Linking tasks to milestones

[Figen]

I have linked various summary tasks to a milestone (I know I should not be
linking summary tasks) and would like to be alerted if the date changes are
made to any of the tasks that may affect the delivery of the milestone.

At the moment if I change any of the dates within these summary tasks,
project automatically updates the milestone without warning, and my
milestones are delivery drops and should not change as easy.

Please help.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

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

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

You have two options.

One is to double-click on the milestone, Advanced tab and set a constraint
of "Must Finish on" or "Finish no later than". For either of these, when the
predecessors try to push forward the date of the milestoone, you will get a
warning message. The milestone date will however still show the constraint
date and not the date dictated by the predecessors.

Or, on the Advanced Tab, instead of entering a constraint, you enter a
deadline. Now when predecessors push forward the milestone, you will not get
a messge, and the milestoone still moves forward; however, the indicator
column will have a warning sign to show you do not meet the deadline.

Your choice!

 

[Figen]

Jan,

You are a star. I can now carry on with my project, at least for today.

Thanks again

Regards

Figen

 

[Eddie]

I have a similar question, I want to make sure my milestone which is linked
to my summary tasks shows the % complete of my summary task, do you know how
I can do this?

Thanks
Eddie

 

[John]

I have a similar question, I want to make sure my milestone which is linked
to my summary tasks shows the % complete of my summary task, do you know how
I can do this?

Thanks
Eddie

Eddie,
First of all if you have links on summary lines you might want to read
FAQ 48 - Summary Task Linking on our MVP website at:
http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm
If you are only linking milestones you may be ok, but generally users
who link to summary lines are courting trouble.

Second of all, in my opinion, a milestone has two levels of completion -
"0" percent and "100" percent - it is either not done or it is done -
with milestones there isn't any in between.

To answer your basic question, you would need to set up a custom field
for the milestone and then use a formula to capture the value. Note that
you will need to put the formula on all task rows and then set the
option for using the formula on summary lines.

An alternate method is to use a simple VBA macro. With a macro the data
can be set up to only appear in the custom field of the specific
milestones, but a macro will not automatically update like a formula.

John
Project MVP