×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Allow NS Start/Finish date and Suppress Gantt Graphics

Allow NS Start/Finish date and Suppress Gantt Graphics

Allow NS Start/Finish date and Suppress Gantt Graphics

(OP)
QUESTION:
MS Project 2002

Problem: Gantt Chart always shows a task graphically, even if the task doesn't yet have a valid Start/Finish date. Argh. I can't override the default Start/Finish date with "NA," which I hoped would suppress the Gantt graphic as well as show that the task doesn't yet have a valid date. This means that I have erroneous Gantt graphics and erroneous dates in my MS Project!

Situation: I have a set of 20 tasks/milestones that are considered standard to a process. Therefore, I do NOT want to delete any of these tasks, even if this project team chooses to ignore a given (standard) task or chooses to not assign a start and finish date yet.

Reasoning:
1. I'd like to communicate to the project team that a certain task, although usually standard, is NA (not applicable) for this project. I'd like it to be clear that a task was not "left out," instead, it was "intentionally left blank." Maybe I want to use the Note column to explain why the date is "NA."
2. I'd like the Gantt chart to be blank for that task, because it is only a placeholder for a normal process. 3. I certainly DON'T want the Start/Finish columns to show a bogus, default date! (MS Project defaults to the Project Start Date.

WORKAROUNDS? Solution?

Thanks in advance!

RE: Allow NS Start/Finish date and Suppress Gantt Graphics

(OP)
User can supress the task from the Gantt Chart by double-clicking on the task and checking "Hide task bar"

But now how to get rid of that date from the Start/Finish columns?

RE: Allow NS Start/Finish date and Suppress Gantt Graphics

(OP)
HOWEVER, "Hide task bar" does NOT keep the date information from impacting the rollup task graphic.

For example, If there is a parent task called, "RESEARCH" and there are two subtasks, "TYPE A" and "TYPE B"

     and this project isn't going to use TYPE B, so we "Hide task bar"

     the problem is that the TYPE B task STILL drives the summary task bar, rendering it useless unless the user puts in a bogus date that falls within the other start and stop dates. obviously not a good solution!

RE: Allow NS Start/Finish date and Suppress Gantt Graphics

Change the font of the date to something other than a number format.  Maybe use a wingding font.  Than you really cannot read the date but you can still see the activity description.  It would look a little funny but would work for what your doing.

RE: Allow NS Start/Finish date and Suppress Gantt Graphics

Why couldn't you zero out the duration of the deleted task?

TTFN

RE: Allow NS Start/Finish date and Suppress Gantt Graphics

If you make the task 0d duration it becomes a milestone, make it dependent upon the other task, therefore it will not effect the timescales. As you siad before you can then "Hide task bar" this will then not effect the Summary Task bar. To hide the text in the Start and Finish columns, or any other columns for that matter, format them so that there are white text, on a white background they will not show.

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources