Automatic Daily Macro?

[bauer172uw]

Our organization is looking to track changes to our schedules on a daily
level (in addition to long term tracking). We plan to do this by using a
"temporary" baseline for change comparison. This will require daily
baselines to these certain baselines.

Is it possible to schedule a macro that would do this baselining
automatically? For instance, every morning we would want our schedule
baselined at 3:00am?

In addition, if there is a different method than a macro to accomplish this
(perhaps on the command line? as a scheduled job) that would be helpful as
well.

Thank You for any help.
Mike

 

[John]

Our organization is looking to track changes to our schedules on a daily
level (in addition to long term tracking). We plan to do this by using a
"temporary" baseline for change comparison. This will require daily
baselines to these certain baselines.

Is it possible to schedule a macro that would do this baselining
automatically? For instance, every morning we would want our schedule
baselined at 3:00am?

In addition, if there is a different method than a macro to accomplish this
(perhaps on the command line? as a scheduled job) that would be helpful as
well.

Thank You for any help.
Mike

Mike,
First of all "daily baseline" is a misnomer. Ideally, a baseline is
something that is set (or captured) at the beginning of a project and
then remains the same throughout the life of the project (save
extenuating circumstances like a change in scope).

However, rather than go through a questionable process of saving some
set of the project data to compare each day, why not simply use the
"Compare Project Versions" utility or add-in (depending on which version
or Project you are using)? It will show all the differences between
selected fields of an "old" and "new" version of a Project file.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Bauer..,

Yes.

The simplest way is to write a macro thet fires on opening the file,
compares a value at project level to current date, and when it's different
saves the baseline and records the new last run date.

If you somehow have a list of where all teh projects are stored, you can
write a VBA procedure that simply does what you want for al the projects.

Hope this helps,

 

[bauer172uw]

Thank You both for your responses.

First, to respond to John:
We did look at using the compare project versions option but it was not
consistently working when comparing a project on PServer 2003 to a flat file
of the same project. Have others had success using this compare project
versions feature?

Second, to Jan:
It sounds like your comment is exactly what we are looking for. Will this
be possible even if the files are located on a Project 2003 server? If so,
do you have any recommendations on how to write such a macro and how to
schedule it to run on a given interval. If it is a complicated process any
good websites or book recommendations would be excellent.

Thank you both for your help.
Mike

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

Whilst I have a lot of experienceing in handling native mpp files, my
knowledge of Server is more elementary I'm afraid.
Like you, I would like to know how to address or open all projects in Server
through VBA.
Hope someone will pick up this thread...