Using "constants" in MS Project

[nzeches]

Hello folks

I have a project with tenths of items to ship to a site before work
can start.
I currently maintain a list of milestones with suppliers deliveries
(EXW), however I have to add to the delivery date the time for
shipment, which is a constant for my project.

There are several ways to do it, eg for 35 days of transport:
- either I add one 35 days "transport" task (although this is not a
task of my project) as a successor to each delivery milestone (~70
tasks) with a successor milestone "item X available on site"
- or I create a successor milestone to each delivery with a "FS
+35days" link for the final delivery to site

Let us consider that transport is now 55days ; I have to update
manually ~70 tasks scattered across my 500+ ytasks project to reflect
the change (hoping not to miss one).
How could I create a "constant" called "shipment time" which I could
use in each task duration or link, that I could easily change once and
for all ?

Thanks in advance for your advice

 

[John]

Hello folks

I have a project with tenths of items to ship to a site before work
can start.
I currently maintain a list of milestones with suppliers deliveries
(EXW), however I have to add to the delivery date the time for
shipment, which is a constant for my project.

There are several ways to do it, eg for 35 days of transport:
- either I add one 35 days "transport" task (although this is not a
task of my project) as a successor to each delivery milestone (~70
tasks) with a successor milestone "item X available on site"
- or I create a successor milestone to each delivery with a "FS
+35days" link for the final delivery to site

Let us consider that transport is now 55days ; I have to update
manually ~70 tasks scattered across my 500+ ytasks project to reflect
the change (hoping not to miss one).
How could I create a "constant" called "shipment time" which I could
use in each task duration or link, that I could easily change once and
for all ?

Thanks in advance for your advice

NZ,
The best way to do this is with VBA - that's really the only way (I can
think of) to create the "constant" you desire.

Another approach that doesn't require VBA would be to create a filter
that looks for "35d" in the Predecessor field or "transport" in the Task
Name field, depending on which transport time approach you choose.
Either filter will single out just those tasks with the transport time.
It will be a little more tedious to update all the predecessor values,
but at least they are all together. If the transport is a separate task
for each deliverable, it is very easy to change the Duration field using
fill down.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

 

[Dean C]

The problem you have with using a constant that may change, is the ability to
have pre-change values stay at 35 days while the post-change values switch to
55 days. If the duration of a completed task is changed, the actual finish
date will change.

I suggest adding your "transport" tasks with the 35 day duration. When the
shipping time switches to 55 days, filter for incomplete transport tasks,
select the duration column, type 55 {Enter} then Ctrl-D (fill down) .