Resource leveling is part of every project managers arsenal of skills to ensure realistic delivery dates and maximum resources utilization. Utilization view is the most fitting view for monitoring resources utilization.
In addition to being able to manually level resources, Merlin provides a powerful auto-leveling feature. Resource leveling can level all assignments across the entire project or in a given date range. Merlin uses "Leveling Delay" to move the activities around in order to level your resources.
You can instruct Merlin to level your entire project or just the selected activities. Merlin uses the "Leveling Delay" values to level your project.
- Select "Edit - Resource Leveling - Level All" to level your entire project
- Select "Edit - Resource Leveling - Level Selection" to level your selected activities
You can select "Reset All" or "Reset Selection" from the "Edit - Resource Leveling" to remove the values in the "Leveling Delay".
To modify the resource-leveling setting, select "Edit - Resource Leveling - Leveling Settings…". You will be presented with the following dialogue box.
Detect Over-utilization allows you to select the time unit you wish Merlin to use when detecting over utilization. Typically, use the unit your planned your project in. For example, if you planned your project in days, use days.
Select whether you want to level the entire project or a date range using the radio buttons.
If you already leveled your project, it is recommended that you clear the leveling delays before leveling again.
Select if you choose to level resources within available slack. In addition, you need to select the leveling order you wish Merlin to use.
Leveling order options are:
- Standard: (criteria used when leveling)
- Predecessor relationship
- Constraints
- Available slack
- Priority (lowest priority will be shifted first)
- Duration (longer duration will be shifted before shorter duration)
- The manual-order (#-order) (activities with higher # will be shifted first)
- Priority: (criteria used when leveling)
- Priority (lowest priority will be shifted first)
- Predecessor relationship
- Constraints
- Available slack
- Duration (longer duration will be shifted before shorter duration)
- The manual-order (#-order) (activities with higher # will be shifted first)
- #: (criteria used when leveling)
- The manual-order (#-order) (activities with higher # will be shifted first)
- Priority (lowest priority will be shifted first)
- Predecessor relationship
- Constraints
- Available slack
- Duration (longer duration will be shifted before shorter duration)
Should I level within available slack or not?
Leveling within available slack has the advantage of not changing your project end date. However, this will restrict your leveling because of the limited free space in your project plan. If you disabled this option, Merlin will attempt to level your schedule even if it means pushing your project end date forward.
Threshold values serve two purposes. First; The display settings for the resource utilization in the Utilization view are affected by these values.
If you have a project with the following threshold settings:
Merlin will use these settings to determine the colour of the resource utilization:
It is coloured red because the resource is over-utilized (greater than 100%)
It is coloured yellow because the resource is under-utilized (less than 25%)
Secondly, Merlin uses the over-utilization threshold to define at what utilization percentage Merlin considers the resource to be over utilized. In the above example, it is 101% is the point where Merlin considers the resource over-utilized and starts leveling the activities for that resource.
When enabled, the "relative to default utilization" check box allows you to select the leveling values of a resource relative to the default utilization value of that resource.
Imagine you have a bricklayer crew made up of five people. You have the crew represented as a single resource titled "bricklayers" because you always plan this crew as a unit. Since the create is made up of 5 actual individuals, you set its default utilization to 500% (100%/individual). Because you assign the activities with the work for five people, you have a utilization of 500%. Merlin will consider this resource to be over-utilized (>100%).
By checking the "relative to default utilization" check box, the value (500%) will be used as the new basis and the resource will only then show over-utilization when it is at 501%.
