Critical Path for a given milestone

[Judy]

The project I am working on has contractual deliverables (due on specific
dates) within the project. Is there anyway I can find the critcal path for a
given milestone?

If so, is there anyway I can simply display what that path is - without
showing the details of the rest of the project.

 

[davegb]

The project I am working on has contractual deliverables (due on specific
dates) within the project. Is there anyway I can find the critcal path for a
given milestone?

If so, is there anyway I can simply display what that path is - without
showing the details of the rest of the project.

Tasks/Milestones do not have a CP. CP is an attribute of the project,
not individual tasks or milestones. If the milestone is on the CP, you
could create a filter that would hide all non-critical tasks and hide
all tasks after the date the Milestone is scheduled to occur.

If the Milestone is not on the CP, it isn't. That's it. But if you
want to find the tasks that drive the start date of the Milestone,
that's a different matter. If you search this group for "Trace macro"
you'll find a macro that will trace the predecessors and/or successors
to a selected task.

Hope this helps in your world.

 

[Jim Aksel]

Critical Path belongs to the Project, not to a specific milestone. So, there
really isn't such thing as a critical path to a milestone. If you create a
separate file with all the predecessors to that milestone (and only those
predecessors), then you could show that critical path.

In the meantime, there are two options that come to mind for use in the
existing file. The hard one first.
One of the MVPs, Jack Dahlgren, created a Macro that will identify a trace
of all the predecessors (or successors) to a specific task. I believe it
sets the Flag5 field to "yes" for the items of interest.

Here is a link to that macro:
http://masamiki.com/docs/trace-task-dependencies.html
That will give you the opportunity to show only the predecessors to that
task, or even only those predecessors that are on the project critical path.
This could also be filtered for Critical Path, and displayed as a network
diagram.

Another way -- There is a companion software product called "PERT Chart
Expert" put out by Critical Tools. http://www.criticaltools.com It installs
itself and a toolbar to MS Project. I think they have a free trial. More
info on the link below my name -- select companion products.

If you highlight the milestone, jump to PERT Chart Expert, you are two mouse
clicks from a graphical representation (network diagram). We print it as a
PDF and send it off to our customer.
--
If this post was helpful, please consider rating it.

Jim
It''s software; it''s not allowed to win.

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for FAQs and more information
about Microsoft Project

 

[Judy]

Thanks Dave and Jim!
--
Judy

Tasks/Milestones do not have a CP. CP is an attribute of the project,
not individual tasks or milestones. If the milestone is on the CP, you
could create a filter that would hide all non-critical tasks and hide
all tasks after the date the Milestone is scheduled to occur.

If the Milestone is not on the CP, it isn't. That's it. But if you
want to find the tasks that drive the start date of the Milestone,
that's a different matter. If you search this group for "Trace macro"
you'll find a macro that will trace the predecessors and/or successors
to a selected task.

Hope this helps in your world.

 

[Aditya]

Jim,
How do I create a seperate file for all the predecessors of a given
milestone?
I need to calculate the Cp for a given milestone all the way upto the start
milestone of a given project. Can you please let me know how to put all the
tasks between these two milestones in a different file and then call the
Critical PAth of that file and hence the CP between these two milestones?

Adi

 

[salgud]

Jim,
How do I create a seperate file for all the predecessors of a given
milestone?
I need to calculate the Cp for a given milestone all the way upto the start
milestone of a given project. Can you please let me know how to put all the
tasks between these two milestones in a different file and then call the
Critical PAth of that file and hence the CP between these two milestones?

Adi

It seems you're not understanding what CP is. It is the path through the
project which determines the duration of the project, which will be the
longest path. An indivdual milestone, unless it is on that CP, doesn't have
a CP. If you remove it and all it's predecessors from the project to create
a separate project, you no longer have the same project and you've created
a false CP since the dependencies between those tasks you've pulled out and
the ones you didn't were part of what determined the CP for the project.

IOW, if the milestone was not originally on the CP, it has no CP because
there is some Total Slack in that path. That TS will dissappear when you
remove those tasks from the Project to create the separate project ending
with your milestone. So now you have a fake project with a CP leading to
your milestone, but your milestone will be occurring earlier than it was in
the original plan because of the TS that was lost when you removed this
part of the project from the real project. Does that make sense?

As Jim has pointed out, you can show all the tasks leading up to your
milestone, but they will not be the CP.

Hope this helps in your world.

 

[Aditya]

Salgud,

Firstly thanks a million for your prompt reply. I understand what a critical
path means. It wil be the longest path with task dependencies in a given
project. I should have mentione dit earlier. I do not want to calculate the
"Critical Path" between the milestone that I have and the start milestone.
What I want is the longest chain between the given milestone and the start
milestone.

My aim is to find out something called a milestone buffer which will protect
the milestone. For that I need to calculate the duration of the longest chain
between the given milestone and the start milestone. I need the longest chain
for that. The macro that Jim referred to does not solve my purpose. I have
already written an algorithm to track all the predecessors and sucessors of
the given task. But what I need is the LONGEST chain between the start and
the given milestone. I hope you get what I mean. In the typical sense, this
is NOT the Critical Path but only the longest path between the milestones.

Also I have another issue. We know that accessing the Unique ID of a task is
possible by using the Task ID of the given Task. But then is the reverse
possible?
That is can we get the ID of a given task by using only the Unique ID?

Thanks a million in advance.

Aditya

 

[salgud]

Salgud,

Firstly thanks a million for your prompt reply. I understand what a critical
path means. It wil be the longest path with task dependencies in a given
project. I should have mentione dit earlier. I do not want to calculate the
"Critical Path" between the milestone that I have and the start milestone.
What I want is the longest chain between the given milestone and the start
milestone.

My aim is to find out something called a milestone buffer which will protect
the milestone. For that I need to calculate the duration of the longest chain
between the given milestone and the start milestone. I need the longest chain
for that. The macro that Jim referred to does not solve my purpose. I have
already written an algorithm to track all the predecessors and sucessors of
the given task. But what I need is the LONGEST chain between the start and
the given milestone. I hope you get what I mean. In the typical sense, this
is NOT the Critical Path but only the longest path between the milestones.

Also I have another issue. We know that accessing the Unique ID of a task is
possible by using the Task ID of the given Task. But then is the reverse
possible?
That is can we get the ID of a given task by using only the Unique ID?

Thanks a million in advance.

Aditya

Yes, it does. The answer to your question depends on whether or not your
milestone has a constraint on it, specifically whether or not is has a
FNET, SNET, MSO or MFO constraint.
If it does have one of these constraints, you must first remove that
constraint temporarily to get your answer. Then re-apply it when you're
done.

Once you've removed the constraint, if there is one, the look at all the
immediate predecessors to your milestone. The one or ones that have 0 Free
Slack will be on the driving path. Backtracking that path may involve some
effort, but you can use Free Slack to do it.

Someone else will have to help you with your second question.

Hope this helps in your world.

 

[Dean C]

I have a macro that provides the critical path to any task but you can do the
same thing quickly without a macro. It works by setting the deadline for the
specific task that is two years in the past then filtering for Total Slack
less than or equal to the total slack for the task in question. It then sets
flag1 to yes for those tasks and resets the deadline to whatever it was
before running the macro.

You can then group on flag1 to provide a summary task that will have a
duration equal to the length of the critical path to your milestone.

 

[Dean C]

MyUniqueID = {Whatever source you have for the uniqueID}
myID = ActiveProject.Tasks.UniqueID(MyUniqueID).ID

 

[salgud]

I have a macro that provides the critical path to any task but you can do the
same thing quickly without a macro. It works by setting the deadline for the
specific task that is two years in the past then filtering for Total Slack
less than or equal to the total slack for the task in question. It then sets
flag1 to yes for those tasks and resets the deadline to whatever it was
before running the macro.

You can then group on flag1 to provide a summary task that will have a
duration equal to the length of the critical path to your milestone.

This will show the "Critical Path" to any task only if the task is on the
CP. If not, it will show the driving path. Rarely are all tasks in a
Project on the CP, so they don't have a CP. If you don't understand this,
you need to review your CPM Theory.