Auto update task position on Gantt chart????

[jonno]

Not sure if this is possible in Project but have used another project
management system which could do this...

If I create a 2 task, 12 day duration project...(NOT resource driven)
Task 1 - 10 day duration - start on day 1 - floating start date
Task 2 - Milestone set at day 12 - Must finish on this date.

Scenario 1 - Day 3...
Task 1 was set to 10% complete on Day 1 and so start date is now fixed. %
complete has not changed for 2 days. I want the duration bar to be extended
in length as 90% of the task still remains.

Scenario 2 - Day 2...
If no-one enters a % complete value I want Task 1 to move along the chart to
start at day 2...and so on, until a % complete value is entered and the start
date is locked.

Scenario 3 - Day 12...
Any Tasks which have not been completed and which have been moved/extended
beyond my fixed milestone should turn red.

I'm not sure if Project can do any of this at all let alone automatically
but would be grateful if anyone can give me any help.

Many thanks in advance.

Jonno

 

[davegb]

Not sure if this is possible in Project but have used another project
management system which could do this...

If I create a 2 task, 12 day duration project...(NOT resource driven)
Task 1 - 10 day duration - start on day 1 - floating start date
Task 2 - Milestone set at day 12 - Must finish on this date.

Scenario 1 - Day 3...
Task 1 was set to 10% complete on Day 1 and so start date is now fixed. %
complete has not changed for 2 days. I want the duration bar to be extended
in length as 90% of the task still remains.

Scenario 2 - Day 2...
If no-one enters a % complete value I want Task 1 to move along the chart to
start at day 2...and so on, until a % complete value is entered and the start
date is locked.

Scenario 3 - Day 12...
Any Tasks which have not been completed and which have been moved/extended
beyond my fixed milestone should turn red.

I'm not sure if Project can do any of this at all let alone automatically
but would be grateful if anyone can give me any help.

Many thanks in advance.

Jonno

Project can't assume it knows what happened on your project. It tracks
based on you telling it what happened. If it made some such
assumption, it might be the right assumption for you but not for me.
Or be right for you today but wrong tomorrow.

All you have to do is a "Tools, Tracking, Update Tasks" and it will do
what you've suggested. If you really want it automatic, which, in my
opinion is very dangerous, you could write an AutoRun macro that would
do this everytime you opened Project. I strongly advise against this.
Tracking a project requires the use of a focused brain, as there are
so many variables and exceptions. If it were that automatic, all the
software out there would do it all automatically. You said the other
software "could to this" which is the same with Project. But you have
to tell it to, as with every other scheduling software I've ever
seen.

Hope this helps in your world.

 

[jonno]

Hmmm...I sort of agree with you however the points I have outlined don't
require user feedback to the system. They are fairly logical in the way they
work. For example...

I have a task which is of 10 days duration. It is fairly safe to assume
that if I don't start it today (ie, mark it with a % complete value) that I
will have to start it tomorrow. The task's duration will remain the same so
why not have the task move it's position on the chart automatically?

Another example...
Same 10 day task...I start it today and mark it at 10%. If I do nothing to
the task for the next 9 days there will still be 90% of the work to do. Why
not automatically extend the length of the bar to represent the remaining
work which needs to be carried out.

Is it possible to write macros to auto extend bar length for projects
containing thousands of tasks of differing durations and start date/%
complete combinations???

 

[davegb]

Hmmm...I sort of agree with you however the points I have outlined don't
require user feedback to the system. They are fairly logical in the way they
work. For example...

I have a task which is of 10 days duration. It is fairly safe to assume

Exactly! Fairly safe. In other words, not safe.

that if I don't start it today (ie, mark it with a % complete value) that I
will have to start it tomorrow. The task's duration will remain the same so
why not have the task move it's position on the chart automatically?

Because the task's duration might not remain the same.

Another example...
Same 10 day task...I start it today and mark it at 10%. If I do nothing to
the task for the next 9 days there will still be 90% of the work to do. Why
not automatically extend the length of the bar to represent the remaining
work which needs to be carried out.

Because MOST of the time that is what will happen. If scheduling
software automatically re-scheduled your project based on
probabilities, whose probabilities would it use? Yours? I hope not!
Mine are probably very different.

Project is designed to handle all of the possibilities, not just the
most probable. I'm glad it is. Because maybe only the "most probable"
things happen on your projects, but I could tell you many, many
stories about how the most improbable things happened on projects I've
worked on. I need to schedule and track those things too.

Is it possible to write macros to auto extend bar length for projects
containing thousands of tasks of differing durations and start date/%
complete combinations???

It's possible to write code to do most anything you desire. VBA gives
you the ability to customize project endlessly. You could even make it
pretty much automatically schedule what you think is the most probable
outcome, if you like.