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how can I auto update milestones with predecessor completions from other tasks

Anonymous
2011-10-20T16:39:48+00:00

I have a Home Construction calendar.

there are tasks that repeat for each room, like paint, tile, etc.

I currently have the rooms as the summary task  with all the tasks that need to complete that room

I can see percent complete on the room at the summry level.

I have a milestone summary that has all the milestones of the repeating operations. this is so I can tell how far along Paint is or Tile across the entire project..

I want to have the Milestone auto update as they are marked complete in the room summary area,  the milestone  will then show a percent complete of all the tasks assigned to that milestone.

so if there were 30 paint room tasks assigned to "paint complete"  task milestone, when 15 were marked completed the milestone would show 50% done.

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Anonymous
2011-10-24T15:09:24+00:00

I agree with John, milestones are the changing of a condition and are one instant in time.  I think there may be another way to accomplish what you want.

Using a spare text field such as Text1, you can label each task as to which "effort type" it belongs to such as Carpentry, Painting, Electrical.  You can then use the custom grouping features (In 2010 that is on the View Tab, in the Data group.... look for "Group By..."

You can Group By the Text1 column and then you will change your display from grouped by "Room" to grouped by "Effort Type".  You can undo this arrangement by selecting Group By ... no group.

What happens is you will now have "summary tasks" that are for Painting, Electrical, etc.  The %Complete should roll up correctly weighted for the tasks beneath it.  If it does not, I use this trick:  In a spare number field (Number1) set a formula in that field as =[Percent Complete] and then it should roll up fine.

Let us know if that helps.

Jim

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John Project 49,705 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
2011-10-20T16:51:43+00:00

Ken,

Well you might be able to do it using Paste Links, depending on your hierarchal structure,  but I don't recommend it. The use of paste links quite often leads to file corruption, and that's a problem you don't need.

The other option is though a VBA macro. You would update the individual task milestones and then run the macro to calculate the value for the project summary milestone, which by the way would need to be an extra field (e.g. Text1), because the summary level values are calculated by Project and cannot generally be manually changed by the user.

I understand what you are trying to do but just for reference, a true milestone is either done or not done, there is no partial complete on a milestone. I suggest you change the summary "milestone" to a regular task since it is in fact a series of steps (i.e. milestones).

Hope this helps.

John

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  1. John Project 49,705 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2011-10-27T17:30:54+00:00

    Ken,

    You're welcome and thanks for the feedback.

    With regard to your last question. You will note that when using the grouping function the "summary lines" are not real tasks (they have no ID). They are strictly a view "feature" for grouping. That being the case you cannot sort or filter on group summary lines. How about a simple sort by Text6 and then by finish date. Then you could filter for Text6 > a. That should give you what you want but you won't have the summed up completion data.

    John

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  2. Anonymous
    2011-10-27T16:53:23+00:00

    Thank you John and Jim,

    Here is what I believe I heard, and acted on.

    I removed the "milestones"  and tasks,

    Then I added a text field(6)  and called it rolled up.

    I added the text that I wanted to show up when rolled up "summary task" at all the predessors that were connected to my old Milestone items.

    I then set up a new group called Roll up and pointed it to Text field (6) with my 'roll up" status

    When I click on that group I get all the items I want as a summry task with all the tasks showing under it. : ) works great.

    Im still playing with it and can see all types of groups I would like to make! 

    One thing that I could not seem to get to work and may not in this view was to colapse all groups into just thier summry task and then sort by finish date. I can sort the tasks within the group summary tasks but the groups would not move.

    Thank you both this was extremely helpful

    Ken

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