MikeD said:
I want to convert an existing plan into a master project and subprojects. MS
Help suggests this can be done but doesn't say how. Can anyone explain
please?
I don't want to cut and paste the work packages into new files and then
insert them into a new master plan because they are linked and the
information will be lost.
Thanks,
Mike
MikeD,
Well, yes it can be done, but you will lose the links unless you use
VBA, (or the manual process below), to do the conversion. The reason you
will lose the links is because currently they are normal predecessors
and successors but in the new separate files they will need to be
external predecessors and successors. And external links include the
path as well as the task ID. Here's how I would do it.
1. Fist come up with a scheme to use spare fields to identify the
proposed file name and task identifier. You can do this for all tasks or
just those that have a link. I would use the Unique ID as the identifier
because it will not change when you break the file up, if you do it per
the steps below.
2. Do as many Save As steps as you want to create subprojects. For
example, if you want to break the current file into 5 subprojects, then
do Save As 4 times to the new subproject names. The current file will
become the 5th subproject.
3. In each of the 5 separate files, delete all tasks except those that
you want to be in that subproject. Note, you may or may not need to
adjust calendars and/or apply a "start-no-earlier-than" constraint to
some tasks if their start was determined by a link in the current file.
4. Use the spare field data from step 1 to re-construct the links as
external predecessors and successors.
Have fun. I've actually done this in reverse, (i.e. convert a
dynamically linked master with external links into a single file with
links preserved), so I know the process works, although I did it with
VBA.
John
Project MVP
