How to put a marker in a Grantt chart

[Jurrie]

Hi

I want to put some kind of marker in a Grantt chart. The marker Indicates
the earliest date i can start a certain task. I noticed that when you put in
a deadline for a task Porject puts an arrow at that dat on the taskbar. I
want to put just a marker like that stating the earliest dat a task could
start, preferably based on a custom field. Is this possible.

Thanks,

Jurrie

 

[Jim Aksel]

You already have that date, it is determined by the schedule logic. If you
are scheduling from the start date, the date project provides you is the
earliest day the task can start.

If you wish to also place a marker on that date, select Format/Bar Styles...
from the menu. Look for the blue or red bar indicating the task type. In
the bottom of that pane change the start symbol to something you like. The
default is blank.
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If this post was helpful, please consider rating it.

Jim Aksel, MVP

Check out my blog for more information:
http://www.msprojectblog.com

 

[Jurrie]

Hi Jim

Thanks for your answer but that's not exactly what I mean. I have a project
that consists of many subprojects, for which I use tasks. If task A ends I
want to see in my chart whether the team that was working on task A can
continue its work on task B, or C or D. In that way I want to avoid any
"donwtime"of a team. So yes I'm scheduling from a start date but to prevent
as many "downtime" for a team as possible (and thus for good spread of
resources) I plan the tasks after each other and thus they don't all have the
same start date. But when a team comes free from a certain task I want to
move them to the next available task. And the availibility of a tasks depends
on it's earliest start date, which I would like to see marked in the Grantt
chart.

I hope this makes any sense.

Jurrie

 

[Jim Aksel]

How are you determining the start dates of tasks B, C & D? Are you keying
the dates?

Normally, tasks are related -- A must complete before B can start. B must
complete before "C" can start.

These relationships are created by linking the tasks with a finish to start
relationship (tasks are linked by selecting the two tasks and then click on
the link icon -- looks like a chain link). The dates are not keyed, they are
determinded by the software. When "A" is done, this is the earliest that "B"
can start. So, the program should take care of that for you.

Project will not dynamically jump resources from one task to another. If
you want to make sure resources are engaged properly, you can assign them to
the appropriate tasks and then use resource leveling (Tools/Level
Resrouces...) to make sure no one is overloaded.

Using the Resource Usage View (View/Resource Usage) may help, it willl show
the work load of each resource and their task assignments. You can manually
adjust assignments there to keep people fully employed.

Even the best schedule is going to have times when a resource is not fully
engaged. Fred may have to wait for Wilma to finish something before he can
start his next task.

Generally, schedule logic should drive when the tasks are accomplished, not
resource availability. If resources finish one task early, then mark the
task 100% Complete, give it an *actual finish* date from the Tracking Toolbar
(use the update task icon). If it finishes early, the successor tasks will
move left if there is proper logic and who ever is assigned to that task can
start.

You may also want to try this. Turn on the Drawing Toolbar
(View/Toolbars/Drawing). You can select the oval (or rectangle) shape and
draw that on the schedule. If you right click on the shape, select
properties, you can marry the shape to a task or a date. You can divine any
date you would like and tie the symbol to that date. You can also change the
color, fill and line style. I suppose you could use programming to assign the
date from a custom date column, but that will get tricky.

Keep in mind, if you are scheduling from the start date, project will always
provide you the earliest possible start date for a task that is determined by
the schedule logic. Schedule logic may also include a date that you key
which will create a "Start No Earlier Than" or "Finish No Earlier Than"
constraint depending on what column you keyed the date to. Keying dates is
normally a bad thing.

--
If this post was helpful, please consider rating it.

Jim Aksel, MVP

Check out my blog for more information:
http://www.msprojectblog.com

 

[Jurrie]

Thank you Jim for your time and effort. I tried your drawing trick but the
problem was that whenever a task moved I had t o move al the drawed items
also. So that wasn't handy. Finally I stumbled upon an article on Office
Online which explanes how to create a custom Gantt bar
(http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project/HP453038731033.aspx). It seems you
can create a custom bar and link this to a custom field. So what i did, was
to copy the Deadline-bar and modified it into an Early start-bar using the
custom field StartDate1. And this workes fine.

Jurrie