Jun 07 2022 09:05 AM
Is a view/report similar to this possible in MS Project? our plant is used to seeing an Excel spreadsheet like this, which is very efficient. Basically, it's a Gantt chart where each cell is a task, and each row is a rolled-up summary, but you can still see the labels for each sub-task. MS Project spreads everything out so much, you can't really get very much detail on one sheet. Thanks!
Jun 07 2022 12:31 PM
Jun 07 2022 12:49 PM
Jun 07 2022 01:55 PM
@Dale_HowardMVP Thanks for the input. We've been using this spreadsheet for a while, and we have developed a series of macros to try to make it behave like scheduling software. Each of these products needs to be drawn, produced, and installed, and now 3 separate departments are faced with maintaining 3 separate schedules. I was kind of hoping that Project would be an upgrade since that's what it was designed to do.
Jun 07 2022 02:30 PM
Hey @ProjectFuture ,
As a guess, @Dale_HowardMVP probably didn't suggest Power BI for one of the following reasons:
Or maybe there was another reason..
Hope that helps
Paul
Jun 07 2022 02:57 PM
Jun 07 2022 04:06 PM
Jun 08 2022 05:50 AM - edited Jun 08 2022 05:52 AM
Thanks, everyone. I am using Project Professional Desktop. Our macros just shift rows left and right and update daily production by moving the dates to make it behave like a Gantt chart. It's really just like I described it. If you think in MS Project terms, it's just individual tasks rolled up into a summary task, but you can still see the individual task labels in one row. In MS Project, each subtask takes up an entire row, leaving a lot of empty space in the Gantt chart. I looked into Power BI, and that's a lot of money to spend for a report for an already powerful and expensive tool (Project). Before I spend that kind of money, I'll try creating macros in Project, or export my Data to Excel. I've almost been able to create this view in Primavera SureTrack Software a long time ago, but it was still very inefficient with space. I can't be the only person who would benefit from a production schedule like this that eliminates all of the unnecessary graphics and white space that are shown in a typical Gantt chart.
Jun 08 2022 06:01 AM
If you zoom out, and squint, you can see it's just a Gantt chart.
Jun 08 2022 07:57 AM
It seems like one of your main focus items is to show task Gantt bars at summary level and that is indeed possible with Project. Take this example:
When the summary is collapsed, this is what appears.
Does that help? If so, what else do you need from Project? Keep in mind you won't get all the flexibility of the open format offered by Excel but you will get the benefits of an app that's dedicated to scheduling. And as you note, exporting Project to Excel for custom reporting is readily done with VBA.
John
Jun 08 2022 08:30 AM
@John-project You are so close!! Now I just need labels, as shown below. I'm trying to see if I can replicate this. (this is a photoshopped screen grab of your picture)
Jun 08 2022 08:52 AM
Well that's easy enough, it's just a matter of setting up the format of the Bar Styles.
John
Jun 08 2022 08:58 AM
Jun 08 2022 12:15 PM
SolutionJun 08 2022 12:34 PM
@John-project Brilliant!! that did it! So that's what I was missing was that the summary bar was "hiding" the subtask labels. A little formatting will make this look exactly the way I want.
Jun 08 2022 01:58 PM
Jun 08 2022 12:15 PM
Solution