Assign More Resources

If extra or underused resources are available, you can keep cost increases to a minimum while reducing task duration. By assigning additional resources who have available hours during their normal working days, you can pay them at their standard rates, which is less costly than paying overtime to already assigned resources.

You may already have part-time resources on your team, or you may be able to shift some resources from noncritical tasks to critical tasks. You could also hire new resources. If additional units of the same resource are available, you can increase the number of resource units assigned to a task. For example, if the three painters assigned to paint a wall can’t finish the job soon enough and a fourth painter is available, you can assign the fourth painter to the task. For information about resource units, see Chapter 8, "Assigning Resources to Tasks."

To assign more resources to a task

On the View Bar, click Gantt Chart .
In the Task Name field, select the task for which you want to assign more resources.
Click Assign Resources .
In the Name field, select the resource you want to assign to the task.
- To assign a single resource, enter a number in the Units field to indicate the percentage of working time you want the resource to spend on the task. To assign the resource full-time, enter 100%; for part- time, enter a smaller percentage.
- To assign several different resources, hold down CTRL, and then select the resources.
- To assign more than one resource from the same set of resources, enter the number of units in the Units field. For example, if you assign two painters from the Painters set, enter 200%.
If necessary, type the name of a new resource in the Name field.
Click Assign.
A check mark to the left of the Name field indicates that the resource is assigned to the selected task.

To increase the resource units assigned to a task

On the View Bar, click Gantt Chart .
In the Task Name field, select the task for which you want to increase resource units.
Click Assign Resources .
In the Units field for the resource, enter the number of resource units you want, and then click Assign.