Whew - you are asking a lot from Outlook, which is a simple PIM for personal
and limited business use.
You would probably do best by looking at Microsoft Project, or another
Project program to do what you want to do.
You mentioned Project in your post so you have obviously considered it as a
viable option. You can order a project trial and see if that will fit your
requirements - and it will not cost you all that much for the trial version.
Order it and play around with it to see if it is really what you need for
your project. I am pretty certain that Outlook will not fit the bill.
--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]
Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. Due to the
Swen virus, all e-mails sent to my actual account will be deleted
w/out reading.
After searching google.groups.com and finding no answer
T Thompson <
[email protected]> asked:
| Hello Milly,
|
| Thank you for your response to my inquiry.
|
| I am working with an Environmental Affairs group that is responsible
| for numerous regulatory requirements that have deadlines. (We are
| exploring software options and will eventually migrate to a more
| robust integrated database system, but...) For the time being, i
| have created a Master Planning Tool using MS Excel. This workbook
| contains one worksheet per site. The worksheets are consistently
| laid out. Each sheet contains a list of compliance requirements (one
| row of data per requirement). One column of data contains deadline
| dates. I would like to plot the deadline dates on an annual
| calendar.
|
| Here's my stop-gap datasheet design: In each worksheet, i have set
| up 12 columns for each of the calendar months and have manually
| placed the deadline dates (contained in a single column, say, Column
| A) in the corresponding monthly column (say, columns B through
| M)--but the monthly plotting is not automatic.
|
| I would like the system to recognize the dates in Column A, and
| automatically place them in the corresponding monthly columns so that
| when the dates in column A are changed, the monthly columns
| automatically reflect the change.
| Also, i'd like all dates in column A of the various worksheets to be
| consolidated on another worksheet. Ideally, i would like to plot all
| dates on one calendar, using flags specifying site, representative,
| regulatory agency and regulatory # (data consistently contained
| across the worksheets in other columns, say O through Z) so that i
| could filter and sort as desired.
|
| One thought that i had was to import the deadline dates from the
| spreadsheets to MS Outlook (since it is calendaring software). But
| i've been unable to make that happen. I get an error message telling
| me that Excel translator was unable to accomplish the task. Is there
| something simple that i can do?
|
| The ideal plan is for the system to automatically plot the (deadline)
| dates on a calendar contained in or linked to every worksheet
| (depicting all deadlines for a given site), AND to plot a
| consolidated calendar (Master) that may be variously sorted (e.g. by
| compliance type--air, storm water, underground storage tank, etc-- or
| by representative, regulatory agency, region, etc. (e.g. data from
| multiple worksheets of various compliance type)). Finally, we will
| be looking for software that will automatically generate email notice
| to all vested project participants. I think MS Project could likely
| serve fine--it's just a matter of research and internal approval that
| holding us back here.
|
| FYI, a 12 column spreadsheet representing each month is satisfactory
| as a calendaring tool. In other words, i don't need screens that
| look like calendar months; i don't need the days of the months
| represented. An entry of 15-Apr in the April column will do fine.
|
| Thank you for trying to help.
|
| Best,
| T Thompson
