That circular reference thing again...

[Sara Miller]

I have a master project with 11 inserted subprojects that are externally
linked to each other in Project 2003. I read all the posts about circular
references and have dutifully banished them from all files, but still have an
error message.
- The error only shows up in the master; I can open each file separately
with no problem
- It only shows up when one of four of the files is opened
- It always shows up when the last of those four files is opened,
regardless of what order I open them; in other words, the error "moves" among
those four files & shows up only on the last one opened

John, you had a comment in an earlier post ("Locating circular reference" -
3/1/06) that "If the problem only occurs at the master level, it might
be that someone attempted to link summary lines of subprojects that are
created when the master is created." I'm not sure I understand this - how do
I check it out?

There are at least 50 externally linked tasks among these four subprojects &
I desperately don't want to have to track each one. Anyone have any other
suggestions?

Thanks!
Sara

 

[John]

I have a master project with 11 inserted subprojects that are externally
linked to each other in Project 2003. I read all the posts about circular
references and have dutifully banished them from all files, but still have an
error message.
- The error only shows up in the master; I can open each file separately
with no problem
- It only shows up when one of four of the files is opened
- It always shows up when the last of those four files is opened,
regardless of what order I open them; in other words, the error "moves" among
those four files & shows up only on the last one opened

John, you had a comment in an earlier post ("Locating circular reference" -
3/1/06) that "If the problem only occurs at the master level, it might
be that someone attempted to link summary lines of subprojects that are
created when the master is created." I'm not sure I understand this - how do
I check it out?

There are at least 50 externally linked tasks among these four subprojects &
I desperately don't want to have to track each one. Anyone have any other
suggestions?

Thanks!
Sara

Sara,
My, my, such a deal. Let me explain about my comment. When a master is
created each subproject is represented by an insertion point summary
line in the master. I've had cases where users actually add links to
those insertion point summary lines - a really, really bad idea.
However, if you've read other posts on this subject I assume you do not
have any links on summary lines period.

Tell you what. If you are willing to e-mail me your master and
subprojects, I'll take a look at them and find your circular references.
It will probably take a few days and I will be asking some questions.

John
Project MVP
jensenj6atatcomcastdotdotnet
(remove obvious redundancies)

 

[Sara Miller]

Thanks so much John! You are right, there are no summary links on any level.
I'm afraid I can't let the files out of the company, but I really appreciate
your offer.

Guess I'm doomed to a tedious search...

 

[John]

Thanks so much John! You are right, there are no summary links on any level.
I'm afraid I can't let the files out of the company, but I really appreciate
your offer.

Guess I'm doomed to a tedious search...

Sara,
It's too bad about the files, some years ago I developed a macro for
another purpose but it also helps me track down circular relationships
in master files, however, it is not freeware.

One thing that might make your manual search easier is to avoid the use
of placeholder milestones as link points. I've seen some master files
that were so riddled with pass-through milestones that it was no wonder
there were circular relationships. Another very common problem occurs
when users double back with the links, that is, links go backward in
time. The best scenario is forward pass type links only. Using that
approach, you should never have a problem with circular relationships.

Good luck with your search.

John
Project MVP

 

[Jim Aksel]

Sara - If you change all the task names to "XXXX" and all the resource names
to "RRR", change the cost data to $1/hr ... you should be able to clean up
your file enough for John to look at for you. Oh, you would also need to
clear your baslines.
--
If this post was helpful, please consider rating it.

Jim
It''s software; it''s not allowed to win.

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for FAQs and more information
about Microsoft Project

 

[John]

Sara - If you change all the task names to "XXXX" and all the resource names
to "RRR", change the cost data to $1/hr ... you should be able to clean up
your file enough for John to look at for you. Oh, you would also need to
clear your baslines.

Jim,
Although I didn't mention it in my other posts, I have a macro that
removes all sensitive data from a file. A similar macro can be found on
fellow MVP, Jack Dahlgren's website at,
http://masamiki.com/project/macros.htm. Jack's macro is called "Scrub".

John
Project MVP