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Project Resource Planning Question

Former Member
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Hi Folks,

Have a question on resource assignments to tasks. Here's what I am doing.

From the structure tab, I am going to the task and explicitly assigning 2 resource from the Engineer roles. As shown in the attached screen (resourceplanning1.jpg) 1 resource has 200 hrs and the other 300 hrs which brings to the total demand for the engineer role to 500 hours. However, when I go to the Resources > Staffing tab (resourceplanning2.jpg), I don't see the time being "booked" against the resource. I still need to do the distribution to do an actual hard booking for resources. It appears that the task roles tab hours are only used to calculate the total role demand and has no impact on resource booking. Is this correct? If so, what is the purpose of being able to assign planned by resource in this screen?

Let me know if my question is not clear. By the way, I am on PPM 5.0 SP8. I understand that SP10 and 11 does have some enhancements in this area, but not sure if it will help me.

Thanks,

Lashan

Accepted Solutions (1)

Accepted Solutions (1)

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Hi Lashan!

Your assumption is correct in general. The staffing tab is uncoupled from task/role-assignments and role demand (general tab of the role).

In SAP standard there is the function "update role demand according to tasks" with a button on the general tab to synchronize values between tabs "task/role assignments" and "general role data / demand". Unfortunately the staffing tab is not included in this function. Therefore you have to maintain data manually. It is possible to enhance this "roll-up" function, however it is not present in SAP-Standard.

With the BAdI-Implementation of DPR_ROLES (and I think so it is available in SP8) you can automate the role-up from task to role. Have a look to methode  AUTOMATIC_UPDATE_ROLE.


The general purpose of the staffing tab and especially the effort of the staffing is the mapping against HCM-availability if you have an HCM-integration. Otherwise you can maintain these values "stand-alone" with t-code RPM_EMPDATA. Staffing of BuPas of course is also a prerequisite for time recording purposes if you use accounting integration and CATS.

With hard-booking or soft-booking your employees on the staffing tabs the general availability of the ressource is matched against the calculated time frame (project, role). So by staffing the resource to the role the availability for the time frame is shown and furthermore by using the distributed role types you are able to do the effort assignment by months or weeks (no days).

The efforts in general are "added" from all other projects the resource is staffed and is shown the project manager / staffing manager / resource manager in the column "other assigned effort" (for the calculated time frame of the role).

Furthermore you are able to set up Portfoliomanagement (and Resource Management from the Portfolio-part) and use the FES for Resources. Inside these FES you can also finde these values.


This explanation was very "quick" and an overview; perhaps some parts are not clear. So come back with any question that bothers you!


Best regards,

Peter

Former Member
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Thanks Peter. This does help a lot. We will most likely go the development route make this work based on your suggestions.

Answers (2)

Answers (2)

Former Member
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Hey Lashan,

I think you nailed the difference between "Demand" and "Staffing" with this inquiry - the latter being what you want to automate.

In some instances / companies, there is a distinct function for resource manager vs. project manager.  As Hans indicated, the staffing function directly talks to availability vs commitment of resources. (Something MSP or P6, etc. doesn't really do very well.)

Now, if your client would ever care to manage resource availability versus allocation, then the staffing function (Staffing tab) needs to be managed by a separate role - the resource manager role - either in the projects or the staffing FES (with staffing enabled in configuration for resource managers of course).  As a suggestion, it might be good to consider putting some kind of lookup or conditional trigger for automating staffing - say, using the Grouping or other custom field to drive whether or not to automate.  (just thinking out loud).

However, sounds to me like your client prefers to have project managers staff themselves.  The risk in this scenario is that resources are prone to be be overbooked across multiple projects (against, say a total HR resource availability of 2080 hrs/yr, notwithstanding holidays, time off, etc.)

The takeaway:

For what it's worth, I think the automatic Update Role According to Task function is wonderful, as it copies demand (work) and dates to the role.  This becomes very crucial for resource reporting accuracy against true project demand over spreads of time.  However, availability and resource load are other important components of resource reporting that people managers look for, and have a very real need for:  "How effectively are my resources  used across projects to achieve success?"  (i.e. Resource A cannot be 100% allocated and effective on Y number of projects assigned 100% of the time, all at the same time.)

I thought I'd throw that in for consideration

Lawrence

Former Member
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Hello Lawrence,

Thanks very much for your comments and adding to the discussion.

You are correct in that it is the Project Manager who does the staffing assignment. However, the PM does not have direct control over the resources, so he/she will first discuss offline with the functional managers (who "own" the resources) and then do the assignment. There maybe instances where the PM would intentionally overbook and then ask the functional managers to do the resource leveling or they would overbook to make the case for additional resource or negotiate project timelines. Right now, everybody knows that project resources are over loaded but there is no data to support the claim.

As far as the automation, what I am considering doing is when the hours are assigned against the resource in the structure tab, the program would take those hours and add to the existing distribution for the staff taking into consideration planned task dates. If the hours are reduced the program would subtract from the existing distribution. I am may also have to disable the ability to do distribution via the staffing tab to avoid inconsistencies. I know this route maybe a slippery slope. For example, what happens if the planned dates for a task change? Do I also auto update the distribution again? What happens if a task is canceled or deleted? Delete distribution? etc etc.

We will probably have to go about things this way until we reach a level of project management maturity where we plan hours against tasks and then use that calculate role demand finally do staffing based on role demand and staffing availability. Unfortunately SAP assumes that you will do things using only best practice process (which is great) but most organizations aren't there yet and usually it's a step by step process to eventually get to a best practice process.

Regards,

Lashan

Former Member
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Hang on Lashan - let me see if I understand what you're planning on doing:

The automation you're designing will involve staffing performed in the Structure > Details > Roles tab?  When this is done, you are actually staffing, and to get the distribution numbers correctly, the "Update Roles According to Task" button recalculates the distribution based on the project dates and work.  Of course project role type config needs to be set for distributed roles to occur.

I think that if the user makes changes to the Structure > ... > Roles tab, it's pretty much locking in staffing.

Previously, to get the numbers to sync whenever you update the task, you had to either make sure "update role" works (could never figure out why it didn't work - I think it may have been fixed with an OSS Note in SP06 or SP07), or delete and re-add the role.  Then the dates and work (and distro) get populated correctly per the task.

Now, as Hans alluded to, there is a way to now automate distribution without DPR_ROLES with the following Customer Connect note:

Note 1634495 - Automatic update of role in accordance with tasks

You may have to check about some fallouts and fixes though - I think there may have been a side-effect or two. I forget.

I hope this is helping - or perhaps I've lost myself with the whole Structure tab stuff and not understanding what's being done there.  I know this note has come in REALLY handy for me.

-Lawrence

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Hello Lawrence!

The note "1634495 - Automatic update of role in accordance with tasks" provides new methods to the BAdI DPR_ROLES. So there is no other possibility than implementing this BAdI.

DPR_ROLES was enhanced with the two new methods AUTOMATIC_UPDATE_ROLE and to a later moment with method NOT_CHANGE_FIELDS_PROPERTY (http://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/1709126)

To use the button "update roles according  to task" you don't necessarily need to set the role types to "distributed" (manual distribution). The button as well as the method AUTOMATIC_UPDATE_ROLE will also work with non distributed roles (that means "linear distribution" accross the time frame in SAP terms).

By implementing AUTOMATIC_UPDATE_ROLE the method "simulates" pressing the previous button, as this will vanish from cPro UI. So every time you change anything on the "task tab" like change work, change assignment, change date the method will update role demand and role dates.

But as you said right, there were some side-effects which are mentioned in the note but are easily implemented. I don't remember there were any manual pre- or postimplementation.

regards,

Peter

Johnny_B_
Active Participant
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Hello Lashan, as Hans-Peter Baier already explained, the "update according to tasks" does unfortunately not aggregate staffing data - which is a shame because all data is available. Even worse, unless you enter the staffing distribution manually, you will not see the results in FES.

There is no improvement in this area with later SPs, also in PPM 6.0 the behaviour is the same.

We have meanwhile done the coding on ourselves, but it is not a simple task.

regards, Johannes

Former Member
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Hi Johannes, thanks for you input and confirming that this behavior is the same even in later SPs/versions. Will also most like go the development route on this one.