Understanding resources

Projects need resources like people and equipment. The availability and cost of resources like these affect the Project schedule and cost. But you also might spend money on things like materials, travel or training. Project has several resource types to represent the resources you use in your projects. Depending on the type of resource you will fill in different fields. The best place to look at resources is to the Resource Sheet. So on the View tab, click Resource Sheet. I can see this Project has several resources already in place.

So let's look at the different types of resources you can use in a Project. The first list of resources is Work resources and those are resources you assign by time. So for example people who you assign by the hour or the day, and Equipment like this dumpster that maybe you rent for a day or a week. How much time resources have available and their work schedules will determine how long tasks take. In addition, their cost will affect the labor cost for your Project. The next type is a material resource and we have a few here.

The thing about material resources is you don't assign it by time instead you assigned them by quantity. For example you assign a number of boxes for packing up the office, because time isn't involved, material resources are a little bit simpler to set up, because basically you just put in a cost per unit. Then when you assign the material or resources, you just put in the quantity. The third type is a Cost resource and by process some elimination if you don't assign by time and you don't assign by quantity, then you're going to use cost resource.

So it's things like lodging, airfare, permits, fees, tuition that sort of thing. If you noticed, there is no cost involved in the Resource Sheet and that means you actually apply the cost when you assign the cost resource. The interesting thing about that is that that means that a cost resource can vary every time you assign it, which is really good because airfares will be different, almost every time. When you set up the resources you need in Project and then assign them to tasks, the program can calculate when tasks occur, how long they will take and how much they will cost.