Transferring large amount of tasks to an existing project file

[Meeting reminder]

I have a project file with over 200 tasks working fine. Recently our customer
wanted another test program implemented in the middle of the tasks. The test
engineer laid out over 50 new tasks with duration,and start,stop dates and
the predecessors under a completely different file. I tried to integrate it
into my schedule by doing a copy/paste which appeared to transfer but when I
added a predecessor from an old file task to the new task, it doesnt change
the start date. I transferred the task name, start and finish dates, and
duration in the same format. Is there a way to keep all the information and
transfer and yet still integrate with my old tasks? Or should I just
transfer the task names and manually do the start, finish, duration and
predecessors? I appreciate your help.

 

[Meeting reminder]

Hi David:
I tried your suggestion but did not find any start constrain dates. Here is
an example of what I have:

#77 ID #PWR Review and Approval of Test Data start Thu 8/2/07 Thu 8/2/07 1
d As Soon As Possible 76

#78 Send unit to test lab. Fri 8/3/07 Fri 8/3/07 1 d Start No Earlier Than 77


#79 vib table availability Fri 8/3/07 Fri 8/3/07 0 d Start No Earlier Than 78

#80 Set Up unit for Horizontal Wed 4/18/07 Thu 4/19/07 0.5 d As Soon As
Possible "80,78"
David: #80 is the new task added; notice that its predecessor is # 78, 80
which arent complete until 8/3 and 4/19 but it shows completion on 4/19. This
is the issue.

 

[DavidC]

Hi,

Try changing ID 78 and 79 from "Start no earlier than" to Start as soon as
possible". Any start of finish no earlier or later than, or must start dates
are constraints. Lookignat your samples, then 78 which should follow the day
after ending ID77, on the 8/2/07, is being told not to start until 8/3/07,
that date being the 'constraint' date.

Hope this helps

Regards

DavidC

 

[DavidC]

Hi,
Follow up comment. I just noticed the dates are US not international, hence
I thought there was a month difference in dates between ID 77 and ID 78.

What I have noticed is that you have ID 80 with a predecessor of 80, which
is not possible since Project should have given you a warning that you cannot
make a task a predecessor of itself.

I also note that you refer to ID 80 finishing on 4/19, and the example shows
a completion on 4/19 and that ID is 80, so it seems to be showing what you
seem to expect.


Since Id 80 is a 0.5 day duration, is there a difference based on hours.
That is the 0.5 day task is starting part way through the day and cannot be
completed in that same day, because the calendar shows that the task cannot
be worked on beyond the remaining time in the day on 18/4. To see if this is
the case, change the view under "Tools\options\view" to show the hours and
minutes as well as the date.

Aside from this is there a calendar setting to this task which stops it
starting earlier, is there a resource assigned which has stopping the task
starting earlier.

Otherwise try calculating again (under Tools\Options\Calculation). Finally
try entering it as another task and see if it still does the same thing. I
have had odd things happening in the past, and some have resolved themselves
for no apparent reason, and some just seem not to want to calculate, so I
delete that task and use the new one which is working.

Let me know how you get on.

Regards

DavidC

 

[Meeting reminder]

Hi David:

First I left out a summary task when I sent it and confused myself with the
wrong ID #; Sorry for the confusion. I changed the "restraints" to start as
soon as possible and there was no change in dates. I also added a task to see
if it would move the dates out and it doesnt. Here is the summary with the
right tasks(the summary task,ID 79, is included but not all of its subtasks
are listed):

ID 77 Review and Approval of Test Data Thu 3/22/07 Thu 3/22/07 1 d 76
ID 78 Send unit to test lab . Thu 8/23/07 Thu 8/23/07 1 d 77

ID 79 System Verification: Qual-Level Random Vibration - Test Fixture only
/ EDU Wed 4/18/07 Fri 4/27/07 6.5 d
ID 80 Set Up unit for test Wed 4/18/07 Thu 4/19/07 0.5 d 78
Axial Random on EDU Thu 4/19/07 Thu 4/19/07 0.5 d 80
As you can see on ID 78 i send the unit to the test lab on 8/23 and I am
setting up the test at the lab(ID 80) in April. There is no roll up.

 

[DavidC]

Hi,

Do you have a predecessor to the summary task? The summary task start date
would normally reflect the earliest start date of the undelying tasks, UNLESS
there is some logic applied to the summary task to set the start date. If
the summary task has a predecessor then that will set the start date for the
summary task and all underlying tasks will start on or after the start date
of the summary task.

I know that it is possible to use the summary task as a predecessor to set
the underlying tasks globally, but it does have some serious downsides. The
big one is that it will hold out all the underlying task start dates to the
summary start date, and this may give spurious answers.

So check out the summary task to make sure it doesn't have a setting, logic
or even resource (not that generally a summary task would be resourced) that
is setting the start date.

Let me know how you get on.

Regards

DavidC

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi,

Are you actually typing in these dates?

Mike Glen
Project MVP

 

[Meeting reminder]

Hi:
I checked the summary task and there are no contrants or predecessors. and
I am not using resources. I have manually added all of the tasks and deleted
the transferred tasks and all is well. My customer was complaining that they
needed the revised schedule for a meeting tomorrow so I had to do it the long
way. I do thank you for your time and help.