Creating TBD dates with in MSP

[AK]

I have a project plan that corresponds with an excel spreadsheet. I have linked all the appropriate cells and in some future tasks within excel we have unidentified dates as TBD. How can I indicate the TBD dates in MSP? I can not link the two because Project does not recognize non numeric entries in the date fields

Thanks for the help

A

 

[Gérard Ducouret]

Hello AK,

I tried a Copy / Paste special / Paste link / Text Data from Excel to
Project without any problem.
What arethe date format you are using in Excel and in Project ?

Gérard Ducouret [Project MVP]
PragmaSoft ® - Paris

I have a project plan that corresponds with an excel spreadsheet. I have

linked all the appropriate cells and in some future tasks within excel we
have unidentified dates as TBD. How can I indicate the TBD dates in MSP? I
can not link the two because Project does not recognize non numeric entries
in the date fields.

 

[AK]

Thank you Gerard,

But I don’t think you understood my problem.

Within the Excel project some dates are identified as "TBD"

But when I link the two cells project can NOT understand the alpha data and gives me an error message.

Project can only accept numerical data in a date (mm/dd/yyyy) format.

So I ask my question again,

Is there a way to make Project understand that some dates are unidentified and are actually "TBD"?

Hello AK,

I tried a Copy / Paste special / Paste link / Text Data from Excel to
Project without any problem.
What arethe date format you are using in Excel and in Project ?

Gérard Ducouret [Project MVP]
PragmaSoft ® - Paris

I have a project plan that corresponds with an excel spreadsheet. I have

linked all the appropriate cells and in some future tasks within excel we
have unidentified dates as TBD. How can I indicate the TBD dates in MSP? I
can not link the two because Project does not recognize non numeric entries
in the date fields.

Thanks for the help.

AK

 

[AK]

Thank you Gerard,

But I don’t think you understood my problem.

Within the Excel project some dates are identified as "TBD"

But when I link the two cells project can NOT understand the alpha data and gives me an error message.

Project can only accept numerical data in a date (mm/dd/yyyy) format.

So I ask my question again,

Is there a way to make Project understand that some dates are unidentified and are actually "TBD"?

Hello AK,

I tried a Copy / Paste special / Paste link / Text Data from Excel to
Project without any problem.
What arethe date format you are using in Excel and in Project ?

Gérard Ducouret [Project MVP]
PragmaSoft ® - Paris

I have a project plan that corresponds with an excel spreadsheet. I have

linked all the appropriate cells and in some future tasks within excel we
have unidentified dates as TBD. How can I indicate the TBD dates in MSP? I
can not link the two because Project does not recognize non numeric entries
in the date fields.

Thanks for the help.

AK

 

[Rob Schneider]

You don't say which dates you are tring to make TBD ... start, end,
actual start/end, ... and there are a host of others. In any event,
this does not matter since this not the right way to do scheduling with
Project.

Let Project compute the dates for you. Only specify dates when in fact
there are truly "constrained" dates, e.g. "start no earlier than" or
other logical contraints which are in fact actual and real constraints.

Hope this is useful to you. Let us know.

rms

Thank you Gerard,

But I don’t think you understood my problem.

Within the Excel project some dates are identified as "TBD"

But when I link the two cells project can NOT understand the alpha data and gives me an error message.

Project can only accept numerical data in a date (mm/dd/yyyy) format.

So I ask my question again,

Is there a way to make Project understand that some dates are unidentified and are actually "TBD"?


:

Hello AK,

I tried a Copy / Paste special / Paste link / Text Data from Excel to
Project without any problem.
What arethe date format you are using in Excel and in Project ?

Gérard Ducouret [Project MVP]
PragmaSoft ® - Paris

I have a project plan that corresponds with an excel spreadsheet. I have

linked all the appropriate cells and in some future tasks within excel we
have unidentified dates as TBD. How can I indicate the TBD dates in MSP? I
can not link the two because Project does not recognize non numeric entries
in the date fields.

Thanks for the help.

AK

 

[Anton]

Rob,

Thanks for the note. But if you saw my original post the problem is that the plan is scheduled for 2 years and all tasks are identified but the LOE’s are not. So in the project plan I need to put a “TBDâ€

Thanks for any additional help.

 

[Steve House]

Anton - one of the primary purposes of Project is to *calculate* task
schedule dates and it is not intended to just passively display dates that
you have determined through some other method. So in a sense, ALL the start
and end dates for the individual tasks are To Be Determined when you first
input the task information (name, duration estimate, links to other tasks).
Then Project does its thing, calculates the dates on which the tasks will be
able to take place what comes before, what sequence things need to be done,
how long individual tasks will take, and the availability of the resources
you have at your disposal to get them done, and displays that information
for you in the Gantt chart etc. As such, *none* of the task dates in your
Excel worksheet should be input into Project - there should be no dates
imported OR any annotation "TBD" either - just blank cells. Project will
then calculate the dates it determines you can have the tasks take place.
Think of it as a reality check on the first rough "wishful thinking" dates
you put into Excel.


--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer/Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Rob,

Thanks for the note. But if you saw my original post the problem is that

the plan is scheduled for 2 years and all tasks are identified but the LOE's
are not. So in the project plan I need to put a "TBD"

Thanks for any additional help.

linked all the appropriate cells and in some future tasks within excel we
have unidentified dates as TBD. How can I indicate the TBD dates in MSP? I
can not link the two because Project does not recognize non numeric entries
in the date fields.