L
Luiz Cruz
Why there,
I have a puzzle here. I built a 6000+ line IMS in MS Project 2007 Pro. There is a top Milestone Section and a bottom EPCM Section with the detailed schedules. This EPCM Section has some 9 oil & gas schedules that where built directly into it and linked. I do not have any problem with these as the links are internal. Now, I had to add several external engineering, fabrication, drilling, and construction schedules. I did this by importing them into the IMS. Then I linked some of their key activities to my IMS Milestones Sestion. So far the external predecessors and successors where all showing up in light gray since I had activated their boxes in the Tools/Options/View/Show External successor/predecessor. Everything was fine so far and I post it.
Then I removed ALL confidential info from all files and sent the entire set them to the contractors for periodical update. Told them they had to open first the IMS and then their files for update, and also showed them how to rebuild the cost by capturing the baseline fields in an Excel workbook. Any additions and deletions (without external links) would be immediately reflected in the IMS in this way, and they would not see any "cannot find file" warnings. Told them they could NOT delete any external links whatsoever in any circunstance. In this way I would be able to capture their changes.
When I received the fields back, one of the contractors had some signed macros built-in. His IMS version schedules did not show the external links as they should.
My security was high and was accepting signed macros. These macros were defective however, and I could only detect it when opening his IMS version. Then a "there was a problem sending the command" error message started to appear, I could not see the external links in my IMS anymore - even in the original set and could not open any file from Windows Explorer as before.
We re-imaged the Windows 7, reinstalled MS Office, MS Project Pro 2007, and SP3 - in this order. Now, DDE functionality was "somehow" rebuilt and I can open files from Win Explorer and can see external inks in the contractor files, BUT I still cannot SEE the external links (predecessor/succesors in light gray) in my IMS.
I was going to ask for a fully reformatted machine, but before that, does anybody has suggestions?
I have a puzzle here. I built a 6000+ line IMS in MS Project 2007 Pro. There is a top Milestone Section and a bottom EPCM Section with the detailed schedules. This EPCM Section has some 9 oil & gas schedules that where built directly into it and linked. I do not have any problem with these as the links are internal. Now, I had to add several external engineering, fabrication, drilling, and construction schedules. I did this by importing them into the IMS. Then I linked some of their key activities to my IMS Milestones Sestion. So far the external predecessors and successors where all showing up in light gray since I had activated their boxes in the Tools/Options/View/Show External successor/predecessor. Everything was fine so far and I post it.
Then I removed ALL confidential info from all files and sent the entire set them to the contractors for periodical update. Told them they had to open first the IMS and then their files for update, and also showed them how to rebuild the cost by capturing the baseline fields in an Excel workbook. Any additions and deletions (without external links) would be immediately reflected in the IMS in this way, and they would not see any "cannot find file" warnings. Told them they could NOT delete any external links whatsoever in any circunstance. In this way I would be able to capture their changes.
When I received the fields back, one of the contractors had some signed macros built-in. His IMS version schedules did not show the external links as they should.
My security was high and was accepting signed macros. These macros were defective however, and I could only detect it when opening his IMS version. Then a "there was a problem sending the command" error message started to appear, I could not see the external links in my IMS anymore - even in the original set and could not open any file from Windows Explorer as before.
We re-imaged the Windows 7, reinstalled MS Office, MS Project Pro 2007, and SP3 - in this order. Now, DDE functionality was "somehow" rebuilt and I can open files from Win Explorer and can see external inks in the contractor files, BUT I still cannot SEE the external links (predecessor/succesors in light gray) in my IMS.
I was going to ask for a fully reformatted machine, but before that, does anybody has suggestions?