Coding iterations

[Juan Roman Escamilla]

I want to add the concept of coding iterations in my project plan. Some tasks
will sometime get resolved after several (more than one) iterations. Then I
would love to see a Group By Iteration feature. Which is the best way to
implement this in Project.

 

[Renaud Duisit]

You may create a custom field where you will store the iteration number. You
will have to enter the iteration number for each task. You may display this
column via the Insert column function. Then you can create a group on this
field, which will add it to the Group By drop-down menu.
A little too long to describe here in full, but those topics are well
documented in the help files.
Hope this helps.
R.

 

[Juan Roman Escamilla]

But what if the same task will take part in multiple iterations?

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

The *same* task cannot take part in multiple iterations. *Similar* tasks
might occur, but a task is a block of work taking place between time A and
time B. It requires both the type of work and the start and end time frame
to define a task. A repetition, with the same sort of work taking place
between time C and time D, a different time frame, is actually a different
task even though it may have the same name. After all, if I have to repeat
the widget waxing I could put substitute a new resource for the second
round. Since the purpose of the plan is to produce a schedule, every
iteration of the tasks must appear individually at the time frame where they
will be scheduled to occur. Otherwise, you have no way to advise the
resources when they will be expected to engage in that particular activity.
This means you really can't put in an iteration as a task with a counter
because that will appear in the schedule at only one spot rather than
recurring for each iteration. The best way might be to make a best-guess,
worst-case scenario of the number of interations likely and enter them all
in the plan. Then when you get closer to the events you can refine your
estimate and add or remove iterations as needed.