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BlissL's avatar
BlissL
Brass Contributor
May 09, 2022

Consolidating multiple MS Project 'Template' sheets to create one project

Hi, 

 

I'm wondering if I can copy/paste existing 'template' project sheets and collate them together to create multiple different projects - 

 

For context, this is for new product development where I have project sheets for Scoping, Development, Regulatory and Production Execution, except the Development stage for different projects are likely to follow three different process flows. Some projects also do not require regulatory approval either. 

 

I'm wondering if I can use these templates/different process flows to create the a full project and still carry over the duration for each task and predecessors (the latter being more important). 

 

I don't want to insert the template sheets as sub projects because there will be multiple unique product projects live at the same time. 

 

Is there an easy fix to this? Currently thinking the only way it'll work is to save the template project as a new file and insert as subproject but this drastically increases the number of files required

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  • John-project's avatar
    John-project
    May 09, 2022
    BlissL,
    When you say, "copy/paste existing template project sheets", does that mean you only want selected tasks from each template or are you really referring to a whole Project template file as a "sheet"?

    Are the process flows between templates already linked (i.e. external predecessors/successors)? If not then you can create a new product development file using copy/paste but there is a better way. Instead of using the default option for a dynamic master, when selecting the template files from the file list in the Insert Project window, uncheck the "Link to project" option. That will create a separate static master that will copy all the data from each template file into a new file. It will not be linked in any way with the original templates and you will have to create the task dependencies between process flows.

    Hope this helps.
    John
  • John-project's avatar
    John-project
    Silver Contributor
    May 09, 2022
    BlissL,
    When you say, "copy/paste existing template project sheets", does that mean you only want selected tasks from each template or are you really referring to a whole Project template file as a "sheet"?

    Are the process flows between templates already linked (i.e. external predecessors/successors)? If not then you can create a new product development file using copy/paste but there is a better way. Instead of using the default option for a dynamic master, when selecting the template files from the file list in the Insert Project window, uncheck the "Link to project" option. That will create a separate static master that will copy all the data from each template file into a new file. It will not be linked in any way with the original templates and you will have to create the task dependencies between process flows.

    Hope this helps.
    John

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