E
eccentric
Hi,
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but is the Microsoft Project
Outlook add-in completely useless? I'm relatively new to Microsoft
Project so chances are I just don't know what I'm doing.
One thing that is very important to me is utilising the 'Predecessors'
field. Certain tasks should not begin until others are complete. I have
a project set up where most tasks have a predecessor. This project is
published to Project Server, and my team use the Outlook add-in to
import the tasks that are assigned to them. The problem is that the
predecessor information seems to be completely lost. When viewing tasks
in Outlook there is no 'predecessor' field (I've tried adding this
manually without any luck).
I suppose this wouldn't be such a problem if the add-in didn't import
every single task assigned to a resource; what it -should- do is only
import the tasks that they are able to start, e.g. if 'Task 2' can't
begin until 'Task 1' is complete, the add-in shouldn't even import 'Task
2' until 'Task 1' is actually complete. But instead each member of my
team gets a horde of tasks added to their Outlook task list without
knowing what's allowed to start when.
The other thing that irritates me is if there is a change to the
project plan, i.e. a certain task no longer needs to be completed, there
is no way for me as the project manager to remove the task from a
resource's Outlook task list. Even if I remove that task from the
project plan, when that resource clicks "Import New Assignments" in
Outlook, it will only import new assignments - not remove ones that are
no longer applicable. Another example is if a task is reassigned from
one resource to another - Outlook won't pick up on this. So that means I
have a resource with a task in their Outlook task list and they go ahead
and complete the task when they're not supposed to.
If anyone knows a workaround for either of these problems I would be
very appreciative. Thanks.
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but is the Microsoft Project
Outlook add-in completely useless? I'm relatively new to Microsoft
Project so chances are I just don't know what I'm doing.
One thing that is very important to me is utilising the 'Predecessors'
field. Certain tasks should not begin until others are complete. I have
a project set up where most tasks have a predecessor. This project is
published to Project Server, and my team use the Outlook add-in to
import the tasks that are assigned to them. The problem is that the
predecessor information seems to be completely lost. When viewing tasks
in Outlook there is no 'predecessor' field (I've tried adding this
manually without any luck).
I suppose this wouldn't be such a problem if the add-in didn't import
every single task assigned to a resource; what it -should- do is only
import the tasks that they are able to start, e.g. if 'Task 2' can't
begin until 'Task 1' is complete, the add-in shouldn't even import 'Task
2' until 'Task 1' is actually complete. But instead each member of my
team gets a horde of tasks added to their Outlook task list without
knowing what's allowed to start when.
The other thing that irritates me is if there is a change to the
project plan, i.e. a certain task no longer needs to be completed, there
is no way for me as the project manager to remove the task from a
resource's Outlook task list. Even if I remove that task from the
project plan, when that resource clicks "Import New Assignments" in
Outlook, it will only import new assignments - not remove ones that are
no longer applicable. Another example is if a task is reassigned from
one resource to another - Outlook won't pick up on this. So that means I
have a resource with a task in their Outlook task list and they go ahead
and complete the task when they're not supposed to.
If anyone knows a workaround for either of these problems I would be
very appreciative. Thanks.
