Basic resource leveling

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In the scheduling process, resource leveling resolves the over-allocation of resources by delaying a task until the assigned resource is available to work on it. Without any resource leveling, plan schedules are calculated by using information, such as the plan dates and the constraints and dependencies of individual work items. With basic resource leveling, the calculation also uses the availability of the assigned resources.

This feature is available only if you are using the Formal Project Management process template.

For example, a resource is allocated to a project for eight hours a day. In the plan, three eight-hour tasks are assigned to the resource for the same day. This situation requires that the resource work 24 hours in a day. When basic resource leveling is included during the scheduling process, the parallel tasks are rescheduled with a delay so that they occur in sequence. In this way, the conflict from the resource over-allocation is resolved.

Basic resource leveling reschedules tasks according to the Ranking and ID. The default ranking attribute is Priority. Tasks with the highest ranking are scheduled first. When work items have the same ranking, they are scheduled according to their work item ID. Work items that are created earlier are scheduled earlier.

Example

John is allocated to a project with 100% available units. He is assigned to three tasks with a duration of one day and an estimate of eight hours. The tasks have no dependencies and constraints. Without resource leveling, these tasks are scheduled to start on the same day. John is over-allocated because he is required to work for 24 hours in one day to finish the three tasks. When the tasks are leveled, they are ordered in sequence to start one after another.