Populating text in subtasks from a summary task

[fudgieknuckles]

Is there a clever way to populate a custom text field subtasks with the data
contained in the text field's summary task?

We assign our projects by engineer. I have several projects consolidated in
a master plan. I created a custom text field in the master plan to indicate
the engineer assigned to each project and have filled in each project's
summary task line with the name of the assigned engineer. I'm starting to
believe that the only way to run a combination filter with one of the filters
set for engineer (for example filtering by engineer and percent complete less
than 100%), I'm going to need to fill in the engineer's name for all
subtasks. But it is a hassle to remember to do this when adding or deleting
tasks. I was thinking there might be a way to populate the subtasks in the
custom text field with the text contained in the summary task.

 

[JackD]

Yes, there is a simple way to do this using a VBA macro. If for example you
used the text5 field for the engineer name you would use this:

Sub EngineerName()
For Each Task In ActiveProject.Tasks
If Not Task Is Nothing Then
If Not Task.Summary Then
Task.Text5 = Task.OutlineParent.Text5
End If
End If
Next Task
End Sub


I have another example here:
http://masamiki.com/project/macros.htm
Look at the "Add Parent Task Name" Macro. which is slightly more
complicated, but which gives a string made up from all the parent tasks.

There is no way to do this using a custom field formula. They can not
reference information from other tasks.