automate indentation based on code

[inay]

I currently have a schedule which uses custom outline codes and not
indentation to group tasks by meeting, functional area etc, hence, WBS
creation tools such as WBS Chart Pro do not work. I want to be able to
indent the tasks into the following WBS hierarcy: meeting (lowest level),
deliverable, phase (highest level). There are too many multiple
deliverables, meeting etc. to do this indentation in Project easily. Can
anyone help? I can't seem to manually manipulate the 'Outline Number' field
which controls indentation.

Thanks in advance.

 

[John]

I currently have a schedule which uses custom outline codes and not
indentation to group tasks by meeting, functional area etc, hence, WBS
creation tools such as WBS Chart Pro do not work. I want to be able to
indent the tasks into the following WBS hierarcy: meeting (lowest level),
deliverable, phase (highest level). There are too many multiple
deliverables, meeting etc. to do this indentation in Project easily. Can
anyone help? I can't seem to manually manipulate the 'Outline Number' field
which controls indentation.

Thanks in advance.

inay,
Project's outline structure is based on how tasks are allocated by the
user. It is entirely up to you to set up the structure you want. The
Outline Number field is created by Project based on the Outline Level
and is not editable by the user. On the other hand, the Outline Level
field is user definable, either directly or by using the indent/outdent
arrows.

One approach you might take is to lay in all your tasks at an outline
level of "one". However you need to make sure the overall logic flow of
the tasks is in some type of waterfall sequence - it just makes the
overall plan easier to follow and understand. Next set your custom
outline codes for each task. Finally set the Outline Level values to
coincide with your custom codes.

Some of the above process could probably be automated with VBA although
I'm not sure it would be worth it.

Now that I have provided a potential solution, I have to inject some
comments. A good schedule is structured to show a logical flow of the
tasks to be performed in order to achieve some end goal or milestone(s).
The hierarchy of that plan should break the tasks into groupings that
show common elements of the plan. For example, a plan might be
structured by functional organization or by phases. Normally this
structure is described by the WBS.

In the case of your WBS hierarchy (i.e. phase, deliverable, meeting),
the top level "phase" sounds reasonable but the other two beg several
questions. What is the deliverable or deliverables since you say there
are many? What generates the deliverables? Is the "meeting" equivalent
to an end goal or milestone? Normally a "meeting" is a periodic part of
the process and the deliverable is the end item.

John
Project MVP

 

[inay]

Hi John

Thanks, have organised the project using the outline level. The project is
actually grouped by Functional Area, Deliverable and then Meeting now that
I've reorganised it. These come from the custom outline codes that were used
by the previous scheduler.
We are in Planning phase, so, much of the work is focused internally within
the functional areas (I imagine this will change closer we get to the event).
The 'Deliverables' are defined scope of work that have been assigned to each
functional area. A couple of the Functional areas have an addditional WBS
level called 'Meeting'.
There ARE issues with this WBS grouping because I'm finding that it
encourages the Functional Areas to only focus on their tasks without any view
of the impact from other areas. Do you have any suggestions for how to
overcome this?