Having my cake and eating it, too

[Andrew K]

Is there a way to show only incomplete tasks (including summary tasks) but
also show all the completed summary tasks in order to preserve the WBS?

 

[John]

Is there a way to show only incomplete tasks (including summary tasks) but
also show all the completed summary tasks in order to preserve the WBS?

Andrew,
Sure. Now is that devil's food or angel food?

What you're asking for is analogous to a double negative. In other words
you basically want to show the whole file. The easiest thing to do is to
expand those summary lines with incomplete tasks and collapse summary
lines that are complete. The next level of refinement would be use a
filter that only shows tasks with % Complete < 100% OR summary lines
with % Complete = 100%.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Andrew K --

You can create the desired filter as follows:

% Complete Is Less Than 100%
OR
Summary Equals Yes
AND % Complete Equals 100%

On the OR line listed above, do not select any values other than the OR
value in the And/Or column. Hope this helps.

 

[Andrew K]

John -- works beautifully
Dale -- thanks for the reminder on nesting conditions
Thanks.

 

[John]

John -- works beautifully
Dale -- thanks for the reminder on nesting conditions
Thanks.

Andrew,
You're welcome. Dale and I had the same answer, he just detailed the
filter for you.

John

 

[Michael Morgan]

Dale and John,

Thanks for providing this info, I have also been able to use it.

I had a question about the +/- sign in front of the Summary tasks. I noticed
that after the filter is done, the collasped summary tasks have a minus (-)
sign in front of them when they should have a plus (+) sign. Is there an easy
way to fix this?

 

[JulieS]

Hi Michael,

I can't see your interchange with Dale and John as you didn't quote
it, so I'm not sure what specifically you are referring to.

However, to answer your question -- when you apply a filter if the
summary task and one of the subtasks are returned when the filter is
run -- the [-] shows because the summary task is expanded to show
the subtask. You can click the [-] to turn it into a [+] and hide
the subtask. The [-] and [+] serve no other purpose other than to
show and hide the subtasks.

To answer more specifically, please let us know more about what you
are doing -- what filter, what version of project etc.

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie
Project MVP

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

 

[michael]

Julie,
Let me try to respond here. I used the filter below that Dale created. When
you run this the summary tasks have a minus (-) sign even though they are
collasped. I realize there may or may not be good reasons for this, but when
I have novice users looking at the results, it is a little bit confusing for
them. I explain to them that they can click on it, and I know it is a small
point. I was hoping there might be something quick that I could do to quickly
switch them from minus to plus.

Michael

 

[JulieS]

Hi Michael,

Sorry I don't know of any way to fix that issue. If there is a good
reason for the disappearing [+], I don't know if it

Julie

 

[John]

Julie,
Let me try to respond here. I used the filter below that Dale created. When
you run this the summary tasks have a minus (-) sign even though they are
collasped. I realize there may or may not be good reasons for this, but when
I have novice users looking at the results, it is a little bit confusing for
them. I explain to them that they can click on it, and I know it is a small
point. I was hoping there might be something quick that I could do to quickly
switch them from minus to plus.

Michael

Michael,
Sorry to bump in.

Just a point of reference that might explain why you see what you see.
When the filter is applied the summary lines are NOT collapsed, they are
filtered. There is a difference. The filter isolates those task lines
that meet the filter criteria without altering those lines. If a summary
line is expanded (i.e. has a "-" sign in front of it), when the filter
is applied that sign will still be present. There is no way to change
that unless VBA code is used to detect the condition and alter the
expand/collapse indicator. But, that seems like a whole lot of overkill.

Using Project properly does require a considerable amount of training.
If it's that important, I suggest you include this little item in the
training lessons.

By the way, how your file cleanup coming along?

John
Project MVP

 

[Michael]

Julie and John,
I thought that might be the case, but I just wanted to check to see if there
was an easy way to fix it. You are right, I am going to make it a bigger
point in the training.
Thanks again for the good info.
Michael