petrov will stand idle, waiting for Sidorov to complete his work on Stage 1. If we have the task of compressing the project schedule as much as possible, we will begin work on Stage 2 without waiting for the completion of all work on Stage 1. And then the schedule will look like this. The connections between tasks, in this case, reflect the sequence of work of each resource.

Figure 6

If you really need to finish all the work on Stage 1 and only after that start Stage 2, then you can organize the plan as follows, without resorting to connections between summary tasks - insert milestones for the completion of Stage 1 and the beginning of Stage 2.

Figure 7

This way of organizing the schedule has another advantage - it makes the plan very easy to read. This is important for checking the logic and having all the necessary connections between tasks.

3.3. Use a Network Diagram

To verify connections, it is very convenient to use not the usual Gantt chart, but a network diagram.

Figure 8

For this type of diagram, it is important to have a well-organized grouping of connections into milestones. Otherwise, it is very easy to get confused by the arrows that go from tasks in one corner of the diagram to another.

Very often, a rather complex plan on a network diagram looks simpler and more logical, which allows you to quickly check the presence and correctness of connections between tasks. See an example of a real project schedule:

Figure 9

Figure 10

4. Estimate the duration of tasks

Many special and general techniques are described in the literature (PERT, brainstorming, Delphi, etc.). In reality, you either make an assessment from your own experience, or ask experts or direct performers.

When assessing performers, adjustments must be made. Consider the following factors:

• It is better to judge the reliability of an assessment if the assumptions used by the appraiser are known.
• Consider the psychological characteristics of each performer
• Make a duration adjustment. For some performers, based on experience working with them, you need to divide the assessment by two, for others - multiply by three.

Objectives should not include a “just in case” reserve. Adding slack to each task to increase the probability of completing each task on time, say to 90%, makes the schedule long and you still won't meet the deadline. The reality is that all the delays accumulate, and the advances are eaten up. Why is that? The reasons may be the following:

• “Student syndrome” - study the course the night before the exam. And in a project we start a task when there is minimal time left before it is due.
• Perfectionism - if there is time left, the work must be brought to perfection.
• Lack of trust - “if I did it faster today, then next time they won’t believe my estimates and they will cut down the time I requested.”
• The ability to work less intensively - “why strain if you have time to spare?”

Therefore, adhere to the following rules when planning work:

• Set the probability of completion within the specified time to 50%. This will cut the duration estimate from the 90% probability estimate by about half. Reducing time will allow you to add time buffers to your schedule, which you will spend due to the inevitable delay in tasks. See below for adding buffers.
• Resources should not be overloaded. People should not multitask. In this case, their performance will be maximum possible.

5. Get rid of task parallelization

You can often see parallel tasks assigned to the same performers in plans. For example,

Figure 11

Obviously, the RP gives control of the sequence and priority of tasks to consultants. Then, from a planning point of view, one task “Functional block Control” assigned to Emelyanova and Tena would be enough. Having five parallel tasks doesn't make sense. All resources are overloaded, the complexity and duration of the task is not estimated, and the priorities are not clear.

It would be much better to assign one executor to each task, evaluate each task by pure labor intensity with a 50% probability of completing it on time, arrange the tasks in a chain and add a temporary buffer at the end. Then it would be a real management tool in the hands of the RP.

6. Level resources

Often project managers do not pay attention to the fact that according to the project schedule, resources are overloaded. They simply do not set the task of adjusting resource loading to a certain level. Indeed, if resources are overloaded in the plan, this does not mean that in real life they will not be able to complete the assigned tasks. The problem is that such a plan does not tell us anything about this; it contains no information about the feasibility of the plan. Repeated overload of resources in the plan is equivalent to a lack of information about their actual load.

If we want to plan resource loading, we need to level the load. We can do this not for all resources, but only for critical ones that we really want to plan. For example, we can schedule our employees, but not plan customer resources, the load and capabilities of which are beyond our influence.

MS Project has a resource leveling feature. This function arranges tasks taking into account the relationships between tasks and the maximum load limit for each resource and priority (the “Priority” field). This does not always lead to the desired result. The plan becomes too long and resources are underutilized. Tasks are tied to specific dates in the plan, which makes it difficult to reschedule them. It is possible to achieve a more adequate plan during automatic alignment by reviewing dependencies and prioritizing, but this is a very painstaking and time-consuming process.

An alternative is manual alignment by setting a sequence of tasks to be performed by a single resource. This is possible if the plan is not very complicated.

For example, let's modify the previous example:

Figure 12

In this example, it is assumed that A. Ten participates in the revision of all documents, and writes two documents independently. We don’t know exactly how their joint work will be structured, but we assume on average he will be distracted by A. Emelyanov’s documents by 30%. Therefore, his own tasks, where he is busy, are 70% longer in duration, and are estimated at 5 working days. In addition, we added a buffer in anticipation that some tasks may take longer than we expect.

It would be more correct to divide the tasks between two participants altogether and get rid of the parallel execution of tasks by A. Ten, but in this case it is difficult to do. Therefore, we have to violate the rules that we set for ourselves above. However, this plan is better because... helps to control the completion of tasks not at the end of the 14 working days that we allocated for the design of the “Control” functional block, but already 3 days after the start of work. In addition, this disciplines the performer from the first day, who does not have 14 days left, but has a target deadline of 3 days when the first document needs to be completed.

7. Eliminate strict binding of tasks to dates

The next step is to adjust the schedule to the required dates. It is not always possible to do this through natural connections between tasks; many circumstances arise that dictate the need to start or complete tasks at certain periods of time. You have to link tasks to dates.

Linking to dates is justified if determined by conditions external to the plan. For example, the recorded start date of testing; a reference point that is determined by an external project; immovable event. In all other cases, restrictions should be avoided. If they cannot be avoided, then it is better to use soft restrictions: “Start no later”, “Start no earlier”, etc. This allows you to automatically move tasks after those on which they depend.

8. Identify the critical path

If the tasks are lined up correctly, then MS Project will show you the critical path of the project - a chain of tasks that determines the duration. Changing the duration or delaying the start of any task on the critical path changes the project end date.

Accordingly, in order to meet the deadlines, it is necessary to ensure timely or advanced completion of the critical path tasks. To do this you need:

• Pay daily attention to critical path tasks and monitor the readiness of all necessary resources to complete them.
• Motivate participants to reduce the duration of critical path tasks and prevent distractions from other tasks.
• Use time buffers to insure against deadline deviations.

For example, the development of a functional block is ending. Next, the customer must test this unit. When there are 2 days left before the end of development, it is necessary to warn key users that in 2 days they should be ready to accept the development for testing. And record this formally (by email, decision of an operational meeting, etc.). The gap between critical path tasks leads to an increase in the project duration, so this process must be tightly managed.

When setting a critical path task, the performer needs to say that this task is decisive for the project. The performer must fully concentrate on it and not be distracted by secondary tasks. And in case of problems and delays, immediately notify the RP.

But no one is immune from complications. There are no guarantees that the task will be completed on time. But this does not mean that you should strive to set deadlines that are guaranteed to ensure completion of the task on time. As you know, work takes exactly as much time as is allotted for it, we talked about this earlier. Set aggressive deadlines, but have some margin to compensate for inevitable delays. And it’s better to have this stock consolidated, in a buffer that is added to the end of the critical path.

Figure 13

In the example above, critical path tasks are highlighted in red, other tasks are highlighted in blue, and buffers are highlighted in green. Please note that non-critical tasks are also protected by the buffer. The deadlines for them are also very likely to be violated. And in order not to disrupt the timely start of the critical path task, we add a buffer at the input to the chain.

This method of planning goes well with the “from the end of the project” planning methodology.

9. Add time buffers to the schedule

Adding buffers to the plan allows you to avoid violations of the final date of a project or stage when deadlines for tasks inevitably change.

As a rule, we add margin to each task so that we are not penalized for being late. We prefer to reserve for all risks that may occur - distractions in meetings, changes in customer requirements, lengthy approvals, technical problems and personal circumstances. We try to estimate the required deadlines with a 90% probability of meeting them. And despite this, we often tear them down. Above, we already talked about student syndrome and other psychological issues that lead to missed deadlines despite all the reserves that we make in each task.

As a result, delays always accumulate, but advances almost never happen.

The solution is to get rid of the reserves in the task and move them to the general project buffer. Set the target probability of completing a task on time at 50% This significantly reduces the estimate of deadlines for each task, according to statistics - by half. In half the cases it will be violated. And this may not be the fault of the performer, but the influence of circumstances and incorrect assessment. With this approach, you will not punish performers for violating deadlines, but treat this as inevitable.

At the same time, you will have a reserve to compensate for the lag. To do this, buffers are added to the schedule. When tasks are late and push subsequent ones, you use a buffer. By the speed at which the buffer is consumed, you can judge how well you planned the project, whether you have enough resources and whether the work is organized correctly. If the buffer is consumed too quickly, then action must be taken.

Figure 14

There are different types of project (stage) buffers - a reserve created at the end of the critical chain. And feeding buffers are temporary reserves at the entrance to the critical chain, insuring the flow of tasks outside the critical path.

The size of the buffer is determined by the length of the chain it insures, as well as the degree of uncertainty and risk. The classics recommend allocating about 50% of the duration of the entire critical chain to buffers. The project manager must base his or her own assessment of the risks and capabilities of the project schedule.

You need to understand that a project with a small margin will most likely be late. There are no projects in which everything goes as planned. The inability to add a buffer can be either a result of a clear underestimation of project deadlines, or due to a clear overestimation of the duration of project tasks, which happens when we build a margin into each task. Even if there is a reserve, but it is included in the tasks, the project will still be late for the reasons listed above.

You can read more about this method of constructing a project schedule in E. Goldratt’s book “Critical Chain,” which is written in the form of a business novel, easy to read and extremely inspiring.

10. Analyze the graph

A good graph shows what potential problems there are in the project; what opportunities are there to reduce deadlines; Are there enough resources to complete the project?

10.1. Reduced deadlines

Let's look at an example:

Figure 15

Let's see if we can shorten this schedule. The longest tasks are numbers 17 and 21. 18 and 15 days are too long tasks to be effectively controlled.

Is it possible to detail and divide these tasks into parts? It turns out that this is the development of reports, each of which takes on average 1 day. It is not necessary that their development be led by one person consistently. You can divide them into portions and distribute them among several developers. We added one developer, divided it into unequal parts and got the following graph.

Figure 16

Thus, the schedule clearly showed that one more person was needed for the team. It became clear how to distribute tasks in order to reduce deadlines and reduce the risks of dependence on performers who, for example, could get sick at the most inopportune moment.

10.2. Schedule Risks

It is interesting to look at the project schedule from a risk management perspective. What risks might the project schedule reveal?

• Parallel execution of multiple blocks of work or functional areas. It is necessary to decide whether the delay of one of them entails serious consequences for the entire project? Complex projects include up to a dozen areas. Finance, budgeting, HR, logistics, etc. are being implemented simultaneously. If work on integration and coordination of areas is not provided, reserves for deviations in each area are not included, there is no integration testing stage, there is a high probability of failure of the project as a whole, and not just missed deadlines.
• Lack of trial operation period. If PPE is not possible, then the possibility of a phased launch, by functional area or organizational unit, should be considered.
• Overly aggressive schedule, lack of or insufficient reserves. This has already been discussed. Such a project will most likely be late.
• Project stages or key work overlap, with overlap. In many cases, this increases the risk of rework on tasks already completed.
• If the schedule does not include work and milestones assigned to the customer, then perhaps we have poor control over the work on the customer’s part. It is necessary to pay attention to the fact that some works may be incorrectly assigned to the area of ​​responsibility of the performer.
• The absence of milestones in the schedule that signify formal acceptance of work may mean that we do not fully understand what intermediate results should be confirmed and at what point. And this is fraught with problems when delivering results at the end of the project.

Conclusion

In practice, it often happens that a project schedule is drawn up because it is customary, it is required, for show. But real project management goes without using it, because it is difficult, time-consuming, and life is much richer.

The project schedule becomes a real management tool in the hands of the project manager if the schedule is prepared wisely and following certain standards. Mastery of tools and methods allows you to manage project deadlines much more efficiently, with less time wasted.

Types of resources in Microsoft Project and their correlation with reality

After creating a preliminary schedule, you need to move on to resource planning to determine:

Specific task performers;

Responsible for achieving results;

The duration of the task, taking into account possible limited resource availability.

The need for materials, equipment, money during a particular period of project execution;

Schedule taking into account resource limitations (lack of resources).

Resources in Microsoft Project include people, machines, machinery, equipment, materials, and costs/revenues.

Although resources mean many things in Microsoft Project, Microsoft Project supports only three types of resources:

1. Labor resources are the company's renewable resources, which include the people, machines and equipment needed to complete the project. Using the “labor” type, you must model those resources by which you need to take into account their load/overload, sufficiency or insufficiency, for example, the workload of ten workers. So, if you only have ten workers available, but your project needs fifteen workers, Microsoft Project will show you when a certain number of workers are missing.

Labor resources influence task duration.

2. Material resources are used to model the materials needed to create the project outcome. Also:

a.Contractors are modeled through this type if you are not interested in the project how many people of a particular contractor will perform this or that work.

b. Cost items are also modeled using the material type of resource if it is necessary to take into account their write-off per unit of time, for example, renting a crane costs 500 UAH. at one o'clock.

c.Through material resources, items are modeled if payment is made in a currency other than the project currency, for example, the purchase of an elevator in dollars.

d. Through the material type, income or receipts into the project are modeled, since for the material type of a resource you can set the value of its cost equal, for example, to minus one (-1).

e.Through this type of resource, you can model labor resources if you do not need the duration of tasks to change, and you want to keep daily records of resources (Perhaps a controversial point, but it is not a dogma or an axiom, because, for example, Microsoft Project can count the amount of labor resources on the task, but does not allow you to enter the required amount for each day, but the material type allows this).

f.Physical volumes (m3, m2, tons) of work are modeled through this type.

3. Cost resources are necessary to model the costs associated with a particular task, but do not depend either on the duration of the task or on the labor resources assigned to it, for example, if you need to model a positive impact on a particular official in order to speed up his adoption of a positive solutions.

Human resource planning methodology

People, machines and equipment are needed to “do” a project. The main characteristics of labor resources in Microsoft Project are:

Cost – how much the project will cost to use a particular labor resource;

Availability - when a resource can perform a particular job and how many units of a particular resource are needed to complete the job.

Sources of information about the company's resources can be an employee of its human resources department, the person responsible for construction, and an expert from the production and technical department of the relevant specialization. The latter can serve as a source of information on the cost of an hour of resource operation.

A list of mechanisms and their cost per hour are provided by the department responsible for mechanisms in the company. As a rule, this is the department of the chief mechanic.

Human resources information may also be stored in:

Microsoft Outlook Address Book (tab “Resource – Add Resources – Address Book...”), Figure 1;

Figure 1. Creating a resource in Microsoft Project from the Outlook address book

2. Active Directory (tab “Resource – Add resources – Active Directory”);

3. Resource pool (tab “Resource – Resource pool – Use resources from...”).

A resource pool is a Microsoft Project file that contains only resources.

4. In the Enterprise Resource Pool on Microsoft Project Server in the Resource Center view. To work with an enterprise resource pool, you must be connected to Project Server 2013 or Project Online.

Accordingly, if you are working with Project Server 2013 or Project Online, the resources stored in the product databases are called enterprise, and those that exist only in your project file are called local.

Figure 2. Adding resources from the address book or Active Directory

In order to create a resource in Microsoft Project, you need to go to the “Resource Sheet” view, enter its name in the “Resource Name” column, and select the desired type in the “Type” column (or Labor, or Material, or Costs), Figure 3.

If you need to add resources from the address book or Active Directory, you need to click on the “Add resources” button and select the desired item.

Figure 3. Types of resources

Each resource (with any type), among other things, in a project can be:

Universal. These resources, Figure 3, are used to determine project personnel requirements, such as carpenters and developers. So very often, in long-term projects, it is not known in advance which specific person is needed to complete a specific task. Therefore, the need is first determined through universal resources, i.e. To complete the “Writing code” task, which is scheduled for three months, it is not the beloved Nyura Pakhomova that is needed, but a C# programmer with more than 3 years of experience.

For example, for our project we will need a programmer with knowledge of the C# programming language. But often at the beginning of a project it is not known which specific person will do the work. Therefore, a project is initially planned in which the generic resource “C# Programmer” is assigned to a task and his knowledge of the C# programming language is determined using custom enterprise fields (only in Microsoft Project Server or Project Online). In the resource sheet (in Microsoft Project Server or Project Online, in the "Resource Center") there must be a specific programmer "Stroustrup Björn" on staff, whose language proficiency is also determined using custom enterprise fields (in Project Server or Project Online only) C# programming. Subsequently, when the need arises to replace a universal resource with a corporate resource that has the required set of skills, this can be done using the “Create a Group” or “Resource Replacement Wizard” dialog box (these icons are located on the “Resources” tab and are active only when connected Project Professional 2013 to Project Server 2013 or Project Online.

After detailed project planning, it is advisable to replace generic resources with specific resources.

It is best to use generic resources when working with Project Server corporate resources, since only in this case is it possible to replace generic resources with specific resources based on selected characteristics.

Planning through universal resources will allow, especially if your company has a sufficient number of personnel who can perform the same work (10 lawyers or 5 marketers), to avoid the personal factor when project managers strive to recruit employees who are “convenient” for them, which can naturally lead to to overloading the “convenient” ones and underloading the “inconvenient” ones.

2. Budgetary. Budget resources (labor, material and costs) are used to model the total budget allocated for the project, i.e. allow the project manager to indicate how much funds he has available to compare with the need needed to implement the project.

For example, you have a budget for materials in the amount of 350 thousand UAH. Based on the need for materials in the project, Microsoft Project will calculate that to implement the project, you need to spend 323.6 thousand UAH on materials. Comparing the budget resource and the total amount, you can see the difference, Figure 4.

At the project level, a budget resource can only be assigned to a summary project task.

Figure 4. Comparison of budget with actual needs

In addition, each type of resource can have two reservation options (allocated or proposed):

• Dedicated (default reservation option) – resource reservation option. The dedicated reservation type means that if a resource is assigned to a task, its load, the time and hours required to complete the work will be taken into account when analyzing the overall availability and load of the resource. This type of reservation is used if you are absolutely sure that a specific resource will perform a given job.

If you are working with Project Server 2013 or Project Online, then when you assign a dedicated resource to a task and publish the project (section 10.3), this dedicated resource will be able to report on the task through the web interface.

• The proposed option is a resource reservation option, used at the project planning stage, when you are not yet sure whether this resource will perform work in your project or not. Assigning a resource with the proposed reservation option does not reduce its availability for work on other projects. Selecting this type of reservation does not affect the availability and load of the resource. No resource leveling is done on the proposed resources.

When working with Project Server 2013 or Project Online, when you assign a suggested resource to a task and publish the project, that resource will not be able to report on the task through the web interface.

Thus, Figure 5, in the graph of the load of the allocated resource, Vaus Klurman, its overload is highlighted in red, and the overload of the proposed resource, Gob Beldof, the overload is shown in the standard color configured for unoverloaded resources.

Figure 5. Resources allocated and offered

Editing resource properties

To change the properties of a resource (name, cost, availability), you can either:

Click on it with the left mouse button, or;

Right-click on it and select “Information” from the menu, or;

On the “Resource” tab, click on the “Details” button.

On the “General” tab you can set:

Resource name;

His email and account name (for workforce only);

Reservation type (allocated or proposed);

Short name;

Group, i.e. which resource group will this or that resource belong to (engineering personnel, workers, etc.). Group data is created by the user;

Code for connection with different systems;

Type (labor, material or costs);

Unit of measurement of materials for material resources;

Type of resource (universal or not, budget or not), Figure 6;

Resource calendar (working hours, exceptions, vacation), Figure 7;

Resource availability, Figure 8. For example, if there are two cranes, then in the event of scheduled maintenance (PPR) of one of them, in the “Resource Availability” area you need to indicate the range when only one crane will be available.

Figure 6. Resource details. “General” tab

Figure 7. Setting up vacation in the resource calendar

Figure 8. Availability modeling

The “Information” window on the “Costs” tab contains information related to the cost of the resource, Figure 9.

Figure 9. Resource details. Tab "Costs"

If you need to provide for a change in the standard rate over time in your project, you must select the effective date of the current rate and specify a new rate that will be valid from the new effective date.

For example, if your standard “Architect” rate will increase by 10% from May 1, you need to enter the effective date of the new rate “05/01/11” and the rate change percentage “10%”. If you do not enter an effective date, but only a percentage change, the effective date of the new rate will be the current date. By entering “-10%” you will reduce the standard rate by 10%

In the “Overtime rate” field, you indicate the amount of money that you are going to pay resources for overtime. It is important to understand that if you have an eight-hour working day, and the resource works 10 hours a day, then the system will not automatically enter two hours of overtime as overtime. When entering actual information on a task, you will need to independently indicate in the “Actual overtime labor costs” field how much overtime this or that resource worked.

The “Cost of Use” field indicates the amount that needs to be paid for attracting a resource, for example, in addition to paying the cost of an hour of operation of that crane, you need to pay the cost of its supply.

Typically, the standard rate is stated as the cost per hour of work. You can also indicate the cost of a week or month of work in the “Standard rate” field. But a month, from the point of view of Microsoft Project, is usually 20 working days, and if you have 22 working days in a month, then for a resource whose standard rate is indicated as “20,000 UAH/month”, its cost will be automatically recalculated under the number of working days in a month, Figure 10.

Figure 10. Recalculation of resource cost when specifying a standard monthly rate

You can also set five different cost rates for each resource. Cost Rate Table - A set of information about the rates and rates for a resource, including the standard rate, overtime rate, any usage costs, and the date the rate of pay goes into effect. For example, a “Bricklayer” can receive a rate of 45 UAH/hour for masonry at a height of up to three meters above the ground, and a rate of 50 UAH/hour for work at a height of over three meters.

In addition, Microsoft Project provides three ways to calculate planned costs for a resource and assign actual costs to the project:

• At the beginning (costs are accrued at the beginning of the task);
• At the end (costs are accrued at the end of the task);
• Proportional (costs are distributed proportionally during the task), Figure 11.

Figure 11. Options for writing off/accruing costs

On the “Notes” tab, Figure 12, you can:

Enter the necessary information about the resource;

Attach an object/document.

Any reasons for changes, for example, in the amount of wages, should be recorded in the “Notes” tab. Although, to be honest, you can start looking for this or that information in the notes of hundreds of resources

Instead of attaching documents (OLE), it is best to provide a link to a particular document

Figure 12. Resource information. Notes tab

The “Custom Fields” tab displays a list of custom fields associated with the resource, and, if connected to Microsoft Project Server, corporate fields.

Figure 13. Resource information. “Custom Fields” Tab

Apart from all the above fields in the resource sheet, the most important field for labor resources is the Max. Units", which indicates:

Or the number of workers on the payroll, i.e. how many are on staff (for example, 10 masons);

Or, if a person is alone, he can indicate how much he is willing to work on projects. So if 0.5 or 50% is indicated next to a person, depending on the settings, this means that he will be able to devote half of his time to project tasks, for example, 4 hours a day from an eight-hour calendar, Figure 14.

Figure 14. Maximum resource availability

Methodology for planning material resources

Forming a list of material resources (materials) will make it possible, by assigning materials to tasks, to determine the need for materials distributed over time, and also to find out the cost of each material and the cost of all materials.

The list of material resources is generated in the “Resource Sheet” view. For material resources, the type “Material” is selected.

The source of information for filling out the list of materials can be the estimate, production and technical department (a department that determines the need for materials for a particular project) or the supply department (a department responsible for the supply of materials and equipment to the company). The procurement department must also provide information to the person responsible for maintaining the project schedule in Microsoft Project to update material information if prices change or new materials become available.

In order to quickly assign the type “Material” to material resources, you need to assign the type “Material” to the first material in the list, select the labor types of materials, right-click on the type of the first material and select “Fill Down” in the menu, Figure 15.

Figure 15. Setting the type using the “Fill Down” function

The differences between the properties of a material resource and the properties of a labor resource are:

Possibility of specifying the unit of measurement of materials (thousand pieces, MP, tons, etc.);

The “Standard Rate” column indicates the cost per unit of material, Figure 16.

Figure 16. Editing properties of a resource of the “Materials” type

The standard rate for both material and labor resources can be indicated with a negative value. This feature is used to simulate the flow of money into the project, mutual settlements, fines, etc.

Methodology for planning costly resources

In Microsoft Project, a cost resource is an independent cost (not dependent on the duration of the task/project) that needs to be associated with a project task or project (for example, the cost of an airline ticket).

But for modeling costs that depend on the duration of tasks or a project, this type of resource is not suitable.

Also, a costly resource does not allow modeling changes in costs over time, the multi-currency nature of the project, or the flow of money into the project (profit). To model all this I use material resources.

Figure 17. Editing properties of a resource of the “Cost” type

The difference between the properties of a costly resource and others is that it is not possible to specify its unit of measurement or the cost of a unit of resource, Figure 17.

P.S. The second part of the article is devoted to how.

Active Directory (“Active Directories”, AD) directory services of server versions of Windows, where, for example, all users of a company are stored

Lecture 14.15. Planning work and resources in MS Project.

■ Project cost planning in MS Project.

■ Analysis and optimization of work plan, resource load and cost.

■ Risk analysis in MS Project.

Project tracking in MS Project.

The standard and professional versions of the program are designed to create a project plan, which can then be published on the MS Project Server to organize team work on the project.

Using MS Project Server, members of the project team receive tasks from the manager and report on the progress of their implementation. The project manager, in accordance with data received from employees, monitors the progress of work and analyzes the workload of employees.

MS Project Server uses MS SQL Server version 7 and higher as a DBMS.

The Microsoft SharePoint Team Services package included in MS Project Server is designed for collaboration on documents and tasks.

Basic terms

Task - activity aimed at achieving a certain result.

Resource assigned to a task and can be material(materials, equipment and raw materials) and workers(workers and equipment paid by the hour).

Allocation of a resource to a task is called appointment. You can assign an unlimited number of resources to one task.

The task is characterized duration, volume of labor costs (work) And cost necessary for its implementation.

Project duration consists of the time intervals from the start of the earliest task to the end of the latest, taking into account dependencies between tasks.

Project planning

The activities of any organization include programs, operations and projects. A program is the activity of managing projects and operations within an organization. Operations are repetitive activities designed to maintain business activity. The project is undertaken to achieve a certain result within the established time frame and means.

Project management is about drawing up a plan and tracking the progress of work on it. The better the project plan, the easier it is to carry out design work and successfully complete the project.

Projects can be of any size, they can involve several people, or maybe several thousand. Projects can have varying durations from several days to several years. Projects can be carried out in any field of activity.

Each project has a clearly defined beginning and end. The end of the project occurs when the set goals are achieved or when it becomes clear that the goals cannot be achieved and the project is terminated.

After the end of the project, the project team disintegrates and its members move on to other projects.

A project plan is written to determine what activities will achieve the project's results, what people and equipment are needed to complete those activities, and how long the people and equipment will be assigned to the project. A project plan contains three main elements: tasks, resources, and assignments.

The task is the work carried out within the framework of a project to achieve a certain result.

Phase A project consists of one or more tasks that result in one or more project outcomes. Thus, the result of the phase summarizes the results of the tasks included in it. The set of phases of a project is called its life cycle. Phases can consist of both tasks and other phases.

In each project, to achieve the overall goal, it is necessary to achieve several intermediate goals. Tasks that achieve intermediate goals are called final tasks. In MS Project they are called milestones Milestones may be present in a project to make it easier to track the project plan.

The duration of a task is the period of working time required to complete it. The duration may not correspond to the labor costs of the workers who perform this task.

The tasks in the project plan are interrelated. Dependencies between tasks are indicated connections and are used to define the logic that determines the sequence of work in the project plan.

Resources in MS Project they are divided into labor and material and indicate the employees and equipment necessary to complete project tasks. When compiling a list of resources, role-based planning is often used, that is, someone is assigned to perform a specific task. role, and a specific employee is selected for this role at the project implementation stage.

For each resource there is an important property - its price. MS Project has two types of resource costs: time rate And cost per use. The time rate is expressed as the cost of using a resource per unit of time. Typically, time rates are used to account for labor resources. Usage costs are accrued whenever a resource is used in a task.

An assignment is the relationship between a specific task and the resources needed to complete it. Several human and material resources may be assigned to complete a task.

The three components of the project - time, cost, scope of work form a project triangle. When one of the components changes, the other two change. All three components are closely related to each other. For example, if time decreases, cost will increase or volume will decrease.

When changing any of the three components, you must make sure that this does not lead to a decrease in the planned level of quality of the project.

Project planning in MS Project

Planning begins with defining the project, that is, describing its key characteristics. Then a list of tasks and phases and a list of resources necessary to complete them are compiled. Additional information about tasks and resources is entered. Assignments are made, after which the project is optimized.

Defining a project consists of specifying its key characteristics. These characteristics are set when creating a new project file.

Cost planning in MS Project

The total cost of a project consists of the fixed cost of resources and tasks and the cost of assignments, which is determined by resource rates, labor costs, and the cost of using the resource.

For each resource, you can determine its cost of use in the project: an hourly rate or a cost per use. The cost of an assignment is determined by the cost of the resource multiplied by the duration of the assignment (at an hourly rate), or by a fixed cost of the resource.

The cost of a resource is determined on the Costs tab of the Resource Details dialog box.

The cost of assignments is determined automatically by multiplying the resource rate by labor costs and adding the cost of using the resource to the result. You can change the cost of the destination by specifying a different tariff table. This can be done on the “General” tab of the “Assignment Details” dialog box, where you can select table A, B, C, D, E from the list.

If your project often uses pricing tables, you can add a “Cost rate table” column to the view for convenience.

The cost of tasks consists of the total cost of assignments and fixed costs. Fixed costs are costs not associated with the use of project resources. For example, the cost of air tickets.

For in water of fixed costs, the “Fixed costs” field in the “Costs” table is used in any presentation and for working with tasks.

When planning the cost of a project, it is necessary to provide not only its budget, but also determine how this budget t will be spent throughout the project. Budget expenditure depends on the order of payment for work. You can pay for work in different ways: prepayment, payment upon completion, or payment as work is completed. Moreover, one project can combine several payment methods.

The payment method can be specified for both resources and fixed costs for a task. On the Costs tab of the Resource Details dialog box, select a payment method from the Charge drop-down list.

You can determine the procedure for paying fixed costs in the “Accrual of fixed costs” column of the “Costs” table in any view for working with tasks.

By default, the fixed cost accrual method is selected according to the Default Fixed Cost Accrual option on the Calculation tab of the Options dialog box.

Analysis and optimization of the project plan

After determining the cost of all resources, the project plan is almost complete. Now we need to analyze how well it meets the requirements. It is necessary to check compliance with the schedule, as task durations may have changed during the assignment process. You also need to check resource loading. It is necessary to check the budget compliance. You also need to assess the risks of completing the project, how likely it is that you will not meet the schedule, budget, and not achieve all your goals.

If problems are discovered during the analysis process, it is necessary to get rid of them by optimizing the project plan.

To determine the uneven loading of resources, you need to open the “Resource Sheet” view. Resources whose load exceeds their availability are highlighted in red, and there is an overload mark in the “Indicators” field.

Overloading a resource means that it will take longer to complete a task than planned. The most common cause of resource overload is the assignment of a resource to tasks that are running simultaneously.

There are several ways to level out resource overload. First, by reducing the workload of overburdened resources by reducing some tasks and assigning other employees to perform them. Secondly, getting rid of task overlap by inserting breaks in tasks or assignments into the schedule, or changing their start and end dates. Third, by counting work performed by a resource beyond normal limits as overtime.

To level the resource load, you can use automated tools or you can redistribute the load manually.

Both methods are used simultaneously, since automated leveling tools use the second method of load distribution.

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The checkbox “During leveling, correction of individual assignments for a task is allowed” allows, during leveling, to change the time when the resource’s work costs are independent of the work costs of other resources on this task. This option is set by default.

The Leveling Allows Remaining Work to be Interrupted check box specifies that leveling interrupts tasks by interrupting the remaining work on tasks or assignments. If you want to enable or disable the interruption of individual tasks, you must add the "Equalization interruption allowed" field to the task list table and set the value "Yes" or "No" for each task.

When you click the “Align” button, MS Project will specify whether to align all tasks or resources or only the selected ones.

If during the leveling process a situation arises when it is not possible to level the resource load automatically, the program will display a message window. This window contains three buttons “Skip”, “Skip all”, “Stop”.

The first button skips the current task, the second skips all tasks that cannot be leveled, and the third completes the leveling process.

The Leveling Gantt Chart view is used to display the alignment results. This diagram will show the state of the project before leveling and the changes made by the automatic leveling procedure.

You can cancel the results of automatic leveling using the Clear Leveling button in the Resource Load Leveling dialog box. You can only undo the alignment for the last operation.

Manual leveling is carried out in two stages: first, you need to find those tasks whose assignment overloads resources. Then we need to determine methods for balancing congestion. There are quite a few methods: reschedule a task, interrupt a task, change the duration of a task, allocate another resource to a task, reduce the amount of work, maintain overload by transferring excess labor costs to overtime.

To find tasks that are consuming resources, you can use the Resource Usage view. In the view, you need to apply the Resource Overavailability filter to select only overloaded resources. Data indicating overload is highlighted in red. To quickly move to the date when a resource is overloaded, use the Go to Next Overload tool located in the Resource Management toolbar.

Analysis and optimization of the work plan

When reviewing the project plan, you need to evaluate whether the assigned task durations are realistic. MS Project has tools for probabilistic project assessment.

The PERT (Program, Evaluation and Review Technique) method uses three scenarios: pessimistic (maximum task durations), optimistic (minimum task durations) and expected. In accordance with the specific weight of each option, the program calculates the weighted average duration of each task.

To analyze a project using the PERT method, you need to display the “Analysis using the PERT method” toolbar.

For analysis, you need to enter a pessimistic and optimistic expected duration for each task. To do this, click on the “PERT Input Sheet” button.

Then you need to enter weighting coefficients. To do this, on the “Analysis using the PERT method” toolbar, click the “Set weighting coefficients for the PERT method” button.

The sum of the weighting coefficients is always 6.

After determining the weighting coefficients, you can proceed to the calculation; for this you need to click the “Calculations using the PERT method” button. Before doing this, you should save the project file under a different name so that you can return to previous data.

MS Project will display a warning window that the Duration, Start, and End values ​​will be recalculated.

Project cost analysis and optimization

When analyzing the cost of a project, its budget (total costs for the project) and the ratio of budget components are usually assessed. If the total cost of the project exceeds expectations, then the budget is optimized.

To estimate the total cost of a project, just go to the “Costs” table in any view with a list of costs and look at the data in the “Total Costs” column for the summary task of the project.

It is also necessary to analyze the proportional relationship of costs within the budget. The following are considered:

Distribution of costs by project phases;

Distribution of costs by type of work;

The ratio between the costs of overtime labor and regular labor;

Distribution of costs for different types of resources.

You can use formulas and custom fields to do this.

After the analysis, it may be necessary to optimize the project: reduce or increase costs for tasks or resources of a certain type.

Costs are determined by resource rates, labor costs, and the fixed costs of tasks.

To reduce costs, you can attract cheaper resources or use tariff tables with lower rates. Attracting cheaper resources may cause a decrease in the quality of the project and an increase in project time.

If the project turns out to have an additional budget, then you can improve the quality of the project by attracting more qualified resources and using more expensive materials and equipment.

Risk analysis

Analysis of the hazards that may arise during the implementation of a project is one of the most difficult and critical stages of project preparation. The successful outcome of the project largely depends on the quality of the analysis.

Risk analysis consists of several stages:

Identification of possible risks;

Determine a strategy for action in the event of such a situation.
Risks can be of many types:

Risks in the project schedule;

Resource risks;

Budgetary risks;

Social risks;

Political risks;

Natural.

A typical project is most likely to be affected by the first three types of risks.

To assess risks in the project schedule, you should highlight tasks with the following parameters: tasks with preliminary durations, tasks with long durations and involving a large number of resources, tasks with a large number of dependencies, tasks with external dependencies.

To assess resource risks, the following resources should be identified: workers with insufficient qualifications, resources overloaded, resources with unique skills that cannot be replaced.

To assess budgetary risks, it is necessary to determine how much an increase in the volume of work on a project will lead to an increase in its costs and whether there are budgetary reserves for compensation.

Mitigating risks requires developing a strategy to contain them and reduce their impact. To do this, it is necessary to include time and budget reserves in the project, as well as provide measures for duplicating unique resources.

Project tracking in MS Project.

Gantt chart

Diagrams are a graphical means of displaying the information contained in a project file. In MS Project, diagrams are not only a means of viewing project information. Using charts, you can enter and edit data.

A Gantt chart is one of the most popular ways to graphically represent a project plan, used in many project management programs.

It is a graph with a time scale horizontally and a list of tasks vertically. The length of the segments denoting tasks is proportional to the duration of the tasks. Tasks are connected to each other by communication lines.

Additional information may be displayed next to the segments, determined by the program settings.

MS Project includes several views based on the Gantt chart: Gantt Chart, Detailed Gantt Chart, Aligned Gantt Chart, Tracking Gantt Chart, etc.

Formatting a Gantt chart

Formatting is used to change the display of information on a Gantt chart. Using formatting tools, you can change the shape and color of the shapes that make up the chart, determine the information displayed next to the shapes, display additional graphic information, and format the timeline.

Setting the shape and color of the segments is determined in the segment formatting dialog box. To open the window, you can double-click the left mouse button on the segment or right-click and select “Format segment...” from the drop-down menu.

The Timeline dialog box has four tabs. The “Top Level”, “Middle Level”, “Bottom Level” tabs configure three levels of the timeline. The time units of a higher level cannot be smaller than the units of a lower level.

Use the Grid dialog box to format the chart's construction lines. This window can be called using the “Format” command ->

You can use the Gantt Chart Wizard to quickly format your Gantt chart. You can call the wizard using the command “Format” -> “Gantt Chart Wizard”.

The Timeline dialog box has four tabs. The “Top Level”, “Middle Level”, “Bottom Level” tabs configure three levels of the timeline. The time units of a higher level cannot be smaller than the units of a lower level.

The number of displayed timeline levels is set using the “Display” list.

Level display parameters: “Units” - defines the units of measurement; “Interval” - the number of units in one division of the level scale; “Inscriptions” - defines the date format.

The “Non-working hours” tab specifies the display of non-working days on the chart. (Sundays and holidays).

To select the time period displayed on the timeline, use the “Scale” dialog box, which is called up from the context menu by selecting the command of the same name.

In the dialog box, you can select a time period to display tasks scheduled for that period.

To quickly change the scale of the Gantt chart, you can use the “Zoom In” and “Zoom Out” buttons located on the “Standard” toolbar.

Use the Grid dialog box to format the chart's construction lines. This window can be called up using the “Format” -> “Grid...” command or from the context menu.

Use the Layout dialog box to configure additional chart options. In this dialog box, you can set additional parameters for displaying the chart: the type of communication lines between tasks, the date format, the height of the segments, etc.

You can use the Gantt Chart Wizard to quickly format your Gantt chart. You can call the wizard using the command “Format” -> “Gantt Chart Wizard”.