MS Project MPP File Large

[Robert]

I have a 11,500 line mpp file that is 51MB. When I baseline the entire
project it balloons to 70MB. How can I get the file down to a more manageable
size? Any suggestions?

 

[Rob Schneider]

11,500 lines is awfully big. I presume you have a lot of
automation/programing in keeping it up to date, printing, etc.

Can you break it into more managable pieces and then consolidate with
master and sub master files. This all covered in Help what they are about.

I'm not sure what the number of lines per file should be (1000?), but
perhaps break it down by the organisation of your project(s). By PM
maybe. That way multiple people can work on their own files without
getting in other people's way?

I have two criteria I use to break down a project into multiple files
: by leader of project (then give them the files to do themselves *for* me)
: by "maximum time to wait for it to load and save". Anthing more than
a few moments and I get impatient.

Large files also are hard to move around, backup, version control, and
if they get corrupted you lose a lot more in one swoop.

--rms

 

[Robert]

We do have a fairly intensive process for getting status on tasks by various
groups on a bi-weekly basis. As the PMO, we are responsible for maintaining
the master schedule and due to the various levels of MS Project expertise, we
have one administrator keeping the schedule up to date. We don't have the
option at this time to subdivide the project schedule.

Do you know of any other options, short of splitting it into subprojects,
that would help with the size?

 

[John]

We do have a fairly intensive process for getting status on tasks by various
groups on a bi-weekly basis. As the PMO, we are responsible for maintaining
the master schedule and due to the various levels of MS Project expertise, we
have one administrator keeping the schedule up to date. We don't have the
option at this time to subdivide the project schedule.

Do you know of any other options, short of splitting it into subprojects,
that would help with the size?

Robert,
It sounds like you have some serious file bloat. Go to our MVP website
at, http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm, and take a look at FAQ 43 -
handling Project file corruption and/or bloat.

Project files can balloon in size if not carefully maintained and saved.
Constantly editing and using the "Save" button will just keep adding
bulk to the file. A much better approach is to always use "Save As" back
to the same file name.

Depending on how much history you want/need to drag along, you might
want to consider doing a periodic (e.g. monthly, quarterly) save to an
archive and then collapsing the remaining file. When I say collapse I
don't mean simply collapsing the outline, I mean re-configuring the
completed tasks into equivalent task data. For example, take a group of
tasks under one or more summary lines and replace them with a single
task that is equivalent in work, time, cost and whatever other data is
important in your situation. I used this approach years ago, (with the
help of a macro), to periodically reduce the size of our files, and
those files were under formal change and earned value control. We had
the historical backup if needed and it make working with large files a
whole lot easier.

Hope this helps.

John
Project MVP