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Project Resource Allocation Plan

How to color-code a Microsoft Project plan in OnePager Pro to show tasks with overallocated resources

Overallocation of resources is a serious problem for any project. Successful project managers use OnePager Pro to identify places in their Microsoft Project plans where resources have been overallocated.

Project Resource Allocation Report

OnePager Pro is reporting software for Microsoft Project that creates color-coded project timelines, which quickly highlight resourcing problems. Don't have OnePager Pro yet? You can download a free trial and try it out today.

  1. Start with a Microsoft Project plan. As resources are assigned, Microsoft Project will automatically change the "Overallocated" flag to "Yes" when people or teams get overloaded. We've highlighted this in yellow below:

    Microsoft Project plan showing resource overallocation.

  2. You can choose which tasks you want to import into your OnePager Pro report by placing a "Yes" in the "Flag 20" column, as shown above.

  3. When you are ready to start building your resource allocation report, double-click the OnePager Pro icon on your desktop. From the Start screen that appears, choose New.

    OnePager Pro Start screen.

  4. Once the dialog box expands, find the Starting Template section, click Change..., then BROWSE...:

    Change your OnePager Pro starting template.

  5. Select the "Multi-Resource Allocation View" template as a starting point. It is pre-configured for these types of resource reports:

    OnePager Pro's redesigned import wizard from Microsoft Project makes project reporting easy.

  6. Type in a name for your project report, and pick today’s date as your snapshot date, as shown below:

    OnePager Pro's redesigned import wizard from Microsoft Project makes project reporting easy.

  7. Click the Create New Chart button, we get an initial Gantt chart with a swimlane for each of the resources that are assigned:

    Group and sort by resource assignment.

  8. If you go to Home > Chart Properties > Rows/Swimlanes, notice that the first swimlane level is grouped by "Resource Names (Split)". The "Split" designation means that in cases where a task is assigned to multiple resources, OnePager will split that task up and place a copy of the task in each swimlane for which a resource is assigned. For example, if a task is assigned to three resources, the same task will appear in three swimlanes: one for each resource.

    Resource splitting places copies of the same task in separate swimlanes when multiple resources are assigned.

  9. We want to further group and sort this into more of a timeline, with one line for each site. For example, if the Production Team is working on four projects, we want all of their tasks for each project lined up left-to-right. To do this, we go to Home > Chart Properties > Rows/Swimlanes and select a Timeline layout that aligns multiple tasks by "Level 1 Summary name", which equates to the different sites in the project plan:

    Align multiple tasks into a timeline.

  10. Before applying this change, we also want to color code the chart so that overallocated tasks stand out. We'll do this with conditional formatting under Home > Chart Properties > Task Bars > Manage Rules:

    Highlight overallocated tasks.

  11. Now, apply your changes and OnePager will reformat the resource report to show you what each team is working on, plus which tasks are overallocated:

    Project Resource Allocation Report

Conditional Formatting

Curious how this works? OnePager Pro's project reporting capabilities include conditional formatting for Microsoft Project. This means that OnePager Pro looks at your Microsoft Project plan and assigns colors, shapes, and fonts automatically based on your data. You don't have to spend time color-coding Gantt charts by hand in PowerPoint, or reviewing your Microsoft Project schedules line-by-line.

You can see how OnePager Pro's conditional formatting for Microsoft Project works by going to Home > Chart Properties > Task Bars and then clicking on the Manage Rules button. This particular example is simple; it assigns a red color when "Overallocated" is true, and assigns a green color otherwise. OnePager Pro's conditional formatting feature is pretty powerful, though, and can be used to apply an unlimited number of style rules to virtually any Microsoft Project column.

OnePager is the easiest way to create a color-coded resource allocation report for your project. If you are using Microsoft Project, you already have all the data you need. Just import your project plan into OnePager Pro, and you will have a color-coded resource allocation report in a matter of minutes.

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