As a follow-on to my Previous Constraint Entry, I’ve “mapped” out the Project Pro Constraints so you can see where do they come from and where do they go (cotton eyed joe!?). I’ve created two matrices with different levels of detail, but I’ll explain each one first, then post the matrices at the end of … Continue reading
“Crazy” Assignment Units & 0 Duration Tasks with Work
Raise your hand if you’ve ever seen one of these scenarios: A task with Work, but 0 days duration: Seemingly crazy and nonsensical Assignment Units to the tune of hundreds of thousands of percent: Why is this happening to me? Both scenarios are initially caused by the following: Adding a resource at 0% units to … Continue reading
Holy Split, Batman!
What, exactly, in MS Project terms, is a split? From a practical perspective, it’s when the work on a task has one or more breaks in the middle. From a technical perspective, a potentially problematic split h happens when there is already some amount of actual progress reported on the task and the remaining work … Continue reading
Why the PWA Timesheet.aspx page is EVIL (and a quick fix!)
Seriously, never give that timesheet.aspx link to your team members. It’s evil. When you click on this link (it’s even on the Quick Launch Bar) the system creates a timesheet for the current week by default. So if your staff, like ours, enters time on Mondays, that means they always have to hit the “Previous” … Continue reading
Rebuilding the Enterprise Global – Peacefully & Without Protest!
Well, Microsoft must have grown some “listening ears”, because they have actually fixed something. Sarcastic blogger is being sarcastic… but really, I’m very happy with the new script for rebuilding your global. It used to be like this… You will still want to work with MS directly if you find yourself in this predicament, but … Continue reading
Rebuild a Project Schedule – and Keep Your Baselines!
We have been dealing with a very corrupted schedule that just needs to be burned with fire and rebuilt completely. Seriously, that thing is possessed at this point. The big concern with copying the data into a clean blank project was the baselines – we don’t want to lose those! So here’s a few pointers … Continue reading
Showing Decimals in Excel or Even a Pivot Table – Only if the Number is Less Than 1
I don’t know about you (I always say that, but it’s true! I don’t know about anybody!) but I hate the default in Excel for showing one decimal place. There should really be a built-in format which knows how to behave itself! There’s always 0.##, but that adds the stupid trailing decimal, which is just … Continue reading
How about that Conditional Formatting in Pivot Tables?
Did you know that you can associate Conditional Formatting to a Pivot Table? Microsoft has tried to explain this too, but they don’t go into much detail about formulas, and they go into too much detail about Conditional Formatting in general, so it’s hard to focus on what you really need to know. Plus, some … Continue reading
Task Constraints – Who, What, When, Why?
You may find yourself with a large constraint… And you may say to yourself… well, how did that get here? Constraints – what are they, how do they work, and where do they come from? If you have a habit of clicking on the Start or Finish date and using the calendar date picker to … Continue reading
Assignment Delays – Pitfalls and Tricks
Where does it come from, Assignment Delay? Contouring Schedule owner zeroing out the work in the start of the task in the grid of a Task or Resource Usage view. Task Updates/Timesheets Resources putting work in a time frame after the start (creating an “actual start” date) or changing the start date. What does it … Continue reading
project server pants 