Master Project Advice

[John]

I need some assistance in understanding how best to use Master Projects in a
Project Server 2003 environment. My goal is not to publish the Master
Project but to have the sub-plans reflect the overall work in progress. I
have five projects that are part of a program. I have created cross project
links between the plans to reflect critical touch points. This will reflect
changes to schedule if one of the linked plans slips; however, I have an
executive that wants to see the full view of the critical path across the
five projects in one view.

I have created a Master Project by inserting the Enterprise projects and I
have selected the Unlink and Read Only options during the Insert process. I
have then saved the Master Project as an .mpp off line. What I am seeing is
the links that I created originally are duplicated; one references the
sub-plan task (my original link) and a second for the Master Project I
created. I’m not sure I want this duplicate linkage but can live with it if
no one sees an issue with it.

I was thinking about saving this Master to server but not publish it. This
would give my executive his view into the overall critical path while
allowing the sub-plans to remain as sub plans. His overall desire is to
create one project for the entire program. This would create a project of
well over 3,000 tasks and a resource pool of over 75. I am really concerned
about Project’s ability to support such a large plan. To reduce overall size
of a combined project, I would have to cut out detail in the sub plans which
could result in a loss in our ability to manage the project. Any thoughts on
a strategy on this are appreciated.

 

[eswb10]

John, I think your strategy is sound. I don't think there would be an
issue with the size of the plan. The number of tasks is probably not
as important as the number of resources, since Project Server will look
at every project each resource in your schedule is assigned to. You
might have to be patient with loading and saving.

If there are any issues with your approach, I don't see them, but
hopefully Dale or Gary will also provide an opinion.

Mark

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

John --

You can feel free to save the master projects in the Project Server
database, assuming your Project Server administrator has enabled the
permissions to do so. I would recommend that your PS administrator NOT
enable the permission to save master projects in the Project Server
database, as we do not recommend that you ever publish a master project. If
you need to publish the subprojects, you will need to open and publish each
of them individually. As an alternative, to perform a mass publishing of
the subprojects, you can download the View Populator tool at:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...d5-3cdb-4a57-a1fd-748bf968d48b&DisplayLang=en

Use this tool to publish one or more projects without having to open each
project individually. Let us know if I have addressed your concerns.

 

[John]

Dale,
I believe you have. I would like to keep the sub-plans in place and have
the team make updates to them. I will then create a Master Project and
select the “Link to project†and “Read only to view†check boxes. This will
force the sub-plans to update the Master and not vice versa.

Dale, originally, a few months back, I followed your instructions in
creating cross project links by inserting projects into a Master, making the
links, and then saving the sub-plans but not saving the Master. If I now
create and save the Master, should I delete the previously created sub-links
and redo these in the new Master or is it save just to create the Master with
the linkages I previously made? I’m not sure on that point.

I have used the tool you mention but in a different capacity, so that is
good advice.

Thanks again!

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

John --

Create the master using the cross-project dependencies already created in
the respective subprojects. Hope this helps.

 

[John]

Yes it does and thanks!

John --

Create the master using the cross-project dependencies already created in
the respective subprojects. Hope this helps.