Allow NS Start/Finish date and Suppress Gantt Graphics

[phantom2120]

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!

 

[phantom2120]

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?

 

[phantom2120]

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!

 

[JPatten]

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.

 

[IRstuff]

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

TTFN

 

[WillRussell]

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.