Microsoft Project Autocomplete Cells Not Working

Question

When I created tasks months ago, I would be able to create a task and when I would create a new one and started entering in the same characters as the one above, Project would prompt me to autocomplete the task.  This feature can also be found in Excel.

Now when I create tasks, it does not autocomplete for me.  The only column this does this for is resources, but will not do it in task name, custom fields, or notes.

In Excel I've read that you can disable this feature, but I have not come across it in Project.  Any ideas why it has suddenly disappeared?  I really need this feature back.

Answer 1

ARC21 --

I just received a reply from my contact on the Project team at Microsoft.  What you are seeing is NOT a bug.  The behavior is intention and is by design.  Following is a quote from my contact about the change in behavior for AutoComplete:

"We made a change for the task name auto complete functionality; I suspected it was going to affect resource names as well – and it sure seems to have done so. Here’s the deal. If you have a large project and you type into a task name field, the auto complete code spends a lot of time trying to create a list of names as auto complete proposals.  But, that can take a long time for very little, if any, benefit.  Consider this. You have a 5000 task project and you go to the Task Name field and you start typing. Project goes through all the task names and with this list, tries to show you “matches”.  But, in the end, it usually doesn’t have much to show if anything and it may have taken 3 – 5 seconds to do that.  Over the years since this feature was added in Project 2010, we’ve had complaints that with larger projects it takes too long between the time the user starts typing and when the data actually starts entering into the field.  The pause can be considerable. When we considered how to address this, we thought about perhaps turning off auto complete after, say, 1000 tasks or something like that, but in the end we just turned it off.  In many projects, task names are fairly unique and so auto complete doesn’t add much value.  We also saw that in Excel there’s an option to turn off auto complete, but we didn’t feel it was worth the added expense to add this to control the feature."

So, as you can see in the above response, the Project team at Microsoft intentionally disabled the AutoComplete feature in the Task Name column due to complaints from people who manage large projects.  So, since it is not a bug, there will be no fix for this change in behavior.  I realize you probably will not like this, but now you know why.  Hope this helps.

Dale,

I really appreciate this answer and does give me an answer as to why it suddenly went away.  Did your contact give you a date on when this was actually disabled?

Where I really use this feature the most was in the custom fields.  For example, I create a "discipline" field in all of my schedules and I am using the same codes over and over again, such as Civil, Mechanical, etc.  I really liked just pressing the "c" button and having it fetch Civil.  I understand you can use the fill down feature, but I find it quicker to do it that way.

Again, I appreciate your help and looking into it.

Answer 2

ARC21 --

I just received a reply from my contact on the Project team at Microsoft.  What you are seeing is NOT a bug.  The behavior is intention and is by design.  Following is a quote from my contact about the change in behavior for AutoComplete:

"We made a change for the task name auto complete functionality; I suspected it was going to affect resource names as well – and it sure seems to have done so. Here’s the deal. If you have a large project and you type into a task name field, the auto complete code spends a lot of time trying to create a list of names as auto complete proposals.  But, that can take a long time for very little, if any, benefit.  Consider this. You have a 5000 task project and you go to the Task Name field and you start typing. Project goes through all the task names and with this list, tries to show you “matches”.  But, in the end, it usually doesn’t have much to show if anything and it may have taken 3 – 5 seconds to do that.  Over the years since this feature was added in Project 2010, we’ve had complaints that with larger projects it takes too long between the time the user starts typing and when the data actually starts entering into the field.  The pause can be considerable. When we considered how to address this, we thought about perhaps turning off auto complete after, say, 1000 tasks or something like that, but in the end we just turned it off.  In many projects, task names are fairly unique and so auto complete doesn’t add much value.  We also saw that in Excel there’s an option to turn off auto complete, but we didn’t feel it was worth the added expense to add this to control the feature."

So, as you can see in the above response, the Project team at Microsoft intentionally disabled the AutoComplete feature in the Task Name column due to complaints from people who manage large projects.  So, since it is not a bug, there will be no fix for this change in behavior.  I realize you probably will not like this, but now you know why.  Hope this helps.

Answer 3

ARC21,

I ge the same behavior with the desktop version of Project Pro 2019 and quite honestly, I find it refreshing. Why? Because in a well structured plan, each task description should be totally unique. Performance tasks, (subtasks where the effort is actually performed), should be described in action verb format and summary lines (summary "task" is a misnomer) should be described in noun format. So from my viewpoint I found it annoying when Project tried to "suggest" what I should enter for task descriptions.

The Resource Names field is a different issue. Although directly entering resources into that field is bad practice (resources should be assigned via the Assign Resources or Resource Form), it is quite possible that the exact same resource will be assigned to subsequent tasks so the auto-fill makes sense.

My thoughts.

John

John,

While I do agree with you that each task should be unique, at my workplace, we don't rely much on the Summary tasks that Project pushes to group tasks, as we use Custom Fields and use the grouping/sorting feature.  By doing this, we would have the same task "Pour Concrete" listed 50 times throughout the schedule, but if I had a custom field named "area" each one of those pour concrete tasks would be under a different area.  

Not to mention my biggest issue is when we use the custom fields, when I used to be able to select the first letter and it autofilled, now I have to type out the whole word, copy/paste, or use the fill down procedure.

I guess my complaint is not so much it causes me more work, its just now my whole schedule developing process has changed, and I want to know what happened.

Thanks.

Answer 4

Hello Neha.

The autocomplete function has not worked for at least a month.  I've tried researching online and have found nothing.  I have run the "full repair" option in the control panel and have even uninstalled Project entirely from my computer and reinstalled to no avail.

This autocomplete issue is not just with the "task name" field.  It's also with notes and any of the text 1, 2, 3, etc., fields.  It does still work for the "resource name" field.

I just now updated Project again through the account settings.  I am on version 2101 (Build 13628.20158 Click-to-Run).

Attached is the screenshot you have requested.

2. I have been having this issue for about a month.
3. No I have not changed any settings that I know of, just using the software as normal.

Answer 5

Hi ARC21,

From your post, we understand when you type the Task name same as the one above, the field will autocomplete the task but now Project is not showing the same behavior.

To my knowledge, there’s no setting in Project to enabled/disable this feature.

Please ensure sure your Office apps are fully updated. To check version information, open Project, click File>Account, check for the info mentioned under Product Information. The latest version of Current channel is 2012 (Build 13530.20376). For other channel version info, see Update history for Office 365 ProPlus.

If the version is not updated as mentioned in the article, please install updates and check if the issue remains. To know how to install updates, see Install Office updates.

If the issue persists,****please provide us with the following information:

1. Please provide the screenshot of Project Product Information. To get this screenshot, open Project on your system, click File>Account, capture the screenshot of all the information mentioned under Product Information.
2. Since when you are getting this issue?
3. Did you make any change which might have affected this behavior?

Let us know the status. Have a nice day and stay safe😊

Regards,

Neha