Leveling does not honor task links

[Al Gardiner]

I have a master project with dozens of projects in it. I've set priorities
for each and attempt to level these. I use 'hour by hour' or 'day by day'
and I choose 'Priority, Standard'. All seems to be fine from project to
project in that they generally use resources the way I intend. My problem is
that for most of the projects (specifically, the ones that have 0%
completion) the first task is always delayed until some unusual date far
beyond the other tasks for which it is a predecessor. For example, Project A
has Tasks 1 through 4 linked successively. Task 1 is scheduled for September
while tasks 2, 3, and 4 get scheduled in order during June. The tasks
individually have default priority of 500. Can anyone point me to some
things to look for in resolving this?

 

[JulieD]

Hi Al

sounds weird to me ... are you scheduling your projects from a start or
finish date? what version of project?

 

[Al Gardiner]

As a follow up, I also chaged the priority of Task 1 to 501 and leveling
still delayed the task well beyond 2, 3, and 4.

 

[Al Gardiner]

Pro 2003. From Start.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Could you send me the file (change task names if necessary for
confidentiality)?
jan at prom-ade.be

 

[pratta]

Hi Al
Perhaps with multi projects there is a problem with sharing resource pools
and calendars. Are you using a resource pool? Do the resources operating from
a base calendar. If not, I'd try setting tools /Resource Sharing/ to a single
respool file with only resources in it. Try it on a test suite of of projects
without local resources and then re-try levelling.
Then scale up if it works.


Regards.........Pratta

 

[Al Gardiner]

Pratta,

Thanks. I can duplicate the problem both using a shared resource pool and
while using Enteprise resources in Project Server. Jan was able to level the
tasks (using example files I sent) properly by opening them in Project 2000
and re-created the files without problem indicating that either the files are
corrupt or my version/installation has issues. I suspect the
version/installation since I can re-create the issue at will with freshly
created files. Any additional guidance would be appreciated.

 

[Al Gardiner]

All,

I just confirmed that it is my installation of 2003. I'm able to level fine
in 2000 and a co-worker confirmed that she is able to level it as well.
Special thanks to Jan for pointing out that it worked fine in 2000.

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

Do you have tasks with Finish No Later Than constraints on them representing
their required finish deadlines? That can easily cause a task to be "stuck"
and it will not not move later than the deadline date no matter what, even
though its predecessors are moved later than that in the schedule.
Constraints always trump dependency links. (That's why I suggest always to
use Deadlines instead).

Another common cause of "stuck" tasks is having actual work posted to them.
Actuals mean this is history and what is recorded as happening on Tuesday
will always be shown happening on Tuesday even if everything else around it
changes.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

As Al said, there were no constraints at all, and no actuals or whatever..
This wa a kind of corruption only existing in 2002/2003.

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

Do you have tasks with Finish No Later Than constraints on them representing
their required finish deadlines? That can easily cause a task to be "stuck"
and it will not not move later than the deadline date no matter what, even
though its predecessors are moved later than that in the schedule.
Constraints always trump dependency links. (That's why I suggest always to
use Deadlines instead).

Another common cause of "stuck" tasks is having actual work posted to them.
Actuals mean this is history and what is recorded as happening on Tuesday
will always be shown happening on Tuesday even if everything else around it
changes.
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

I didn't catch that part of the thread where he said there were no
constraints or actuals. Sorry
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs