Resource Scheduling
The purpose of resource scheduling is to calculate a project schedule that takes into account the limited availabilities of resources as well as the durations, logical relationships, and target dates of the activities.
Open Plan provides sophisticated and comprehensive resource scheduling algorithms designed to produce resource solutions across a wide range of situations. Open Plan resource scheduling includes extensive modeling capabilities that allow planners to juggle schedules based on various combinations of time and resource constraints.
For more information about the calculations performed by resource scheduling, see Resource Scheduling Calculations in the Deltek Open Plan Developer's Guide.
Open Plan offers two types of resource scheduling algorithms:
- Time-limited resource scheduling: Time-limited resource scheduling places a priority on maintaining the overall project completion date while attempting to minimize the extent to which any resource is over-utilized. In time-limited resource scheduling, constraints on resource availabilities are not allowed to delay the overall completion date of the project. As a result, resources may be overloaded if doing so prevents an activity from finishing after its late finish date.
In order to maintain the overall project completion date, time-limited resource scheduling may even use resource availabilities that have been reserved for another project. An exception occurs if the hard zero option is set, in which case reserved resources may not be used.
Time-limited resource scheduling places all scheduled dates between the early and late dates of activities. Thus, only activities not on the project critical path can be delayed by resource constraints.
By specifying a sufficiently low resource availability, you can use time-limited resource scheduling to level the overall resource requirements for a project.
- Resource-limited resource scheduling: In contrast to time-limited scheduling, resource-limited resource scheduling places a priority on preventing the over utilization of resources, even if that means delaying the project finish beyond its early finish. In the absence of thresholds or immediate activities, resource-limited resource scheduling delays project completion if necessary to ensure that the resource requirements do not exceed availabilities. The use of resource availability thresholds, immediate activities, or resource assignments on subprojects may cause resource overloads even when performing resource-limited resource scheduling.
Using advanced resource management techniques such as splitting, stretching, and reprofiling activities, you can refine the ways in which an activity is scheduled. Using these and other techniques, you can maximize the use of resources that may be in short supply. During resource scheduling, Open Plan calculates the following for each activity:
- Scheduled start: The proposed date on which an activity should start based upon both project logic and resource constraints. A scheduled start date for an activity can never be earlier than its early start date calculated by time analysis.
- Scheduled finish: The proposed date on which an activity should finish based on both project logic and resource constraints. A scheduled finish date for an activity must be the same or later than its early finish date calculated by time analysis.
- Earliest feasible date: The earliest date on which the activity could be scheduled to start based on the scheduled dates of all its predecessors but in the absence of any resource constraints on the activity itself.
- Scheduled duration: The computed duration of the activity. The scheduled duration of an activity can never be shorter than its original duration. A scheduled duration can, however, be longer than the original duration in cases where the activity was split, stretched, or reprofiled during resource scheduling.
- Scheduled float: Calculated during resource scheduling, the scheduled float of an activity is the difference between the late finish date and the scheduled finish date of the activity. In some circumstances, scheduled float may be shared with other activities in the logical flow of the project.
- Scheduled Actions: The scheduled actions are calculated by resource scheduling and indicate if an activity has been split, stretched, or reprofiled.
- Delaying resource: In resource scheduling, inadequate availability of one or more resources may require that the completion of an activity be delayed beyond the date on which it could otherwise be completed. The delaying resource is the first resource on an activity that causes the activity to be delayed.
To perform resource scheduling, the following conditions must be met:
- The project must have an assigned resource definition file.
- The resource definition file must contain at least one resource with availabilities entered.
- The project must contain at least one activity with resource requirements.
Open Plan provides two ways to perform resource scheduling:
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Resource Scheduling dialog box | When you select a project and click on the Processes tab, or you click Resources but you have not yet performed resource scheduling for the project, Open Plan displays the Resource Scheduling Dialog Box. |
| Perform Time Analysis button | To perform resource scheduling without first displaying the Resource Scheduling dialog box, click
Resources
on the Processes tab.
When you perform resource scheduling using this method, the settings that were last set on the Resource Scheduling dialog box control the operation. If you have not yet run resource scheduling for the project, Open Plan automatically displays the Resource Scheduling dialog box before allowing you to proceed. |
Session Log
At the conclusion of each resource scheduling session, Open Plan creates and saves a session log that records any system or error messages issued during the operation. You can view the session log file (Opp_rs.log) once the processing is complete.
Related Topics
- The Resource Scheduling Process
- Resource Scheduling Dialog Box
- Types of Resource Scheduling
- Resource Scheduling Rules
- Resource Scheduling Processing Options
- Reporting on Resource Scheduling
- Using Resource Allocation
- Interproject Calculations
- Multiple-Project Resource Scheduling
- Effect of Reservations on Resource Scheduling