Custom Critical Path

[BBoler]

I have three different critical paths, which I want to calculate all in one
project. The two options MSP2000 offers to calculate the critical path are
not what I'm looking for becuase MSP will either calcualte one path for the
entire project or many paths. I'm thinking this is something that needs to
be done in VBA. Does anyone have any advice???

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

What exactly do you mean by a critical path?

 

[BBoler]

Currently, I manually do this critical path process but our schedule is about
to expand and manually may take a long time so I would like to create an
automatic process. I start with a specific milestone that must finish on a
specific day and mark it on the CP. I look at each of its predeccessors, the
task which is most critical or the task that is driving the milestone is also
now on the CP. Then, I look at this task's predeccessors and do the
same...until I reach a task that either does not have any predeccessors or
they are all complete...then I'm done. The key is that I want to do this for
three specific milestones.

 

[John]

I have three different critical paths, which I want to calculate all in one
project. The two options MSP2000 offers to calculate the critical path are
not what I'm looking for becuase MSP will either calcualte one path for the
entire project or many paths. I'm thinking this is something that needs to
be done in VBA. Does anyone have any advice???

BBoler,
I guess the first thing is, what are you defining as a critical path?
You don't seem to like the way Project defines it, so there must be
another method you have in mind.

From my viewpoint, any project has multiple critical paths. A primary
path (probably viewed by some as "the" critical path), a secondary path,
a tertiary path, etc. To view these paths, I first sort by Total Slack
and then by Start Date. Try this method, maybe it will give you what you
want.

To answer you question, it depending on your definition of critical
path. If your definition is unique then yes, it probably will require
some VBA to set up a custom critical path view.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

 

[JackD]

Take a look at the trace macro at my website.
http://masamiki.com/project/macros.htm
It does what you want - well, except for the driving task part, but you
could add that in with a little work
An alternative is to set a must finish on constraint on the milestone which
is early enough that negative slack is created. You can then see the
critical path to that milestone very easily.

 

[John]

Currently, I manually do this critical path process but our schedule is about
to expand and manually may take a long time so I would like to create an
automatic process. I start with a specific milestone that must finish on a
specific day and mark it on the CP. I look at each of its predeccessors, the
task which is most critical or the task that is driving the milestone is also
now on the CP. Then, I look at this task's predeccessors and do the
same...until I reach a task that either does not have any predeccessors or
they are all complete...then I'm done. The key is that I want to do this for
three specific milestones.

BBoler,
Thanks for clarifying what you are after. Here is how I have handled a
similar scenario. I set a Finish-no-later-than constraint on the first
milestone and then let Project calculate a normal critical path (the
path will be calculated to that milestone). Just make sure there are no
other constraints that will "taint" the path. Save or print that file to
capture that path. Then remove the constraint on the first milestone and
apply it to the second milestone. Save or print. Repeat with the third
milestone.

If you want you could probably use a flag field to identify tasks on
each path and then apply 3 filters to show each path, or color code the
Gantt bars to track with the flags.

VBA could probably be used to automate the process but unless you really
like to do VBA, it probably isn't necessary.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

 

[Rod Gill]

Hi,

If you can add enough links so that your three milestones are the only tasks
with no successors, then select Tools, Options and under the calculation tab
select Calculate multiple critical paths.

Alternatively, set Deadline dates for each milestone and they will be set to
critical (and their predecessors) if they have no slack time. Deadlines
affect critical path calculations.