Custom end-date field

[Brian Lukanic]

Is there any way to add a column and customize it so that it calculates an
end date for the Project (At line 0) by ingnoring a high-level summary task?
Here's what I am after:

I've got a project with 5 high-level deliverables indented correctly as
such. They are: 1. system design, 2. installation 3. data conversion 4.
documentation and 5. project closeout activities.

Item 5 is what I want to exclude from the project end date in line 0. The
reason for this is because my Finance team considers the project complete
once all client deliverables have met (I.E. we can invoice the client). Of
course, a strict PMP will consider the project complete only after all PM
deliverables have been met as well. Since I am including dependencies in item
5, the project summary task correctly calculates the end date of the project
to match the end date of my last task (usually something like "archive all
project-related documents."

What I would like to do is add an extra column that derives a date based on
the end date of the project excluding the information of the 5th
deliverable, thus reporting our "internal golive" date next to the project's
finish date. In fact, I would be ok if the column showed this same date on
every row, including all rollups.

Is there a VBA script I can write that would do this?

 

[Brian Lukanic]

One added bit of info:
within the project template we use there is a milestone that correctly lists
the date that I want shown in the new column. Would it be any easier to
create the custom column and simply have it reference the date of the
milestone?

What I am ultimately after is to be able to have all projects rolled up to
their line 0 in a master P-plan (or on server) and see both end dates on a
single line, rather than have to expand each individual project to see my
custom date.

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Brian,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

You could set up a hammock from the start milestone to the finish of 4
milestone. Please see FAQ Item: 19. Hammock Tasks.

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on

Mike Glen
Project MVP

 

[Brian Lukanic]

Ok great. I added an additional date column and renamed it "internal golive"
and then created a link to the end date of my milestone. This behaves exactly
as expected.

However - is there any way to prevent the nag screen that now appears upon
opening the file? The nag screen asks Y/N regarding updating links. I've got
my setting to automatic, but I still get that screen. The concern I have is
that my other Project users will get confused with this screen. I turned
macro security way down too, with no effect.