Project date update issue

Question

I am having a couple of issues with Project updating the task dates.  First some of the tasks got changed from Auto Schedule to Manually schedule and If I change it to auto schedule, it changes the duration for the task to 0 and if I change the duration back it modifies the task to Manual schedule. Also, dates for tasks that are auto schedule are not updating when dates for predecessors are changed until I delete the predecessor and enter the predecessor back in.  also, roll up tasks are not updating based on the tasks that are under the roll up task.

Answer 1

The message about "illogical" relationships may be about circular relationships that are most frequently caused by having links on summary tasks (summary to summary) and then adding subtasks and attempting to link them.

Try removing links on the summary tasks (summary to summary).  If that doesn't work, it might be worth saving a copy of the file as XML and then re-importing the XML file into a new project.  Test and see if that is better.

Answer 2

Thanks. Agree with your comment on using manual schedule tasks.  I am not sure how these tasks became manual because my settings is for all new tasks to be auto schedule.

Also verified that I was not trying to update a the duration of a summary tasks.  The tasks that are having this issue are all sub tasks.  BTW, it is not all of the tasks but 6 - 12 of my 1500 plus tasks in the plan.

Allot of weird things going on in this plan like this and how these tasks are now manual given my settings in project.  I am also getting a error message when trying to indent or out dent tasks that doing this would cause illogical relationships with the task.  What is really weird is I get this for a new task that has not predecessor or successor identified yet.

Answer 3

Firstly, try never ever using manual tasks. Its simpler and required for many important results such as critical path calculation etc.

Second I suspect you are trying to change the duration of a summary task for it to change to a manual task. You need to change the duration(s) of the subtask(s) instead.