QA tasks

[Figen]

My project plan has to have 5 QA tasks after ever stage, and there are loads
of stages. If I input the tasks into the plan it will just exapand the plan
beyond belief, so I tried to format the summary task bar with a different
colour at the end of the bar, which would indicate that the QA is required.
However, when I set the critical path on the project the colour disappears.

Is there a way that I can have indicators with regards to QA wihtout having
to put these 5 tasks for every stage.

Please please please help

 

[John]

My project plan has to have 5 QA tasks after ever stage, and there are loads
of stages. If I input the tasks into the plan it will just exapand the plan
beyond belief, so I tried to format the summary task bar with a different
colour at the end of the bar, which would indicate that the QA is required.
However, when I set the critical path on the project the colour disappears.

Is there a way that I can have indicators with regards to QA wihtout having
to put these 5 tasks for every stage.

Please please please help

Figen,
"Beyond belief", isn't that a TV show?

Well, there are various options. One is to set up a separate summary
line for the QA effort. Then, depending on the structure, you may only
need to list the QA tasks once.

I guess I'm a little lost in exactly how you set up the custom bar color
for the QA effort. Your post says you did the formatting on the summary
bars but summary bars should never appear on the critical path ...
unless you did a no-no and put links on summary lines (see FAQ 48 -
Summary Task linking on our MVP website at:
http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm)

You should also be aware that bar formatting is intuitively backwards,
at least in my opinion. Bar Styles at the bottom of the list take
priority over those at the top of the list (i.e. reverse order). If your
custom bar style is ahead of the critical path bar style in the bar
styles list, the critical path style will prevail.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

 

[Figen]

John,

Yes, it is a show and I am trying to run it :-(

Well, i have not linked the summary tasks, I know that is one of the 7
deadly sins, I only changed the bar colour as you would change the font
colours, but it did not work.

So, I would like to try your suggestion but I am not 100% clear how to do
this.

Could you please explain to me one more time.

Thank you for your patience.

Figen

 

[John]

John,

Yes, it is a show and I am trying to run it :-(

Well, i have not linked the summary tasks, I know that is one of the 7
deadly sins, I only changed the bar colour as you would change the font
colours, but it did not work.

So, I would like to try your suggestion but I am not 100% clear how to do
this.

Could you please explain to me one more time.

Thank you for your patience.

Figen

Figen,
The only suggestion I offered was to create a separate summary for all
the QA effort. But I also said that approach may not be appropriate for
the structure of your plan.

Your original post indicated you set something up and I got the
impression it did what you wanted until you chose to display the
critical path - then your special bar formatting disappeared. You also
mentioned that that was done at summary level. Since that whole
description was rather confusing, I threw in the bits about links on
summary lines and order of precedence in the bar styles list.

John
Project MVP