Copying predecessors

[Cecilia]

Hi
I have a project plan that involves purchasing items for an office. It
involves a couple hundred of items which all have the same steps e.g.
Purchase Office chairs
1. source quote
2. finalise quote
3. obtain approval
4. place order
5. delivery of item
6. install
Step 1 must be done before step 2 can be started, and so on. Is there a
quicker way in inserting the precedessor instead of having to go through line
by line and typing in the line of the predecessor? My project plan is 3000
lines long!

Cecilia

 

[Andrew Lavinsky]

Just highlight all of those tasks in sequence and click on the chain link
icon. Once you've done that for one bundle, make a copy of those 6 steps
and paste them down the line to retain their linkage.

That may save some of your time.

- Andrew Lavinsky
Blog: http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/epm

 

[Cecilia]

Andrew

If i copy and paste the 1st bundle into the next item, the precedessors do
not update. e.g. i copy this...

Task name Predecessor
1 purchasing office chairs
2 source quote none (i will enter in a date)
3 finalise quote 2
4 obtain approval 3
5 place order 4
6 delivery of item 5
7 install 5ss

and then if i paste the same 6 steps for purchasing office desks
it will paste exactly the same predecessors as before and not the new row
number e.g.

Task name Predecessor
8 purchasing office desks
9 source quote none
10 finalise quote 2 (should be 9)
11 obtain approval 3 (should be 10) etc...
12 place order 4
13 delivery of item 5
14 install 5ss

I hope this makes sense?

Cecilia

 

[Cecilia]

Hi Trevor

Thanks for your suggestion, i did the same method as you described when
coping and pasting the inital 6 steps for each item but now i'm going back
and putting in the precedessors and it's not doing what i want as described
in my reply to Andrew.

I need to keep the structure as i have now so i can keep track that I have
bought this item for this room on this floor.....

Cecilia

 

[Rod Gill]

Hi,

I think you have project management and task management mixed up!! I would
have 1 task for each purchase. In Excel I would have 1 row per purchase and
1 column per step.

Item source quote finalize quote obtain approval place order
delivery of item install
Item 1 15% 40% 50%
60% 80% 100%


When you have done each bit you automatically get a specific % complete.
This will be an average for each product. So, if you have just obtained
approval for the purchase of an item you are 50% complete. Set the Task for
item 1 to 50% complete in Project.

Now the detail can be tracked in Excel by anyone and you get reports from
Excel of % compete for you to update project with and to report on and
significantly fewer lines!!

--

Rod Gill
Microsoft MVP for Project - http://www.project-systems.co.nz

Author of the only book on Project VBA, see: http://www.projectvbabook.com

Hi
I have a project plan that involves purchasing items for an office. It
involves a couple hundred of items which all have the same steps e.g.
Purchase Office chairs
1. source quote
2. finalise quote
3. obtain approval
4. place order
5. delivery of item
6. install
Step 1 must be done before step 2 can be started, and so on. Is there a
quicker way in inserting the precedessor instead of having to go through
line
by line and typing in the line of the predecessor? My project plan is 3000
lines long!

Cecilia

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signature database 5026 (20100413) __________

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[Cecilia]

Hi
I have worked it out now, only problem is when it pastes, it pastes new
tasks but i want it to copy over the old tasks...

Cecilia

 

[Andrew Lavinsky]

I would encourage you to consider Rod's comments. If you still plan on your
approach, it sounds like you're capturing the task names then copying the
tasks. That won't copy all of the task data, but will only create new unconnected
tasks. Rather, you should select the original tasks by clicking on the Task
ID on the left hand side of the screen. This will highlight the entire task
row.

Once you paste that, it should recreate all of the connections, etc.

- Andrew Lavinsky
Blog: http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/epm