how to have tasks schedule in the order listed?

[mike]

Heya guys,

It seems that project orders longer tasks first, resulting in some
tasks in the same group being scheduled long before others. IHow do I
get project to schedule tasks in the order they are listed instead?

Thanks,
Mike

 

[mike]

Don't you mean, get the Tasks listed in the order they are scheduled?
Try Project, Sort

No, I mean when I am listing the tasks in Project, without putting any
dependencies in, it would be great if they would be scheduled by
project in the order that they are listed. Any way to do this?

 

[mike]

When you put in Tasks, if there are no predecessor links, and if you are not
typing in start dates, they all start (ie are scheduled to start) asap, ie
on the same day, day 1 of the project.

I assigned resources to them and automatic calculation is on (tools,
options, calculation, automatic), so they are scheduled immediately by
project to be doable (i.e., no simultaneous tasks by the same
resource).

So they are sheduled in the order that they are listed, aren't they?

no, project assigns longer tasks first.

Then you make predecessor links and they are no longer necessarily listed in
order of Start Date, so you sort by Start.

Or do you want new tasks to be auto-linked to the Tasks above and below them
in the list as you insert them?
This option is in Tools, Options, but it is not popular.

I was hoping there would be no autolink required, but if there are no
dependencies entered, project would schedule the tasks in the order
they are listed, instead of putting some longer duration tasks before
others. I figured there is a setting somewhere to set how project
decides how to order tasks.

 

[Steve House]

First of all, DO NOT use the automatic leveling (Tools, Resource Leveling,
set to Manual) - it can really give strange behaviors. But be that as it
may, the default leveling behavior does take into account task length among
a number of other factors involved in deciding which tasks are moved during
resource leveling and MS doesn't make public the exact algorithm it uses.
But to override it, use the Task Priority field. Tasks with lower
priorities, lower number in the field, will be delayed by leveling before
tasks with higher priorities will, letting you control the sequencing of
tasks when there're no process-driven links to control it.

Just curious why this is an issue for you? The order of tasks in the task
list normally would have little if any actual relationship to the order of
their start dates, although in simple real world projects it make often
accidently work out that they do roughly correspond. The task list should
be organized as an outlined breakdown of the project's deliverables and
often those deliverables are created by parallel processes. It's by no
means unusual for one of the tasks involved in the creation of Deliverable A
(summary task A, in other words) up near the top of the list to start later
than one of the tasks in the creation of Deliverable D (represented as
summary task G) located many rows down below the first one in the task list
outline. About the only time I can see needing the behavior you ask for is
if you are trying to outline your tasks list by time, such as ...

Week 1
Task A, Mon (Bob, Sue)
Task B, Tue-Wed (Bob)
Task C, Tue-Fri (Sue)
Task D, Thur-Fri (Bob)
Week 2
Task E, Mon-Wed
Task F, Thur
etc

but that sort of a task outline is NOT a WBS and will give you no end of
scheduling headaches. Project is NOT just a to-do list documented on a
spiffy waterfall-style calendar but a time-based outline, if that's what
you're attempting, is using it as no more than that.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

When leveling, choose ID only as Leveling order.