locking cells from editing

[MorganH]

At my company we have had some problems as of late with people accidently
removing links from a cell. I was wondering if there was any way that a cell
can be made locked from editing, or protected from it. I don't want to make
the whole file write protected since it will need to be updated, just a
protect on certain cells to prevent anyone from accidently removing these
links. Any help anyone can give me will be greatly appreciated.

 

[John]

At my company we have had some problems as of late with people accidently
removing links from a cell. I was wondering if there was any way that a cell
can be made locked from editing, or protected from it. I don't want to make
the whole file write protected since it will need to be updated, just a
protect on certain cells to prevent anyone from accidently removing these
links. Any help anyone can give me will be greatly appreciated.

Morgan,
Since you mention links to cells, it sounds like you may be using paste
links. If that is the case I caution you and mention that paste links
are very fragile and prone to corruption, particularly if the links are
broken improperly. If you would explain what the links represent and why
you need them, we can perhaps suggest a better alternative.

Nonetheless to answer your basic question, Project does not provide the
capability to lock individual cells from editing. It is either the whole
Project file or nothing.

The best defense against people making unauthorized edits is training,
training and more training. And yes, "accidents" may still occur. That's
why it is equally important to keep regular backups and to also do
regular audits of the files to insure integrity is maintained.

John
Project MVP

 

[MorganH]

Morgan,
Since you mention links to cells, it sounds like you may be using paste
links. If that is the case I caution you and mention that paste links
are very fragile and prone to corruption, particularly if the links are
broken improperly. If you would explain what the links represent and why
you need them, we can perhaps suggest a better alternative.

Nonetheless to answer your basic question, Project does not provide the
capability to lock individual cells from editing. It is either the whole
Project file or nothing.

The best defense against people making unauthorized edits is training,
training and more training. And yes, "accidents" may still occur. That's
why it is equally important to keep regular backups and to also do
regular audits of the files to insure integrity is maintained.

John
Project MVP

John,
Thanks for the detailed answer. Yes we are currently using paste links in
our files here. The way we have our files set up currently is a master or
summary file for a department with links of the start dates/finish
dates/percent complete coming from the more detailed individual files. While
this set-up has been working for us for the most part, I can certainly tell
that there must be better way to approach this. If you can give any input or
ideas on how to improve this it would be of great help.

thanks,
Morgan

 

[John]

John,
Thanks for the detailed answer. Yes we are currently using paste links in
our files here. The way we have our files set up currently is a master or
summary file for a department with links of the start dates/finish
dates/percent complete coming from the more detailed individual files. While
this set-up has been working for us for the most part, I can certainly tell
that there must be better way to approach this. If you can give any input or
ideas on how to improve this it would be of great help.

thanks,
Morgan

Morgan,
You are living on borrowed time my friend. Years ago we used paste links
to link our files together, but that was before Project 98 introduced
functionality for external predecessors/successors. The paste link
scheme worked but it required a LOT of discipline and vigilance to
develop and maintain.

Unless you and all your users have a lot of discipline, I mean a LOT of
discipline, I suggest you restructure your files to eliminate paste
links. There are a couple of approaches that should work for you. One is
to keep the idea of a separate master, or top level summary file, and
link in detail tasks using external predecessors. A second approach is
to not have links at all but rather create a consolidated master file
with the detail files as inserted subprojects. This is the more
conventional approach for a master file and the master can be filtered,
sorted and/or grouped to present only the most important information for
management.

If you do decide to eliminate paste links, here are a few tips. First,
only break links via the Edit/Links dialogue. Second, after breaking the
link, save both the source and destination files in that sequence using
Save As. Failing to save both files can result in link fragments which
lead to corruption.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

 

[MorganH]

Morgan,
You are living on borrowed time my friend. Years ago we used paste links
to link our files together, but that was before Project 98 introduced
functionality for external predecessors/successors. The paste link
scheme worked but it required a LOT of discipline and vigilance to
develop and maintain.

Unless you and all your users have a lot of discipline, I mean a LOT of
discipline, I suggest you restructure your files to eliminate paste
links. There are a couple of approaches that should work for you. One is
to keep the idea of a separate master, or top level summary file, and
link in detail tasks using external predecessors. A second approach is
to not have links at all but rather create a consolidated master file
with the detail files as inserted subprojects. This is the more
conventional approach for a master file and the master can be filtered,
sorted and/or grouped to present only the most important information for
management.

If you do decide to eliminate paste links, here are a few tips. First,
only break links via the Edit/Links dialogue. Second, after breaking the
link, save both the source and destination files in that sequence using
Save As. Failing to save both files can result in link fragments which
lead to corruption.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

John,
Thanks for the help, I'll get started on looking into a new format for the
timelines. Thanks again for the quick and detailed responces.

-Morgan

 

[John]

John,
Thanks for the help, I'll get started on looking into a new format for the
timelines. Thanks again for the quick and detailed responces.

-Morgan

Morgan,
You're welcome, and good luck with your file re-structuring.

John

 

[Stefan]

Morgan,
You're welcome, and good luck with your file re-structuring.

John

Hi John:

I saw you helping a guy on the MS Project general questions, and I was
wandering if you can help me out with a problem.

I am running MS project 2003. Have a project file, with custom colored
gantt, but when I transfer it to another PC, the color of the gantt is all
gray and black only. Tried to change it by formating the bar, change the
color in the format window, however when I close it, the gantt is still the
same color. Any idea why?

Got the message that the file is locked by administrator and read only. I am
the administrator on both PC's but this still doesn't work. Any other changes
I make are ok, I can save the file under different name and do what ever I
want, but the color of the gantt stays gray.

I can send you couple of tasks from the project so you see what I mean.

Thanks,

Stefan

 

[John]

Hi John:

I saw you helping a guy on the MS Project general questions, and I was
wandering if you can help me out with a problem.

I am running MS project 2003. Have a project file, with custom colored
gantt, but when I transfer it to another PC, the color of the gantt is all
gray and black only. Tried to change it by formating the bar, change the
color in the format window, however when I close it, the gantt is still the
same color. Any idea why?

Got the message that the file is locked by administrator and read only. I am
the administrator on both PC's but this still doesn't work. Any other changes
I make are ok, I can save the file under different name and do what ever I
want, but the color of the gantt stays gray.

I can send you couple of tasks from the project so you see what I mean.

Thanks,

Stefan

Stefan,
Two things control the appearance of the gantt. First, the settings
under Format/Bar Styles. Second, customizing the view to utilize the
custom bar styles. The custom bars should be saved with the view for
that file.

I'm not sure what might be happening with your setup but you did mention
that you get a read only message. When you open the file, does "read
only" appear in the caption? If so, you might want to check, File/Save
As/Tools/General Options, to see if the option for recommended read only
is checked. If it is, uncheck it. If that's not the case or doesn't
help, try creating a custom view (i.e. instead of customizing a default
view such as the Gantt Chart view). Then apply your custom bar styles to
that view.

Another question. If someone else opens the file, what do they see?

I'm not sure that sending me a sample of your file will help, but if you
want to give that a try, go ahead and send it.

John
Project MVP
jensenj6atatcomcastdotdotnet
(remove obvious redundancies)