MS Project 2003 Master Schedule

[UnitMan]

MWe have used MS Project for 6 months and use a Master Project Schedule that
is composed of over 350 unrelated projects.
When we add a new project to the Master, all finish dates for the
"subprojects" change to pick up the most distant date for any of the projects
in the Master. They can only be changed back to their actual scheduled finish
date by unfolding (expanding) each project's details. Since new projects are
added daily, this is a very cumbersome process that has become more time
consuming as the size of the Master Schedule has grown
Any ideas why this happens. It seems like it must be a bug in MS, but we
have changed from MS 2000 to MS 2003 with same results.

 

[JulieS]

Hi UnitMan,

I have tried to replicate your problem with the subprojects picking up the
finish dates and haven't been able to, so there must be something going on
there that I can't see.

However, I may have a suggestion for making the expansion of each Subproject
easier. Click on the column heading "Task Name" which selects all tasks. In
the Formatting toolbar, click the Show button and select "All Subtasks".
That should expand out each subproject to all its detail.

Hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie

 

[UnitMan]

Thank you Julie,
The suggestion on expanding the tasks was very helpful and will save a lot
of time. Any similar tricks for re-compressing them?
UnitMan

 

[JulieS]

Hi UnitMan,

You're welcome and thanks for the feedback.

To "re-compress" the subprojects back to their summary level, choose Outline
Level 1 from the Show drop-down list after selecting all the tasks again.

Hope this helps and please let us know if you have any other questions.

Julie

 

[UnitMan]

Thank you again, Julie.
These two suggestions will be huge timesavers.
Now if only we can find out why it is all necessary...

 

[JulieS]

Hi UnitMan,

You're welcome again and thanks for the feedback, again.
Glad to know you'll have some more free time now and can use it trying to
solve the mystery of the changing finish dates.
Actually, one other thing to check. Project 2003 did have some bugs with
master project files. Have you installed Service Pack 1? I don't recall the
specific problem with dates changing, but if you haven't installed it, you'll
want to.

Good luck and let us know if we can help again.
Julie

 

[Marila]

Hi
I have a master project with 8 sub projects, I can't understand why my
assigning date change and why the calnder that I saved removed...
please help me
thanks