Using the Publish Field Correctly

[Darrell]

I created a schedule, assigned resources (myself) and conducted some updates
to the schedule. Everything is going well, all tasks are in the Tasks Update
page etc. I then inserted the “Publish†field to test the process of toggling
the Publish field from “Yes†to “No†when inserting new tasks into the
schedule to see how well this worked. I set all tasks to “No†with the
exception of the newly created tasks I wanted to publish and executed the
publish. When I returned to the My Tasks page all of my previous task
assignments were gone and only the newly published tasks with “Yes†in the
published field appeared. When I reset all tasks to “Yes†in the Publish
Field all tasks appeared as “New Tasks†on My Tasks page, including completed
tasks.

Is this as planned, and if so what is the purpose of the “Publish†field,
and how should we use it if it causes this problem?

 

[Jack Dahlgren]

Avoid setting it to no for previously published tasks. Switching back and
forth seems to be the problem.

-Jack Dahlgren

 

[Darrell]

Morn'n Jack and Thxs for the reply.

Setting the Published field to "No" for previously published tasks is
definitely a problem because it completely removes the task from the
resources Task sheet. This is why I was curious why and how to use this
field. I read another post that states the “Publish†field ONLY impacts time
sheets, so I want to know what the intended purpose was for this field and
how it should be used, if at all.

PMs here were instructed to use this field for a bug work around and are now
attemtping to use it in ways it appears it was not intended to be use for.

 

[Jack Dahlgren]

It is the work around for task corruption due to multiple assignments.
Setting it to no is a temporary condition, then set it to yes and republish.
Sure your team members will see it as "New" but that is preferable to not
seeing it at all.

-Jack Dahlgren

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Darrell --

Allow me to jump into this thread to add a comment about the Publish field.
Let's say that I have a project with two phases, called Phase I and Phase
II. I have completely planned Phase I, assigned resources to tasks, and am
absolutely certain that the resources assigned in Phase I are the resources
who will do the work. I have completed planned Phase II, assigned resources
to tasks, but am "tentative" about whether the Phase II resources are the
ones who will actually do the work. I am ready to baseline the project and
publish it. I can use the Publish field to prevent publishing for all of
the tasks in Phase II by until I am certain of the resource assignments in
that phase. To do this, I set the Publish value to No for each Phase II
task. I believe that is the intent of the field, although it is current
being used to work around the corrupted task assignments issue. Hope this
this.

 

[Darrell]

Jack,

The task corruption work around is exactly how the PMs learned of this
field. One decided to use it as an option to select which task they wanted to
publish and which ones to not "Republish" not fully understanding that
selecting "No" would actualy unpublish the task from the resources Task
Sheet.

Thx for the input
Darrell

 

[Darrell]

Dale,

That is exaclt how I was thinking it could be used. I was also wondering if
this might be a good way to removing resources from a task that you want to
delete, or a task that is no longer required, since this field actually
unpublishes the task from the resources task sheet. Do you think that if you
unpublish the task to remove it from the resources task sheet and then
deleted the task from the schedule there would be any other impact?

Thx again,
Darrell

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Darrell --

Thinking out loud, that might be a good way to cancel a task that is no
longer needed. Hope this helps.