Resource Usage Spreadsheet

What a planner means

Resource Usage Spreadsheet is a view. Oracle: "Use the Resource Usage Spreadsheet to analyze quantity or cost usage for resources or roles." "For every role and resource in the project, you can review cost or quantity information for a specific project or for all projects across the enterprise (total allocation)." "You can also select the spreadsheet fields to specify which cost or quantity information you want to view and set the timescale for displaying data values." "If you have the appropriate security privilege, you can manually enter values for budgeted or planned and remaining (early) units in the spreadsheet." It is not the Activity Usage Spreadsheet (Activity Usage Spreadsheet — Oracle: "You cannot change the data"), not the typed future-period buckets themselves (Future Period Buckets Are Typed Assignment Units, Not a Curve — this view is where those buckets are typed), not a 21-point resource curve (Resource Curves (Not MSP Work Contours)), not Store Period Performance (Store Period Performance Posts This Period, Then Zeros It), not FINDATES (Financial Periods Are Named Buckets, Not the Data Date), not high-level Planning-page demand (High-Level Planning Assignments Sit on WBS or Project, Not TASK), and not Resource Usage Profile (histogram).

Use it to "Quickly analyze resource data"; "View past period actual data"; "View resource or role data"; "Filter resources, roles, and activities"; "Group and sort resource data"; "Manually plan future resource distribution."

Professional — two windows

• Activities window: Oracle: "In the Activities window, the Resource Usage Spreadsheet is available only in the bottom layout." View > Show on Bottom > Resource Usage Spreadsheet, or Layout Options bar > Show on Bottom, Resource Usage Spreadsheet, or the Bottom Layout toolbar. Bottom Layout toolbar: "Shows or hides the Resource Usage Spreadsheet in the bottom layout" (enabled when the active window is Activities; corresponding menu: View > Show on Bottom > Resource Usage Spreadsheet). Oracle: "To hide the upper layout and display only the Resource Usage Spreadsheet in the Activities window, drag the split bar separating the upper layout from the Resource Usage Spreadsheet all the way to the top."
• Resource Assignments window: Oracle: "In the Resource Assignments window, the Resource Usage Spreadsheet is available in the right pane." View > Show on Top > Resource Usage Spreadsheet, or Layout Options bar > Resource Usage Spreadsheet, or the Top Layout toolbar. Top Layout toolbar: "Shows or hides the Resource Usage Spreadsheet in the top layout" (not displayed by default; enabled when the active window is Resource Assignments; corresponding menu: View > Show on Top > Resource Usage Spreadsheet). Resource Assignments window: "Use the Resource Usage Spreadsheet to display resource usage over time." "To show or hide the Resource Usage Spreadsheet, click the Layout Options bar, then choose Resource Usage Spreadsheet, or click on the Top Layout toolbar."

Open Projects Only vs all projects (Activities bottom layout)

Oracle: when you display information for all projects, the bottom layout is two panes. "The left pane lists all the resources or roles stored in the hierarchy, depending on your current view." "The right pane displays the values for the activities assigned to each resource or role."

When you display information only for a specific project, the bottom layout is three panes. Left pane: resources or roles. "The middle pane displays all of the activity assignments for the resource or role currently selected in the left pane." "The right pane displays the values for the activities assigned to the resource or role currently selected in the left pane."

Oracle: "In the Activities window, the Resource Usage Spreadsheet must display data for open projects only if you want to manually plan future period resource distribution." If it is showing all projects, Display Options bar > Show All Projects to remove the checkmark; the title becomes "Display: Open Projects Only." FAQ: if showing all projects, the title is "Display: All Projects."

View allocation for a specific project: open one or more projects; Activities > Show on Bottom > Resource Usage Spreadsheet; right-pane Display Options bar, make sure Show All Projects is not selected. View allocation across all projects: same Show on Bottom, then Display Options bar > Show All Projects (a check indicates it is selected).

By Resource / By Role — left-pane Display Options bar > Select View, By Resource or By Role. Oracle Display roles page: "This option is only available if the spreadsheet is displaying data for all projects, rather than open projects only." Oracle View allocation for a specific project also lists Select View, By Role after Show All Projects is not selected. Do not invent which page wins. To redisplay resources: Select View, By Resource.

Select a resource or role in the left pane to view its values. Oracle: Shift-click a contiguous block, or Ctrl-click noncontiguous resources or roles.

Gray cells — Oracle FAQ: "When a future period bucket is not eligible for manual future period bucket planning, the spreadsheet cell is gray." Spreadsheet cells are gray/uneditable when: the activity duration type is Fixed Units or Fixed Units/Time (you can type only on Fixed Duration & Units or Fixed Duration and Units/Time); the resource or role has no valid worktime in that period (task-dependent and all role assignments use the activity calendar; resource-dependent uses the resource calendar); the displayed timescale is smaller than User Preferences → Resource Analysis → Interval for time-distributed resource calculations. Oracle: you cannot enter or edit Remaining Late Units. Privilege, zeros, duration-type, and Manual-curve rules live in Future Period Buckets Are Typed Assignment Units, Not a Curve. Do not duplicate that note here.

Spreadsheet fields (right pane) — right-click in the spreadsheet, then choose Spreadsheet Fields. "Choose one of the predefined spreadsheet fields, or, to customize the fields you want to display, choose Customize." Resource Assignments window: "You can display spreadsheet fields for budgeted or planned, actual, or remaining values, or you can customize the spreadsheet fields." Also: right pane Display Options bar > Spreadsheet Fields, Customize. Oracle printed these right-pane examples: Budgeted or Planned Units; Remaining (Early) Units; past period actuals in the Financial Period Value section for both Cumulative and Time Interval; Overallocated Early Units and Overallocated Late Units (Show All Projects; "the number of units beyond the resource's limit that are planned over a given timeperiod"). Oracle did not print a full field catalog on the pages fetched. Do not invent one.

Left/middle columns (Activities) — left pane Display Options bar > Columns, Customize; middle pane the same. "You can select different columns to appear in each pane." "You must select at least one column to appear in the spreadsheet." Default restores the default columns. Resource Assignments: Display Options bar > Spreadsheet Fields, Customize.

Past period actuals — Oracle: "You can view past period actual data spread by financial period in the Resource Usage Spreadsheet and Activity Usage Spreadsheet." "You cannot edit past period actual data in spreadsheets. You can edit past period actuals in columns of the Activity Table, Resource Assignments window, and the Activity Details, Resources tab." If Financial Period Value is missing, set the range on User Preferences, Application tab. When displaying Financial Period Value fields, "past period actuals stored per financial period are distributed evenly, within each financial period, from the financial period start date to the financial period end date and earned value calculations are based on these stored period quantities. For all other columns, actuals are spread evenly from the actual start to the data date or actual finish date of the activity or assignment." See Store Period Performance Posts This Period, Then Zeros It and Financial Periods Are Named Buckets, Not the Data Date.

Financial-period timescale + all projects — Oracle: "When you display a financial period timescale and display data for all projects (rather than for open projects only), activity and resource data must be summarized by financial period to accurately display data for closed projects." Professional database: Admin, Admin Preferences, Options tab, 'By financial period'. EPPM database (Professional connected to EPPM): "the Applications Settings page in P6."

Excel and Range Paste — this view owns paste.

• Out to Excel (reporting only): Project > Resource Assignments; select a row; Edit > Copy. "All associated spreadsheet data, as well as row and column headers and values, will be copied to the clipboard." In Excel, Paste. Oracle: "Any edits made in Excel will not be returned to the project. This can be used for reporting only." Resource Assignments window: "You can copy resource assignments, then paste them into Microsoft Excel. You can not paste assignments in the Resource Assignments window." "When assignment spreads are copied and pasted to Microsoft Excel, all numbers are stored as text."
• In from Excel (Range Paste): Oracle: "You can paste data directly into the Resource Usage Spreadsheet from Excel using Range Paste." Copy a range in Excel; in P6 select the target range (or a single start cell), right-click, Range Paste. Prerequisites Oracle printed: time period labels at Admin Preferences defaults; P6 decimal = dot and thousands separator = comma; Excel numbers without thousand separators. Oracle: "You cannot paste data from Excel into grouping bands or read-only cells." "You cannot copy and paste data between Excel and P6 Professional using the Range Copy and Range Paste functionality if your layout uses a timescale comprising financial periods."
• Range Copy / Range Paste inside P6: Oracle "Copy and paste a range of cells" (some spreadsheets): Range Copy or Shift+Ctrl+C; Range Paste or Shift+Ctrl+V. "When you paste a range of cells, read-only cells are automatically skipped."

Fill down / fill across (Resource Assignments window, Oracle): you cannot fill down or across when cells are grayed out / not editable; when any field other than Budgeted or Remaining early units is present (fill down also blocked if multiple fields are added); timescale Day/Hour or Day/shift; Only Ordinal dates; Financial periods. Fill across also blocked for Remaining units on a completed activity (assignment Actual Finish without activity Actual Finish: that assignment's Remaining buckets uneditable; activity Actual Finish: all assignments' Remaining buckets uneditable).

Other Oracle notes on this view

• Filter activities (specific project): left pane select the resource, mark Resource in Display Activities for Selected; or select assignment(s) in the middle pane and mark Assignments. Filters Activity Table, Gantt Chart, Activity Usage Spreadsheet, or Activity Network.
• "The hierarchy in the Resource Usage spreadsheet does not represent rolled up values for resource groups; therefore, if you select a resource group, only the values directly related to that group appear in the spreadsheet. Values for the individual resources belonging to that group do not appear."
• "Multiple resource rates are not reflected in the Resource Usage Spreadsheet."
• "Dashes display in the cells of summary rows if your selection contains a mixture of labor/ nonlabor and material type resources."
• Actual-to-date (not past period actuals): if you do not want even spread, use resource curves or type values. "The Resource Usage Spreadsheet reflects the resource curves." Past period actuals: "the resource unit/cost data is spread by financial period."

This is not Resource Usage Profile (Show on Bottom histogram). Oracle: "Choose to display vertical bars to represent costs or units allocated to your resources for each timeperiod, and include cumulative curves to represent accumulated units and costs over time." The profile "is available only in the bottom layout of the Activities window."

The Professional pages fetched do not print an EPPM web Resource Usage Spreadsheet. The "When connected to a P6 EPPM database" sentences are Professional connected to EPPM (where the By financial period checkbox / hours-per-time-period settings live). EPPM Spreadsheet View on the Assignments page is the typed-bucket surface in Future Period Buckets Are Typed Assignment Units, Not a Curve, not this Professional view.

XER

The view is a layout (Professional bottom layout on Activities; right pane / Show on Top on Resource Assignments). Oracle's project XER data map TOC lists no RESOURCEUSAGE, RSRCUSAGE, USAGE, SPREADSHEET, or LAYOUT table. Do not invent one. Spreadsheet field choices, timescale, Show All Projects / Open Projects Only, and Show on Top / Bottom are not columns on the cited TASK or TASKRSRC maps. Oracle did not name an XER table or column for this view.

What you can display or type in the right pane is not a dedicated usage-spreadsheet table:

• Typed future-period buckets: no dedicated table. See Future Period Buckets Are Typed Assignment Units, Not a Curve.
• Named curves: RSRCCURV / TASKRSRC.curv_id. See Resource Curves (Not MSP Work Contours).
• Stored past-period actuals: TASKFIN / TRSRCFIN. See Store Period Performance Posts This Period, Then Zeros It.
• Named financial-period calendar: FINDATES. See Financial Periods Are Named Buckets, Not the Data Date.

A Viewer parse of one XER cannot reconstruct whether the planner had Resource Usage Spreadsheet on Activities or Resource Assignments, Open Projects Only vs All Projects, which spreadsheet fields were selected, or the last timescale.

Microsoft Project

Desktop Project has Resource Usage. Microsoft: "Review, enter, and edit assignments by resource." "In the sheet portion of the Resource Usage view, each resource is listed with all associated task assignments indented beneath it. In the timesheet portion of the view, information such as work or costs for the resource and the assignment is listed according to the timescale, for example, by week or month." View > Resource Usage (Task or Resource tab, View dropdown). Usage views "list task or resource data in rows and columns on the leftmost side of the view, and show timephased data across rows and columns on the rightmost side of the view."

Microsoft also: overallocated resources are shown in red. You can add timephased Percent Allocation (Format > Add Details) or Remaining Availability. Resource Graph is a bar chart of one resource — closer to Resource Usage Profile than to this spreadsheet.

Closer to a timescaled resource/assignment grid than to Resource Usage Profile (histogram). They are not the same object. Oracle's Resource Usage Spreadsheet edits only Budgeted or Planned Units and Remaining (Early) Units (privilege; Open Projects Only in Activities; gray cells). Microsoft's Resource Usage is for review, enter, and edit assignments by resource.

Do not map Resource Usage as the same command as Resource Usage Spreadsheet. Do not claim MPXJ can write a real MPP.

Don't

• Treat Resource Usage Spreadsheet as Activity Usage Spreadsheet (Oracle: AUS cannot change the data; RUS can type Planned / Remaining Early Units).
• Treat the view as the typed buckets, as a 21-point RSRCCURV, as FINDATES, as TASKFIN / TRSRCFIN, or as Planning-page WBSRSRC_QTY.
• Treat it as Resource Usage Profile (bars/curves, Activities Show on Bottom only).
• Invent a RESOURCEUSAGE / RSRCUSAGE / USAGE / SPREADSHEET / LAYOUT XER table.
• Invent a full spreadsheet-field catalog Oracle did not print.
• Claim you can type buckets in Activities when the spreadsheet shows All Projects (Oracle: must be Open Projects Only).
• Claim gray cells are editable, or that Remaining Late Units can be typed here.
• Copy Activity Usage Spreadsheet "you cannot change the data" onto this view.
• Invent an EPPM web Resource Usage Spreadsheet from the Professional-connected-to-EPPM admin sentence.
• Map this object to MSP Resource Usage and call them the same.
• Claim MPXJ writes a real MPP.
• Claim a Viewer reconstructed the planner's last Resource Usage Spreadsheet fields, Open Projects Only, or timescale from an XER.
• Treat Excel Copy as a round-trip (Oracle: reporting only; edits in Excel are not returned).
• Claim Range Paste works into grouping bands, read-only cells, or a financial-period timescale.