Assigning resource and cost allocations

To assign a cost, you assign a cost centre to a task, then specify the amount of money that is expenditure from or income to that cost centre. In Asta Powerproject, these costs are known as direct costs because they are assigned directly to or from the cost centre.

When you assign a resource to a task, a resource allocation and its cost are assigned; you do not assign resource costs separately.

Each resource or cost allocation can be represented by an allocation bar on the bar chart. Allocation bars are displayed below the task to which the resource or cost is assigned. In the illustration below, resource allocations are displayed as and cost allocations as .

Lay Floor
..Floorers
..Lay DPC
....Floorers
....Flooring costs
..Lay Concrete
..Lay Tiles

You can turn off allocation bars if you prefer not to see them.

You can combine a number of resource and cost allocations into an allocation group, so that in the future you can assign the whole group instead of the individual allocations. This is a quick way of assigning a frequently used combination of resource and cost allocations. When you assign an allocation group to a task, a resource or cost bar is created for each allocation within that group and any codes that have been assigned to the allocation group are assigned to the task.

You assign resources and cost centres to tasks in the same way that you assign other library objects. The ways that you can assign resources and cost centres to tasks are:

By dragging the resource, cost centre or allocation group from Library Explorer or the project view and dropping it on the task in the bar chart. If more than one task is selected in the bar chart, the resource or cost is assigned to all the selected tasks. When dragging from Library Explorer, you can assign multiple allocations at the same time by CTRL-clicking all the objects that you want to assign, then dragging any of the selected objects to any selected task in the bar chart.
By right-dragging the resource, cost centre or allocation group from Library Explorer or the project view and dropping it on the task in the bar chart. When using this technique to assign resources, you can choose whether to assign them as demand or scheduled allocations.
Right-clicking the task and selecting Assign Permanent Resource, Assign Consumable Resource, Assign Group or Assign Cost, then using the submenus to select the resource, cost centre or allocation group that you want to assign. To assign the same allocation to multiple tasks, CTRL-click on the tasks to select them, then right-click on any selected task and select the appropriate Assign command.
By selecting the resource, cost centre or allocation group in Library Explorer and on the Home tab, in the Clipboard group, clicking Copy, then selecting a task in the bar chart and on the Home tab, in the Clipboard group, clicking the Paste dropdown and selecting Paste. To assign the same allocation to multiple tasks, CTRL-click on the tasks to select them before using the Paste command.
By moving or copying resource or cost bars from one task to another.

You can also assign resource and cost allocations within the assignment view.

You can drag a resource, cost centre or allocation group and drop it onto a blank bar to create a new task. The resource, cost centre or allocation group is assigned to the task, which takes the default duration. If you drop a modelled resource onto a blank bar, the task duration may be determined by the allocation.

You can configure Asta Powerproject to check the availability of a resource - permanent or consumable - each time you assign a resource to a task. Configuring Asta Powerproject to check resource availability as and when you assign resources helps you to avoid over-allocating resources by assigning them to too many tasks at the same time.

You can prevent resources and cost centres from being assigned to any tasks by editing the properties of the resource or cost centre and selecting the Not available for new assignments check box on the Details tab of the resource or cost centre's properties dialog. It is good practice to select this check box for permanent resources or cost centres that are no longer actively used in your projects. Selecting this check box also prevents an empty row being displayed for the resource or cost centre in RBS or CBS views when the Show empty RBS/CBS lines check box is selected on the Allocations tab of the Format Bar Chart dialog.