Don't include tasks in Critical Path

[Robin Roe]

Hi

On almost all of our Programmes we include admin tasks such as Project
Management. These tasks need to last the entire duration of the programme
even though actual time may be put against it only once a week. Unfortunately
Project for obvious reasons calculates this to the critical path, which in
real life it isn't. I have tried using a recurring task but it isn't suitable
for our needs. Is there a way that project can ignore certain tasks when
calculating the critical path?

Thanks

 

[Gérard Ducouret]

Hi Robin,
Have you tried :
Tools / Options / Calculation / Calculate multiple critical paths
Hope this helps,

Gérard Ducouret

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

Not that I'm aware of. But you can create a hammock task whose start and
end dates are diven by the start and finish milestones but is otherwise
unlinked to any other tasks. When you show the critical task it will still
show in red but it won't interfere with calculating the "true" critical path
and for presentations you can always change the colour of that one specific
bar back to blue if you wish so it's not confusing.

 

[Robin Roe]

That's perfect, thanks for that Steve.

Robin

 

[boogle]

I have been looking for an answer to the same question, but my need is
different. My project has multiple phases with some tasks, such as tooling,
spans multiple phases and is on the critical path. I want to be able to see
the critical path for the entire project (all three phases) and I want to be
able to drill into the current phase to see what the critical path is for
that phase. I have tried to calculate multiple critical paths, but it gives
me more than I want. Any thoughts?

 

[John]

I have been looking for an answer to the same question, but my need is
different. My project has multiple phases with some tasks, such as tooling,
spans multiple phases and is on the critical path. I want to be able to see
the critical path for the entire project (all three phases) and I want to be
able to drill into the current phase to see what the critical path is for
that phase. I have tried to calculate multiple critical paths, but it gives
me more than I want. Any thoughts?

boogle,
It isn't clear exactly what you mean by, "...drill into the current
phase to see what the critical path is for that phase.". Also, what do
you mean by, "...[multiple paths] gives me more than I want."?

Without understanding exactly what you want, one thought that pops into
my mind (as a derivative of Steve's answer to the original post), is to
assign a spare flag field to those critical tasks that you do want to
see and then include the provision for that flag field in the Bar Style
definition for critical tasks.

John
Project MVP