Linking to summary tasks

[Andy]

One of our customers at work recently suggested that linking to a
summary task wasn't good practice. Does anybody agree and can suggest
why this is so?

Sometimes we have lots of lower level tasks and if a summary task
cannot be linked to then it will involve lots of seperate links.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Andy --

Setting dependencies on summary tasks result in circular reference errors.
After you've dealt with troubleshooting your first circular reference error
in Microsoft Project, that is enough to make you NEVER want to go through
that again! Hope this helps.

 

[davegb]

This has long been a major bone of contention in here. Some feel it is
ok. Having done schedules for over 20 years now, first by hand, later
using software, I agree with your friend. Linking summary tasks is
usually a short cut to avoid correctly identifying the true
dependencies on the project, which leads to headaches to numerous to
detail here. And it leads to circular references, as Dale said above.

 

[John]

One of our customers at work recently suggested that linking to a
summary task wasn't good practice. Does anybody agree and can suggest
why this is so?

Sometimes we have lots of lower level tasks and if a summary task
cannot be linked to then it will involve lots of seperate links.

Wolseley,
I might as well weigh in on the discussion. I agree wholeheartedly with
Dale, Dave and your friend. Project allows links to Summary lines and it
may seem like a good shortcut idea but usually when there is an easy
shortcut, it has consequences. It MIGHT be ok if you have a LOT of
experience with Project and are VERY careful.

The bottom line, use links on Summary lines at your own risk. How lucky
do you feel.

John
Project MVP

 

[JackD]

I can't say I can recommend it either. If you need to do something like this
consider a start and a finish milestone as subtasks and link the subtasks to
them. It gives you the same effect as links to a summary task.

 

[Andy]

Andy --

Setting dependencies on summary tasks result in circular reference errors.
After you've dealt with troubleshooting your first circular reference error
in Microsoft Project, that is enough to make you NEVER want to go through
that again! Hope this helps.

Thanks for the reply Dale.

Yes I have had to deal with circular relationships before now;
however, not anything to do with linking to Summary tasks.

I notice you are Enteprise Project Trainer/Consultant. I am working on
a very large/complex programme at the moment with a very poor use of
scheduling across the Enteprise. I suppose you would recommend Project
server for us but what if current mindset/culture are against this? I
have tried to get people interested but with no success.

Thanks again,

Andy

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Andy --

If the current mindset and culture are against implementing an enterprise
project management tool such as Project Server, then it would probably be a
huge waste of time and money. There needs to be organization commitment,
among other things, before the implementation has a chance of success.
Thanks for trying, however.

 

[DavidC]

I have recently had to create a summary of various non-consecutive tasks and
to refelect the summary tasks, in order for the client to give the contractor
an overview of start and finish dates. I created linked tasks using the
start date for the first task in a summary task and the finish date of the
task which creates the end date for the summary task. That way the link is
connected to the base data and not a microsoft calculated data. Seems to
work as lomg as the calendar set for the task is the same as the one for the
set of tasks. Found one glitch though where the first task in the summary
used a night shift calendar but the remaining tasks used an ordinary shift
calendar. The dates and times were correct but the linked task would not
follow correctly as it used whatever calender it was assigned to 'reset' the
start and finish dates.