Goal: Build the project team

All your resources have been identified, approved, and procured. Now you can build your team by entering the resource information into the project plan.

Tip: This article is part of a series of articles within the Project Map that describe a broad set of project management activities. We call these activities "goals" because they are organized around the project management life cycle: Build a plan, track and manage a project, and close a project.

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Add resources to your project team     If you are using Microsoft Office Project Server 2007, you can add enterprise resources and details such as group, resource type, skills, and maximum units: Add resource to your project to add enterprise and nonenterprise resources to your team. Substitute resources if you want to replace an enterprise resource in your project with another enterprise resource (outside your current team) or with a generic resource.  Set working times for the project and resources     If you want to set up the availability for all resources in the project as well as individual resources, you need to set working times. You can indicate vacations, standard and nonstandard working schedules, and differing resource units. Click all of the following that apply: Set working times, vacations, and holidays for individual resources. You can modify individual resource calendars to indicate nonstandard schedules, vacations, and other time off. Set working times, vacations, and holidays for the entire project. You can change the dates when the project starts and finishes work. You can also change unit availability at different times during the project. For example, you can assign four carpenters to a project in the spring, eight in the summer, and two in the fall. Specify resource availability to control how much time a work resource is available.  Change information for enterprise resources     If you are using Microsoft Office Project Web Access, you may want to make changes to the resource information. For example, you can apply a new calendar, costs, or skills to the resource. Before you can save changes to certain types of information for enterprise resources, such as cost, skills, or availability, the resource must be checked out. Enter or change enterprise resource information  Add resource skills      When you add a custom field for resource skills to the Resource Sheet, you can filter, sort, or group on this field to identify resources by their skills. Depending on the requirements of your organization, you may need to use skill codes. Enter information about enterprise resources if you are using Office Project Web Access and you want to define resource skills. Use the Resource Substitution Wizard to find resources if you are using Microsoft Office Project Professional 2007 and Project Server 2007 and you want Project 2007 to automatically assign resources to tasks in one or more projects, based on the skill demands of the tasks and the availability of the resources. Create a budget for the resources in your project if you already know how much money you want to spend on resources.  Set resource costs     After you enter rates and fees for people, equipment, and materials, you can use Microsoft Office Project 2007 to create a budget or to track project costs. Click all of the following that apply: Enter pay rates and fees for resources to set up the hourly rates, per-use costs, and other fees for human and equipment resources. Project 2007 can calculate the cost totals for resources, assigned tasks, and the entire project. You can enter this information throughout the process of staffing up or negotiating with other managers for shared resources. Enter costs for material resources such as supplies. Project 2007 can calculate the cost totals for these material resources from the base rates and quantities that you enter. Create a budget for the resources in your project if you already know how much money you want to spend on resources.  Set up lines of communication     If you are using Project Server 2007, team members and stakeholders can collaborate online with Microsoft Office Project Web Access. You may need to enter e-mail addresses or Microsoft Windows user accounts for them.  Add supporting information about resources     Add more information about resources in the form of notes or documents or by viewing the resource reports. Click all of the following that apply: Add a note to a task, resource, or project to include a small amount of information directly in your project. Also, you can add a file from another program to a project note. View and upload documents if you want to link to supporting documents by using Project Server 2007. Create a visual report if you want to use Microsoft Office Visio 2007 or Microsoft Office Excel 2007 to create reports that allow you to analyze and report on resource usage at any phase of your project planning.

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See all goals on the Project Map