Cell reference from MS Project to Excel

Question

I am trying to link MS project to and excel file. I know you can use the wizard to do this and that you can "paste special" but that is not accomplishing what I need to do. I am want to essentially cell reference from MS project to excel. I have start dates, finish dates & durations in MS project that I would like to put into an excel table and when they are updated in project they will also update in the excel file. Essentially I would like to be able to update a schedule in project and have those updated dates and durations be automatically in that excel table without having to manually enter in those dates and durations. Can this be accomplished without a macro or VBA?

Answer 1

Cade S,

If you only need to export static date from Project to Excel (i.e. no timescaled data), I have a macro that can do that. It won't transfer the data "on the fly" (which required an event based macro), but if the macro is set to transfer when the Project file is closed, the end result is the same. If you're interested, let me know.

John

Answer 2

Cade, you have to start somewhere and sometime, so it may as well be now. Here is a start. It is easier than you think it is going to be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9h28r0B4js

Answer 3

Hello Cade S,

Unfortunately, I don't have any further troubleshooting to offer.

There are many knowledgeable users active on the forum and I hope that someone else can offer further insight into your issue.

Thanks Shalom

Answer 4

Shalom,

Thanks for taking the time to answer this. That is what I was afraid of. I have vey limited knowledge about VBA's and Macros. What is the learning curve like for those?

Answer 5

Hello Cade,

I'm Shalom and I'd happily help you with your question. In this forum, we are Microsoft consumers just like yourself.

I’m sorry to say that I don’t think you can accomplish what you want to do without using a macro or VBA. As far as I know, there is no built-in way to link MS Project data to Excel cells by referencing them. The only ways to link MS Project data to Excel are by using the export/import wizard or by using the paste special option, but both of these methods create a static copy of the data that does not update automatically when the data changes in MS Project.

If you want to have a dynamic link between MS Project and Excel, you will need to use a macro or VBA code that can run in the background and update the Excel cells whenever the MS Project data changes. However, this may require some programming skills and knowledge of the MS Project and Excel object models.

Best Regards, Shalom