Multiple predecessors

[Cid Bell]

I noticed that as I add multiple predecessors to a task, in the order I want,
MS Project will rearrange them in a different order, example: I added the
following predecessors to task 70, [47,59,66,69]. MS Project will re sort
the numbers as [47,69,66,59]. What feature in MS Project causes this action?
and why does it renumber?

Thanks for your help.

 

[davegb]

I noticed that as I add multiple predecessors to a task, in the order I want,
MS Project will rearrange them in a different order, example: I added the
following predecessors to task 70, [47,59,66,69]. MS Project will re sort
the numbers as [47,69,66,59]. What feature in MS Project causes this action?
and why does it renumber?

Thanks for your help.

Not sure what basis Project sorts them on. Why do you care? The final
effect is the same.

 

[Cid Bell]

Because, when my customer asked the question, I can't answer with "why do you
care" - there has to be a logical reason behind MS Project rearranging the
predecessors - It's not like it rearranges them in any type of order. Why
does it not leave them in the order that I select?

--
Cid Bell

I noticed that as I add multiple predecessors to a task, in the order I want,
MS Project will rearrange them in a different order, example: I added the
following predecessors to task 70, [47,59,66,69]. MS Project will re sort
the numbers as [47,69,66,59]. What feature in MS Project causes this action?
and why does it renumber?

Thanks for your help.

Not sure what basis Project sorts them on. Why do you care? The final
effect is the same.

 

[Trevor Rabey]

Everyone knows MSP does this but no one cares, because it doesn't have any
consequences except the one you mention.

Two answers:
1) you can answer with "we don't know but it doesn't matter". It's an
option, if not the prefered one. There are bound to more important priorites
or bigger puzzles to attend to. Is it essential to appear to know
everything? Will not knowing one thing undermine your credibility that much?

2) you can force the order you want. copy the predecessors to the clipboard,
delete them them from MSP, paste them into WORD or any text editor,
re-arrange them, paste them back into MSP. It's not smart enough to know you
tricked it. Why it does it, how it does it, etc doesn't matter. That's
knowledge I don't need.

Because, when my customer asked the question, I can't answer with "why do
you
care" - there has to be a logical reason behind MS Project rearranging the
predecessors - It's not like it rearranges them in any type of order. Why
does it not leave them in the order that I select?

--
Cid Bell

I noticed that as I add multiple predecessors to a task, in the order I
want,
MS Project will rearrange them in a different order, example: I added
the
following predecessors to task 70, [47,59,66,69]. MS Project will re
sort
the numbers as [47,69,66,59]. What feature in MS Project causes this
action?
and why does it renumber?

Thanks for your help.

Not sure what basis Project sorts them on. Why do you care? The final
effect is the same.

 

[Catfish Hunter]

Projects renumbers task as you insert new ones. You can't change that, it
sucks. There is a Unique ID number that never changes. Also Unique Pred/Succ.
I suggest you not use ID number. Good Luck!

Because, when my customer asked the question, I can't answer with "why do you
care" - there has to be a logical reason behind MS Project rearranging the
predecessors - It's not like it rearranges them in any type of order. Why
does it not leave them in the order that I select?

--
Cid Bell

I noticed that as I add multiple predecessors to a task, in the order I want,
MS Project will rearrange them in a different order, example: I added the
following predecessors to task 70, [47,59,66,69]. MS Project will re sort
the numbers as [47,69,66,59]. What feature in MS Project causes this action?
and why does it renumber?

Thanks for your help.

Not sure what basis Project sorts them on. Why do you care? The final
effect is the same.

 

[John]

Because, when my customer asked the question, I can't answer with "why do you
care" - there has to be a logical reason behind MS Project rearranging the
predecessors - It's not like it rearranges them in any type of order. Why
does it not leave them in the order that I select?

Cid,
I guess neither guy adequately answered your question and the bottom
line is, I'm not sure anybody, other than the Project developers, really
know. It just hasn't been an important issue.

I agree you probably don't want to say "why do you care?" to a customer
and there most definitely is a logical reason for the predecessor
sequence. However, to answer the question it will probably take some
testing and research and then the question becomes, does the re-sort
cause some kind of problem or are you just seeking greater knowledge? If
it is causing some kind of problem, let's address that. If not, how much
effort are you willing to spend just to get the answer.

Just for reference, I personally have encountered multiple instances of
"why is it doing that?", particularly when working with VBA. I spend
some time trying to figure it out and even consulting with my fellow
MVPs but most of the time, I can't figure it out and nobody knows why
so-and-so is happening. I don't dwell on it, I move on or find a way
around it.

As a final thought to the re-sort of predecessors, you might want to
look at the Unique ID (similar to what catfish eluded to). My guess is
that Project re-sorts the predecessor list based on the order in which
the tasks were added to the plan.....but that's just a guess.

John
Project MVP

 

[davegb]

Projects renumbers task as you insert new ones. You can't change that, it
sucks. There is a Unique ID number that never changes. Also Unique Pred/Succ.
I suggest you not use ID number. Good Luck!

Unfortunately, that won't help with determining the order in which the
Predecessors and Successors appear in the list.

Of course, when a customer asks, that changes everything! The question
now becomes, "How much are you willing to spend for me to find out?"
When they realize they're spending money just to asuage their
curiosity, they usually change their minds.

--
Cid Bell

Cid Bell wrote:
I noticed that as I add multiple predecessors to a task, in the order I want,
MS Project will rearrange them in a different order, example: I added the
following predecessors to task 70, [47,59,66,69]. MS Project will re sort
the numbers as [47,69,66,59]. What feature in MS Project causes this action?
and why does it renumber?

Thanks for your help.
--
Cid Bell

Not sure what basis Project sorts them on. Why do you care? The final
effect is the same.

 

[Catfish Hunter]

You could buy Primavera. It keeps everything in numerical order exactly like
you described. It does not re-number task ID's. It does cost considerably
more but is capable of doing more.
It sounds like (and I often get clients like this) you have a client who is
being a pain in the butt. They find a scab and pick it to death.

Projects renumbers task as you insert new ones. You can't change that, it
sucks. There is a Unique ID number that never changes. Also Unique Pred/Succ.
I suggest you not use ID number. Good Luck!

Unfortunately, that won't help with determining the order in which the
Predecessors and Successors appear in the list.

Of course, when a customer asks, that changes everything! The question
now becomes, "How much are you willing to spend for me to find out?"
When they realize they're spending money just to asuage their
curiosity, they usually change their minds.

--
Cid Bell


:


Cid Bell wrote:
I noticed that as I add multiple predecessors to a task, in the order I want,
MS Project will rearrange them in a different order, example: I added the
following predecessors to task 70, [47,59,66,69]. MS Project will re sort
the numbers as [47,69,66,59]. What feature in MS Project causes this action?
and why does it renumber?

Thanks for your help.
--
Cid Bell

Not sure what basis Project sorts them on. Why do you care? The final
effect is the same.

 

[Gérard Ducouret]

Hi all,

Project Standard 2003 is doing the same phenomenon on the resources names.
In fact, if you unassign a resource which was the first one, then reassign
this resource, it'll appear at the first rank. One of my customer needed to
assign 1 trailer, 1 semi trailer and 1 container on each task. Then he
needed to sort on the trailer only. If he missed the first assignment, the
sort could not work. I had to do that with a VBA procedure.

Gérard Ducouret

 

[Wiley]

Project displays the Predecessors in the order they were entered. In your
example, you added the Task 70 predecesoors in the following order: 47 then,
59 then, 66 then, 69. If you attempt to reorder by editing the cell, it will
not change. To change the order, you must clear the cell, click out of it,
and then re-enter the predecessors in the order you wish.

As to why it does this, my guess is DB normalization. The 1st predecessor
for Task 70 get assigned a ((unique) Predecessor ID of 1 in a predecessor
table. Then project queries and concatenates all predecessors for Task 70,
dispaying their values as it finds them. I don't knwo this for a fact, but
it is a logical explanation.

Then make sure your customer knows how much time and money he/she just
wasted to answer such an inconsequential question!

HPH

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

Did a quick and dirty experiment. It appears that it sorts the predecessor
list based on the unique id of the predecessor tasks. A task has two ID
numbers - the plain "ID Number" and the "Unique ID Number." The ID number
is what you normally see displayed and is the order the tasks appear
top-to-bottom in the Gantt tables. If you sort or move tasks in the list,
the ID number normally changes. The unique ID number is an incrementing
sequence number that is assigned as tasks are created and then remains
constant regardless of where tasks are moved. If I have 4 tasks in order
1-2-3-4 entered one after the other their Unique IDs are also 1-2-3-4. CID
= current ID, UID = unique ID
CID UID Name
1 1 One
2 2 Two
3 3 Three
4 4 Four

As I edit now in each step the IDs renumber but the UIDs do not. Now I
insert a task between 2 and 3. The ID sequence will be 1-2-3-4-5 but the
Unique ID sequence will be 1-2-5-3-4. Original tasks 3 and 4 have been
renumbered to ID 4 and 5
CID UID Name
1 1 One
2 2 Two
3 5 Five
4 3 Three
5 4 Four

If I now click and drag to move the first task to the bottom of the list,
the ID sequence will still be 1-2-3-4-5 because it again renumbers from top
to bottom but the Unique ID do not renumber and their resulting sequence
will be 2-5-3-4-1.
CID UID Name
1 2 Two
2 5 Five
3 3 Three
4 4 Four
5 1 One

If you add a column to the Gantt chart table for the Predecessor Unique ID
you'll see it is always sorted in ascending order. The plain Predecessor
column lists the same tasks in the same order as their Unique IDs but
displays their current ID number no matter what the ID number is. So if we
had one more task (#6) at the bottom of the list described above and linked
all 5 of those tasks to it, at the final step we'd see it's predecessor
unique field would sort to 1-2-3-4-5 and its predecessor field show the list
in order of 5-1-3-4-2.
CID UID Name PUID PID
1 2 Two
2 5 Five
3 3 Three
4 4 Four
5 1 One
6 6 Six 1,2,3,4,5 5,1,3,4,2

because when you sort items 1 thru 5 in the list in the order of their UID
you get...
UID CID
1 5
2 1
3 3
4 4
5 2

Hope this helps

--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

I noticed that as I add multiple predecessors to a task, in the order I
want,
MS Project will rearrange them in a different order, example: I added the
following predecessors to task 70, [47,59,66,69]. MS Project will re sort
the numbers as [47,69,66,59]. What feature in MS Project causes this
action?
and why does it renumber?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Cid Bell]

Thanks Steve, I appreciate the time you took to work it out - one more
question answered on the idiosyncrasies of MS Project.

--
Cid Bell

Did a quick and dirty experiment. It appears that it sorts the predecessor
list based on the unique id of the predecessor tasks. A task has two ID
numbers - the plain "ID Number" and the "Unique ID Number." The ID number
is what you normally see displayed and is the order the tasks appear
top-to-bottom in the Gantt tables. If you sort or move tasks in the list,
the ID number normally changes. The unique ID number is an incrementing
sequence number that is assigned as tasks are created and then remains
constant regardless of where tasks are moved. If I have 4 tasks in order
1-2-3-4 entered one after the other their Unique IDs are also 1-2-3-4. CID
= current ID, UID = unique ID
CID UID Name
1 1 One
2 2 Two
3 3 Three
4 4 Four

As I edit now in each step the IDs renumber but the UIDs do not. Now I
insert a task between 2 and 3. The ID sequence will be 1-2-3-4-5 but the
Unique ID sequence will be 1-2-5-3-4. Original tasks 3 and 4 have been
renumbered to ID 4 and 5
CID UID Name
1 1 One
2 2 Two
3 5 Five
4 3 Three
5 4 Four

If I now click and drag to move the first task to the bottom of the list,
the ID sequence will still be 1-2-3-4-5 because it again renumbers from top
to bottom but the Unique ID do not renumber and their resulting sequence
will be 2-5-3-4-1.
CID UID Name
1 2 Two
2 5 Five
3 3 Three
4 4 Four
5 1 One

If you add a column to the Gantt chart table for the Predecessor Unique ID
you'll see it is always sorted in ascending order. The plain Predecessor
column lists the same tasks in the same order as their Unique IDs but
displays their current ID number no matter what the ID number is. So if we
had one more task (#6) at the bottom of the list described above and linked
all 5 of those tasks to it, at the final step we'd see it's predecessor
unique field would sort to 1-2-3-4-5 and its predecessor field show the list
in order of 5-1-3-4-2.
CID UID Name PUID PID
1 2 Two
2 5 Five
3 3 Three
4 4 Four
5 1 One
6 6 Six 1,2,3,4,5 5,1,3,4,2

because when you sort items 1 thru 5 in the list in the order of their UID
you get...
UID CID
1 5
2 1
3 3
4 4
5 2

Hope this helps

--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

I noticed that as I add multiple predecessors to a task, in the order I
want,
MS Project will rearrange them in a different order, example: I added the
following predecessors to task 70, [47,59,66,69]. MS Project will re sort
the numbers as [47,69,66,59]. What feature in MS Project causes this
action?
and why does it renumber?

Thanks for your help.