Limit on length of predecessor field issue

[mdevito]

We are using MS Project 2003 (but this happens in 2007 also) and are using
the master/consolidated project function. We have inserted about 13 sub
projects and there are many (thousands) of links between the plans. Because
we're linking between plans, the predecessors & sucessors fields show the
path of the subproject being linked to/from. The plans reside on a shared
drive on a server and so the paths are long. Therefore after 2-3 links on
one task, the field doesn't show all of the predecessors (or sucessors), it
just inserts a "..." for each additional link.

Has anyone ever experienced this before? Is there a way to avoid this?
It's hard to see what's been linked with this abbreviation. I have used the
links to other plans tool, but that can be time consuming to find the
individual task in that screen and doesn't really help because I need the
pred/succ fields to show up on views and reports. I tried mapping a drive to
the folder where the plans are, but Project still shows the entire path.

Any suggestions?

 

[Gérard Ducouret]

Hello,

In the Task Information dialog (Predecessors tab) for a specific task, don't
you see all the predecessors?

Gérard Ducouret

 

[Jim Spiller]

When this happens the only place you will be able to see all of the
predecessors is in the Task Information dialog (doubeclick on a task) as
Gérard mentions or in a split screen showing Predecessors and Successors
(choose Windows-Split, select the bottom pane and select
Format-Details-Predecessors & Successors). The Predecessor/Successors field
cannot be made to display more than 255 characters and this gets filled up
fast with lots of dependencies to subprojects on networks... It would be
nice for Project to allow for an abbreviated path here but it can't do that
either.

 

[Jim Aksel]

Window/Split
In the bottom pane, right click on a whitespace area and select predecessors
and successors. You can scroll through and see all of them. However, the
path is going to be obscured because the column is narrow.

To see the full path, select one of the predecesors by clicking in the ID
column of the bottom pane. The full path will display in the Excel like
"Formula bar" just above where all the tasks start and the toolbars stop.

Does that help?
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Jim Aksel, MVP

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