Where I work we dont usually plan and book hours against tasks, we do this by workpackages that are composed of these detailed tasks. So how can I set this up on PPM6 as we only need resources to book against the various work packages of the project and we dont want to overwhelme them with a long list of tasks on their timesheets.

Many thanks

There are a couple of ways you might approach this:

Have users track time at the project level.  This is a Project Type attribute that will give users one line item on their Timesheet per project, regardless of how many actual Tasks they may be assigned.  This is the easiest to administer in general, however this only allows for time tracking at the highest level of the project and will not give you the granularity of work packages within the project plan.

The other option is to create a Task representing each work package the user may be assigned to on the project, then leave the actual detailed tasks unassigned for the PM to update status and progress.  This means the PM will have to add a Task line item for each work package for the purposes of time tracking, which may throw off Planned and Actual work rollups, but it affords the granularity of time tracking you may require.  One thing to be careful of with this solution is that if you have multiple resources assigned to the same work package task, the Planned Work, Actual Work to Date and ETC or % Complete on each user's timesheet represent the aggregated total for all task assignees, so users need to be instructed in how to "co-manage" these shared tasks.

Thanks for the reply. I have given the first approach a go but with an extra twist. I have created child projects underneath the parent project that represent these work pckages.

This allows us to track time at these workpackages level. What do you think the pros and cons of this method.

 The first issue I am dealing with now is to create a custom field/custom view that roll up all financial and time data.

 Your comments appreciated

While your approach to tracking work package time in this manner will give you the desired results, you may find that it introduces much more project setup and administration than is necessary since every project will require the creation of subprojects that exist simply for time tracking.  It's not an approach I would likely recommend, but it should allow you some degree of flexibility should you choose to try a different approach at a later time.

Regarding the rollup of financial and time data, this can be accomplished with a custom Aggregate project field for some data points.  Not all calculable fields are currently exposed for Aggregate field calculations at this time, however using Summary Calculations in a custom view may give you what you need.  Alternately, the Work Intelligence options will allow you to perform pretty much any calculation you wish against your data.