Admittedly, overtime is a clunky feature in Microsoft Project. I like the simplicity of Standard Time better. But here are some steps to help understand and master overtime usage in MSP.
Start by assigning resources to your tasks.
- Right-click in a column header
- Choose Insert Column…
- Insert the ‘Resources’ column
- Enter names for employees that will work on each task
Assign cost rates to resources
- Choose View, Resource Sheet
- Enter currency rates for ‘Std.’ and ‘Ovt.’
Enter overtime hours
- Choose View, Task Usage
- Right-click and insert ‘Work’, ‘Cost’, ‘Overtime Work’, and ‘Overtime Cost’ columns
- Enter hours for the Work column
- Enter a portion of those hours that will represent overtime work
You will notice that the ‘Duration’ value shrinks for tasks with overtime hours, and that the ‘Cost’ and ‘Overtime Cost’ values are update accordingly.
–newshirt