Summary Bar needs to appear shorter!

[Steve Scott]

I have eg 5 milestones which rollup to a normal summary bar. The 5th
milestone date obviously determines the Summary Bar's finish date. I would
like to be able to "shorten" the length of the summary bar so that its finish
date is equal to the date of the 4th milestone which is earlier than the 5th.
Can this be done automatically from the milestone row itself or do I have to
add in a custom Finish date at the Summary level and add in the date manually
and then modify the bar style accordingly?

Thanks in advance.

 

[JulieS]

Hi Steve,

The duration of a summary task is calculated by Project. If the 5
milestones are subtasks of the summary, then there isn't a method to
have the summary bar ignore the 5th milestone. You could do as you
suggest, enter a Finish1 date and then can copy & Paste Link the
finish date of Milestone 4 to the Finish1 field for the summary
task. Then create a new bar style to show the summary task drawing
from Start to Finish1.

The calculated duration will still be the total duration through
Milestone 5 but the bar will draw through Milestone 4. I imagine
many will find that confusing -- but it does accomplish what you
asked for

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie
Project MVP

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for the FAQs and additional
information about Microsoft Project

 

[Steve Scott]

thanks Julie

Hi Steve,

The duration of a summary task is calculated by Project. If the 5
milestones are subtasks of the summary, then there isn't a method to
have the summary bar ignore the 5th milestone. You could do as you
suggest, enter a Finish1 date and then can copy & Paste Link the
finish date of Milestone 4 to the Finish1 field for the summary
task. Then create a new bar style to show the summary task drawing
from Start to Finish1.

The calculated duration will still be the total duration through
Milestone 5 but the bar will draw through Milestone 4. I imagine
many will find that confusing -- but it does accomplish what you
asked for

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie
Project MVP

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for the FAQs and additional
information about Microsoft Project

 

[JulieS]

You're welcome Steve and thanks for the feedback.

Julie