Capturing bar drags in the Gantt chart view

[Ben]

I would like to change the behavior of dragging a bar in a Gantt chart. Is
there a way to capture that drag before some of the Project default actions
take place, and replacing those with other actions?
For instance, when dragging some key activities to take place before their
predecessor ends I would like for their predecessors to drag along, rather
then get a warning and be forced to cancel the change.

 

[John]

I would like to change the behavior of dragging a bar in a Gantt chart. Is
there a way to capture that drag before some of the Project default actions
take place, and replacing those with other actions?
For instance, when dragging some key activities to take place before their
predecessor ends I would like for their predecessors to drag along, rather
then get a warning and be forced to cancel the change.

Ben,
Is it possible? Yeah maybe with some complex VBA but you're asking for
something that really doesn't make sense to automate. For example, let's
say that the predecessor task to a "key" activity is in progress. If the
plan was well thought out in the beginning the parameters of that
predecessor task (e.g. duration, resource loading, work effort, etc.)
should still be valid. If an automated procedure is in place that causes
the predecessor task to be lengthened or shortened in response to the
user manually dragging the successor (i.e. key) task, then the validity
of the predecessor task parameters basically gets thrown out the window.

Plan modifications are best addressed by direct manual intervention by
the project manager. There are generally just to many variables to
expect an automated procedure to make the right choices.

At least that's how I see it.

John
Project MVP

 

[Ben]

You are right on a project execution scenario, John. I am looking into a
planning and resource leveling situation, well before execution, when people
are still manipulating task schedules to reach feasibility. Some 'key' tasks
have preparation activities as predecessors, and I want to make sure that I
control how those preparations behave when the 'key' tasks move. Not too
fancy in fact.

 

[John]

You are right on a project execution scenario, John. I am looking into a
planning and resource leveling situation, well before execution, when people
are still manipulating task schedules to reach feasibility. Some 'key' tasks
have preparation activities as predecessors, and I want to make sure that I
control how those preparations behave when the 'key' tasks move. Not too
fancy in fact.

Ben,
Okay, that makes some sense. Have you tried the built-in leveling
feature? It certainly isn't perfect but it might help. You can find it
under Tools/Level Resources.

Another concept you might want to try is to use a start-to-finish
dependency between the key task and its predecessor(s). As the key task
is moved, the predecessor task will follow. For example, say task B is
the key task and task A is the predecessor. If task A has a predecessor
of SF with the key task then task A will move as the key task is
adjusted. Once the plan is ready for execution I recommend all the SF
links be converted to normal finish-to-start. It's much cleaner and
"drives" with a normal forward network logic.

Beyond that a VBA procedure could probably be developed to automate some
plan development algorithms but that would require a fair amount of
effort and expertise with VBA. It may or may not be worth it.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

 

[Serge]

Hi,

Would you have any code which will allow meetings (having constraint dates)
to move with their related phases (having linked dependencies), once someone
drags the task bar in the Gantt chart view?

Thank you in advance,
Serge