What if scenarios?

[DJ Huff]

I am running MS Project 2003 standalone in a master/subplan architecture.
The client wants to see impacts of all potential changes for the week prior
to accepting those changes permanently. Is there an easy way I can run
what-if scenarios without making those changes permanent (I realize I can do
anything I want before I save the plans, but would rather minimize risk by
using a different way, if possible)?

 

[Jack Dahlgren]

Considering that the changes in the past have ALREADY happened, I don't see
what would be "what-if" about them. If you are running stand-alone, just save
off a copy of the plans first. You can do this by zipping up the entire
directory which holds the project plans. Then unzip and over-write if
necessary.

-Jack Dahlgren

 

[DJ Huff]

I know about "cloning" the plans and could do that, but thought there might
be a more programmatic way...sort of like an MSP "feature" (that I cannot
find, of course). I did notice, while I was testing the cloning, that all
X-plan dependency links remained tied, even if the plans were modified
offline and replaced. I guess there is an internal Unique ID that ensures
that as long as the linked predecessor/successor is not deleted, the linked
task will find it and adjust the path accordingly (e.g. offline add tasks
that change ID numbers does not "break" the X-plan dependent tasks). Is that
correct?