Resource Management of Shared Resource Pool at the Project Level

Question

I am having difficulty figuring out how to implement our resource management process. Currently we have one "Resource Pool" project that has all the shared resources. It is connected to both a "master portfolio" plan that has some task
detail in it and other individual project plans that have their own WBS (for larger projects).
The difficulty arises because we want to do resource allocation at a project level, but the resource usage view shows the WBS/task level detail.  I've tried grouping the resources assignments by resource and then project, but since everything is
in the "Resource Pool" project, they all group under that project.  I've tried adding the "Project" field and it does show as the source project, but it doesn't group on that field, but rather the "Resource Pool" project
only.
How can I see resource allocation/usage at just the project level so our managers can do planning, negotiation, and re-allocation on a periodic basis with one simple view?
My best current idea is to disconnect all the sub-tasks from the sharer, eliminate the WBS below the project level in the master plan and attach resources at that single line project in that master plan.  Then, we would have to manually alter the "Max"
available time in the individual sub-plans as we altered allocations.  That essentially disconnects individual plans from both the master plan and the shared resource pool.
Is there a better way?

Answer 1

Mark,
Yeah, I think there is a better way. Having a linked structure the contains both a pool file and a dynamic master is tenuous enough (i.e. prone to corruption), but if you start disconnecting from the pool and and messing with the master, you will most certainly
invite trouble.
But here is an approach that might work. I tested it on a sample pool file with two sharer files and I think it might give you what you want.
1. First, either manually copy or use VBA to copy the contents of the Project field to a custom text field in each sharer file
2. In the pool file display the Resource Usage view
3. Create a group that first groups on the Resource Name and then on the Text1 field, and select "group assignments, not resource"
4. Change the Text1 group field to be "assignment"
Does that give you what you want?
To help visualize, here is a screenshot of my test file. After grouping I applied a filter to Text1 with the option to also show summary tasks:
John