Automatic milestone completion

[explorer]

Hi,

If I have 2 milestones connected FS in a schedule, and I mark the first one
100% complete, is there a way to show automatically that the other one also
complete?

(I have a project with over 1000 external milestones, many of them
duplicates for convenience, and I try to update milestones in one convenient
place in the front section of the schedule and hope to find a way for MS
Project to automatically update the copy of the milestones across the
schedule.)

Thanks your help

 

[Jim Aksel]

The one word answer is "no". Project not quite that smart to know that Task7
and Task 9 are actually identifal.

Instead, you can select mutliple tasks for update at the same time. If the
tasks are not contiguous, hold down the CTRL key when selecting -- you are
allowed 9 non-contiguous selections each with unlimited number of tasks.

Once all the "like tasks" are selected, you can set the %Complete for all
them simultaneously.

You could make sure all identical tasks have an identical name that is
unique just amongst themselves. Autofilter to the name. Have Mr. Mouse
select the %Complete column (everyone is now selected) and update to the
%Complete of your choice. Back to Mr. AutoFilter and change the name to the
next milestone set. Repeat as required.

Another method. Uniquely identify each Milestone type in a spare field such
as Text1. For example all TYpe1 milestones have an "A" in Text1. Filter
the "Text1" box using autofilter to only show "A". Play with Mr. Mouse as
above. Change your AutoFilter to "B" and repeat as necessary. SHow all when
done.

An alternative -- write some VBA code that will do the update. The way I
would do it would be to create a UserFrom with drop downs for the task type.
Then, I would key a %Complete to a text box on the form. Press the execute
button on the form and have the code force the %Complete on the textbox into
all tasks containing the value identified from the dropdown in the Text1
field.

Other methods are possible. Your mileage may vary.
--
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

 

[explorer]

Thanks Jim,

Unfortunately none of your "easy" methods are practical, since I work with a
9000 line long schedule. The VBA method may have some merit but at this point
I am not sophisticated enough to figure it out myself.

But I appreciate your answer. At least I know, I have not overlooked
something obvious.

 

[Jim Aksel]

Thank you for the feedback, it is appreciated.
My alternative to flag a spare field such as text 1 could be implemented in
a couple of hours - it only needs to be done once. From then on it will take
you seconds to do the updates.

Based on your schedule size, you may already have most of the spare columns
spoken for but if you are creative you could use a number field, or a cost
field... anything.
--
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

 

[Dave]

As Jim points out, your schedule cannot know that two milestones have
any logical relationship.

However, if you were to display your schedule in such a way that all
milestones occurring on the same date were grouped together then you
could mark them all read en-bloc as it were.

For example, if you create a group which groups by duration first of all
(so all milestones are grouped together) then by start/finish (so that
all milestones occurring on a given date are grouped together) then
everything occurring on the same day will be grouped.

You can then add the % complete column to the schedule and fill down for
any given group of milestones to mark those that have occurred as complete.

Hope this helps.

 

[Dave]

As an aside, the "Tools, Update Project, Update work as complete through
...." options do what you want but also update other tasks as well which
you may not thank it for.

Dave

 

[explorer]

"As Jim points out, your schedule cannot know that two milestones have
any logical relationship."

Well, yes and no:

Yes, because if two 0 duration milestone connected has a logical relationship.
No, because the two 0 duration milestone connected still can reflect two
different event (unfortunately).

So at the end you guys are right.

As far as implementing the symbol in the extra text field, or grouping and
sorting on dates, yes, I am familiar with those type of solution, and those
solution will work just fine, I just hoped that by putting some formula
somewhere I can save even more time. As you expect, I am very busy with my
schedule so every timesaving solution counts.

I will have another milestone completion question, but I put it up as a
separate post.