Forum Discussion
automatic determination of the duration of a task
Dear Community,
I can't find a solution for these two challenges in MS Project, even if I know to had already solved it once...
I'd like to link tasks with each other multiple times, so that the duration of the "driven" task is determined automatically.
2 use cases:
1. floating task copy
Task A is planned for 4 weeks duration. Task B is linked to task A (SS and FF), so that the duration (including start/end dates) of task B is changing automatically, if the duration of task A is changing.
This results into error messages, since a task can be linked to another task only once.
2. automatic dtermination of duration
Task A and Task B are linked to each other (FS). Task C is linked to Task A (SS) and to Task B (FF). Duration shall be determined from duration aof Task A + Task B. This works, but the duration of Task C is not calculated automatically (see sketch).
Any idea how to solve this?
Best Regards,
Dirk
Merlin2000,
On a quick read it sounds like you are trying to do a hammock task, particularly since you said you "solved it once". See this link for a detailed explanation on how to set it up.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200723171939/https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/32040.ms-project-hammock-tasks.aspx
John
6 Replies
Merlin2000,
On a quick read it sounds like you are trying to do a hammock task, particularly since you said you "solved it once". See this link for a detailed explanation on how to set it up.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200723171939/https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/32040.ms-project-hammock-tasks.aspx
John
Dear John,
Thank you for jogging my brain again. This is exactly the path I had already taken once before.Regards, Dirk
Dirk,
You're welcome and thanks for the feedback.
John
Hi Dirk
You can try the following:
Break Task C into two milestones, Start and Finish, and link them as shown in the image.
If you want to display Summary Task C as a normal task: hide the subtasks, remove the bold from its text row, and change the Gantt bar style by double-clicking on it and applying the formatting in the attached image.
I hope this helps.
IgnacioIgnacio,
That's an interesting approach to emulating a hammock task. A little "back door" but it has the advantage of avoiding paste links.
John
Hi John
For some time now, special pastes with links (dynamic links) have been taking a long time to update (several seconds), so I try to avoid it.
Regards
Ignacio
