Negative slack without constraints

[pearl]

Hello!

Sitting with a large project at our customer plant.
They are using a MS Project Server Application 2003.
We have a main project with 6 subprojects and a lot of connections.

We have a lot of negative slack in our project and have tried to find
out what is stopping.

We made a macro that follows the negative slack forward through the
subprojects and stops showing the whole path. We found no constraints
and no finished marked tasks.

Checking the last connected task in each path, we found that one of
its successors were some how damaged.
It has no constraint at all, we can´t se anything strange with it, but
it doesn´t move!
Has anyone else experienced this kind of problem?
We think that som of these tasks are copied from an old project 2000-
file.

Now I am trying to find these damaged tasks more automatically to be
able to make a standard check every week.
But then I need to catch the Schedulemessages and I can´t see how to.
Can anyone help me?

Greatful for support!

 

[Gérard Ducouret]

Hello Pearl,

You can display the scheduling messages by: Tools / Options / Schedule :
Show Scheduling messages.
About these "damaged tasks", can you check if they don't have an Actual
Start date (without any percent complete)?
Hope this helps,

Gérarrd Ducouret


"pearl" <[email protected]> a écrit dans le message de (e-mail address removed)...
Hello!

Sitting with a large project at our customer plant.
They are using a MS Project Server Application 2003.
We have a main project with 6 subprojects and a lot of connections.

We have a lot of negative slack in our project and have tried to find
out what is stopping.

We made a macro that follows the negative slack forward through the
subprojects and stops showing the whole path. We found no constraints
and no finished marked tasks.

Checking the last connected task in each path, we found that one of
its successors were some how damaged.
It has no constraint at all, we can´t se anything strange with it, but
it doesn´t move!
Has anyone else experienced this kind of problem?
We think that som of these tasks are copied from an old project 2000-
file.

Now I am trying to find these damaged tasks more automatically to be
able to make a standard check every week.
But then I need to catch the Schedulemessages and I can´t see how to.
Can anyone help me?

Greatful for support!

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Pearl --

In addition to Gerard's helpful comments, negative Slack is not only caused
by missed Constraint date. It can also be caused by missed Deadline dates.
If you open the master project and expand all six subprojects, you might try
applying the Tasks with Deadlines filter to see if any of your tasks have
missed Deadline dates. Just a thought. Hope this helps.




Hello!

Sitting with a large project at our customer plant.
They are using a MS Project Server Application 2003.
We have a main project with 6 subprojects and a lot of connections.

We have a lot of negative slack in our project and have tried to find
out what is stopping.

We made a macro that follows the negative slack forward through the
subprojects and stops showing the whole path. We found no constraints
and no finished marked tasks.

Checking the last connected task in each path, we found that one of
its successors were some how damaged.
It has no constraint at all, we can´t se anything strange with it, but
it doesn´t move!
Has anyone else experienced this kind of problem?
We think that som of these tasks are copied from an old project 2000-
file.

Now I am trying to find these damaged tasks more automatically to be
able to make a standard check every week.
But then I need to catch the Schedulemessages and I can´t see how to.
Can anyone help me?

Greatful for support!

 

[pearl]

Hello Pearl,

You can display the scheduling messages by: Tools / Options / Schedule :
Show Scheduling messages.
About these "damaged tasks", can you check if they don't have an Actual
Start date (without any percent complete)?
Hope this helps,

Gérarrd Ducouret

"pearl" <[email protected]> a écrit dans le message de (e-mail address removed)...

Thanks Gérrard!

I have found al least 12 tasks with a given actual startdate and with
percent complete work 0%. After removing the dates in field Actual
Startdate, all my negative slack is gone!
Super! I am also happy that it is something that is easy to check
with a macro.

Once again thank you!

Pearl

 

[Gérard Ducouret]

Your are welcome Pearl
Thanks for the feedback

Gérard Ducouret

"pearl" <[email protected]> a écrit dans le message de (e-mail address removed)...

Hello Pearl,

You can display the scheduling messages by: Tools / Options / Schedule :
Show Scheduling messages.
About these "damaged tasks", can you check if they don't have an Actual
Start date (without any percent complete)?
Hope this helps,

Gérarrd Ducouret

"pearl" <[email protected]> a écrit dans le message de (e-mail address removed)...

Thanks Gérrard!

I have found al least 12 tasks with a given actual startdate and with
percent complete work 0%. After removing the dates in field Actual
Startdate, all my negative slack is gone!
Super! I am also happy that it is something that is easy to check
with a macro.

Once again thank you!

Pearl