Merging Text and Task fields

[Product Mgr.]

I have created a project that was published using MS Project Server that
contains 132 similar products and 3,400 tasks. Each product under
development has 26 identical tasks associated with it. The problem is when I
publish the tasks, the resources cannot identify which product their tasks
are associated with. I have added a Text field to identify the product name
for each task, but this information is not published with the tasks. Is
there any way to merge the Text field and the Task field, to include the
product name in the task description?

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Product Mgr. --

Just a couple of ideas that might help you:

1. In your Microsoft Project plan, you should use summary tasks to identify
the product with which the tasks are associated
2. In the PWA timesheet, all team members should select the "Show summary
tasks" option on the View Options tab

If you enable both ideas, your team members will see the summary tasks in
their PWA timesheets and will be able to identify the product with which
their tasks are associated. Hope this helps.

 

[Product Mgr.]

Thank you! I will try that.

Product Mgr. --

Just a couple of ideas that might help you:

1. In your Microsoft Project plan, you should use summary tasks to identify
the product with which the tasks are associated
2. In the PWA timesheet, all team members should select the "Show summary
tasks" option on the View Options tab

If you enable both ideas, your team members will see the summary tasks in
their PWA timesheets and will be able to identify the product with which
their tasks are associated. Hope this helps.

 

[TCS]

Dale,
Is there any way to utilize a Group by capability vs. the summary tasks?
For instance if one were using a Ent Outline or Ent Text field to identify
deliverables. One might want to Group by project (which the timesheet does

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

TCS --

Yes, you could do this, I believe. You would need to create the custom
enterprise field in the Enterprise Global file. Your PM's would need to
include this field as a Published field using Tools - Customize - Published
Fields in every project they manage, and then they would need to republish
the assignments in every project using Collaborate - Publish - Republish
Assignments. You would also need to modify the Timesheet view in PWA to
include this custom field. Lastly, you would need to teach your team
members to modify the default Timesheet grouping to include this field as
the second level of grouping.

Given how much work it would be and how much time it would take to peform
all of the steps above, why wouldn't you simply ask your team members to
make sure that they are displaying summary tasks in the Timesheet in PWA?
It seems that would be a much simpler solution. Hope this helps.

 

[TCS]

We're starting a small PMO, I'm the administrator, so I will be setting up
the codes and having someone run a std update process weekly (I'm an old
Primavera hand), so the administrative steps described don't worry me much.

The summary task concept is sometimes messy when you are analyzing schedules
via Grouping/Filtering based upon multifaceted elements (ie: phase,
deliverable pkg or other slicing/dicing attributes). Summary tasks embed
tasks in a hierarchy that is not always helpful.

What i couldn't find, and need guidance on is that unlike when building
other views, there is no Group or Filter section for the timesheet view. Yet
the timesheet somehow knows to group on Projects. Any help on specifically
finding/using a Group functionality on the timesheet??

Thanks,
tim