Master & Subs help

[ko]

So I am managing an enterprise wide master plan. The plan was to have the 10
different business units build their plans and then I would select individual
tasks and copy and paste special as link into the master plan. Problem is,
when they update their plans and email it to me I can't save it to link back
together. Is there a solution to this dilemma? It says that the link is
broken or it can't find that "source."

The reason I went that route instead of inserting projects into a master is
because I am managing to specific phases in a specific order and I was afraid
of the sheer size of the project plans I would be inserting (since each of
those 10 plans are roll-ups of 5 or more plans).

 

[John]

So I am managing an enterprise wide master plan. The plan was to have the 10
different business units build their plans and then I would select individual
tasks and copy and paste special as link into the master plan. Problem is,
when they update their plans and email it to me I can't save it to link back
together. Is there a solution to this dilemma? It says that the link is
broken or it can't find that "source."

The reason I went that route instead of inserting projects into a master is
because I am managing to specific phases in a specific order and I was afraid
of the sheer size of the project plans I would be inserting (since each of
those 10 plans are roll-ups of 5 or more plans).

ko,
I understand your desire to keep the master manageable but I think you
will find that working with Paste Links will actually be a much bigger
hassle than using a master with inserted subprojects. Paste Links are
very fragile and one of the problems is that if either the source or
destination is moved, the link is lost. It sounds like that is exactly
what is happening in your case. Paste Links are also very prone to
corruption if the user is not extremely diligent and disciplined - and
I'll tell you from experience, few users fall into that category.

I suggest you go ahead with a master with inserted subprojects. I
wouldn't worry too much about the size, Project (version 2000 at least)
can handle up to 1,000 inserted subprojects. Your 10 plans with 5
subplans each is far from that limit.

Once you have a linked master, it is quite easy to apply a filter or use
other means (e.g. grouping) to limit the number of tasks in any given
view.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP