HELP! 257 Projects - How Do I Manage?

[Daisy Holt]

Hi! I have to set up 257 Project files that will almost be duplicate but
can vary slightly, especially by start and finish dates. I've never done
anything with Project except set up a basic project. Nothing fancy. I have
read that I can use SQL Server/MS Access as a backend to the files, but what
are the implications of inserting new tasks? Has anyone done something like
this before or know a good source of documentation?? Any help would be
appreciated, thanks in advance!

 

[Steve House]

One of the easiest ways to set up so many similar files is to create a
generic project and save it as a template. Any data you include with the
template will carry over into new files you create using it. Remember you
do NOT set both start and finish dates either for the project nor for its
embedded tasks unless there is a very good reason to set constraints on the
task. Generally you set the Project start date only and let MSP calculate
the dates of the tasks themselves and the project finish date. Doing those
calculations is one of the primary reasons MSP exists.

 

[Daisy Holt]

Ok, now I have multiple projects which I have included as subprojects in my
main project. What is the easiest way to mass update a start/finish date on
a task? Do I need to save them all to the database? Is there a VBA way to
do this? I had some great help with a save macro, but I'm not sure how to
save to ODBC with it? This creates 257 .mpp files, but I would like to put
them in an SQL database (I think I can query by task name and update the
data???)



Sub CopySiteProjects()

Dim i As Integer
For i = 1 To 257
'FileSaveAs "D:\Projects\Test\Site" & i & ".mpp", pjMPP

Next

End Sub

 

[Steve House]

The easiest way to mass update the start/finish dates on a block of tasks is
not to do it. Project is supposed to be calculating those dates for you
based on the project start date and the links between the task - it is not
information that you should be inputting or updating. So when you set the
project start date for each project, the task dates within the project
automatically will change IF those tasks don't have constraints on them.
Even in the rare case where you do set a start or finish date on a task, you
can never set both. Set the start and duration and Project calculates the
finish or set the finish and duration and Project calculates the start but
you can never directly set both the start and the finish dates.

 

[Daisy Holt]

I understand the idea of being able to link tasks and have those changes
propogated, but my problem is (maybe lack of MS project knowledge) that
there are 257 simultaneous projects being designed - this design may change
tons ot times between actual project start date and management's
project/process building. I would rather not have to alter them
indivudially, but run some type of process to add a task, change a start
date or task duration, or resource. Does this help?

 

[Steve House]

Maybe I'm just having one of my frequent "dense days" but I confess to being
very confused as to what you're doing. 257 projects being "in design" all
at once seems ... unusual. When I think of a project, I think of "We need
to design a new mid-priced SUV for the 2005 model year" and we're going to
go through all of the activities and processes necessary to create such a
critter. Now this may be similar to the activities we did for the 2004
model year last go around, but we can't just cookie-cutter stamp out the
design projects for all of our vehicles for all of our years from that -
they have sufficiently unique requirements and human skill requirements that
I'm going to have to do the actual plan one at a time. I can come up with a
generic plan to design, test, and bring to manufacture a new vehicle that
can then be used as the starting point for the specific projects that we may
do in the future - that's what I meant by creating a template - but when it
comes to refining the template with what tasks are specifically required,
how long they're estimated to take, who will be responsible for them, and
what date we'll be starting, those usually have to be done one at a time
since each project is a unique endeavor.

It seems like management may be putting the cart before the horse, setting
the start dates of these projects before they've done the process building.
Until you define the process, you really don't even HAVE a project that
would have a start date. The start date is the date the first activity in
the project begins. Put another way, until you have a list of activities,
there's no first task to start.

 

[Daisy Holt]

Well, its not that simple...here's a little background, maybe you can help
me out. We are doing a contract job at 257 seperate sites. Each site will
be its own project. They all require certain aspects, but some may have
special needs. We aren't sure of all the aspects but in order to coordinate
vendors, we need some type of set schedule. At this time, this schedule may
change. But we need to get something going now - that may change is what I
need to prepare for because I do not want to have to go through 257 projects
and update each. Does this make any sense or do you need more details? I
think I can update what I need via SQL, but I'm not sure how I can save/copy
all of the projects into the database like I did with plain .mpp files.

 

[Steve House]

It's starting to make sense, but I don't know how you can do mass updates to
all those tasks because while we may know that we need to add framis fitting
to our list of tasks, where in the schedule it goes is going to be different
for the different projects and it might not even need to go into all of
them. I think the bottom line is you're going to have to do them one at a
time because you simply cannot automate human decision making. I wonder of
a different approach altogether might be in order. IMHO, Project's function
is to be a modeling and decision making tool. Instead of trying to do all
these projects yourself - after all, I don't see how any one person would be
capable of actually hand-on managing all of those projects directly - maybe
it would be time to think about delegating the responsiblity of the nitty
gritty details of the individual project plans to the person who has the
direct operational responsibility and authority for completing each
individual project, the guy who actually says to the resource who does the
work "Jim, show up Tuesday at 8 with your framis fitting tools." Let the
subject matter experts determine what needs to be done when by whom and feed
that back into the master plan through Project Server.

(I'm writing at the end of a 16 hour day and I'm ready to delegate just
about everything to someone else right now LOL)

 

[Daisy Holt]

Thanks for your help...I would normally TOTALLY agree with you...but
unfortunately, I am the delegateee - so well, I'm down to doing it by hand.
Thanks for the help!

 

[Tomm \(portrett.no\)]

Guess I mentioned it earlier but a good idea is to keep all projects in a
single file if for noe special reason they need to be separate. You put in
the project number in a custom text field on all rows for each project and
that will allow you to filter easily and also get group totals per project.

Tomm