determine latest finish date by milestone

[Riko Wichmann]

Dear all,

I need to implement the following scenario:

I have an *external* milestone "M1: final system available". This
external milestone links into a plan defining and setting up and running
the test environment. M1 defines (externally), when the tests have to be
finished. Let's say, my (test environment) plan contains a task "T1:
system test".

Now, the end date of T1 cannot be later than M1. How do I implement
that, so that

1) I get a warning, when my planning causes the Finish Date of T1 to be
later than M1 (this one could easily accomplish with a deadline)

2) warning, if (the external) M1 moves to earlier date, so that as a
result T1 would now be too late, while before the adjustment of M1 it
was just in time.

I toyed around with various constraints and task dependencies without
success. The easiest would be to feed a deadline on T1 with the date of
M1, but that can only be done "by hand" I assume ...

We are using Project 2007 (Enterprise).

Any hints or ideas would be much appreciated.

Thanks and cheers,

Riko


PS: I posted this question also on the microsoft.public.project group,
but one suggested to also try here, since all our project are on an
Enterprise server.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Link T1 FS to M1
Observe the Total Slack field. If it gets negative you're in trouble.
It will also react when M1gets sooner.

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
+32 495 300 620
For availability check:
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/Calendar.pdf

 

[Riko Wichmann]

Hi Jan,

thanks for your reply. I guess, that only works, because M1 is external,
so cannot be shifted by movements of T1!? Unfortunately, our planning
guidelines say "don't link directly to an external milestone". We always
double and link the external to a local partner milestone and than link
to this one with the plan. The reason to do so is not to clutter the
project that provides M1 with all those external links, if project
managers link it to several of their tasks.

Could I do it in this scenario? So far I was not successful, since the
local copy of M1 does not follow M1 if it gets sooner.

Thanks again,

Riko