MS Project 2007

Hi Mark,

Hope you enjoyed your Microsoft Project Intro/intermediate course with Best STL.

Thank you for your question regarding working with resource pools.

Firstly, I presume you are aware that a resource pool file only has resources in it and no tasks. Yes?

The way to work with a resource pool file is to create a new file, select the Resource Sheet and enter all resource information etc. Save this file and keep it open. Then open another file which has no resources and click Tools > move down to Resource Sharing > click Share Resources > in the dialogue box select Use Resources > select the pool file from the drop-down arrow, accept the defaults and click OK.

Then save and close both files. Immediately open the pool file and you will then see a dialogue box giving you three options for opening. The most frequent choice would be Read-Only which allows others to work on projects connected to the pool.

That should answer your first question.

To answer your second question, open a project file that is using the pool file resources. Select the Resource Usage view and add another column called 'Project' which will show you what files are using which resources from the pool file. If the file is currently closed then you will observe that the pathname and filename are shown in this column. If you then subsequently open the file, then you will only see the filename.

If you notice that there are some overallocated resources, you can choose, if you wish, to use Resource levelling to fix the problem. This action will level across all projects using the pool file.

I would suggest that you create 4 sample files, each with 3/4 tasks. Then create a sample pool file, add 2/3 resources. Save all five files then close the files excepting for the pool file and one file with tasks. Then follow the procedure outlined above. In this way you will get a good grounding of how the resource pool system works... then try it out with the real files.

Have fun!!!

I hope this resolves your question. If it has, please mark this question as resolved.

If you require further assistance, please reply to this post. Or perhaps you have another Microsoft Office question?

Have a great day.
Regards,

Rodney
Microsoft Office Specialist Trainer