Tasks Complete before Project Start Date (2000 SR-1)

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I have projects that “Officially” start after five items from the customer are received. The individual project plans are created from a template (.MPT). I have to enter in the project plan the actual dates when each of those those items is received (they do not arrive simultaneously). I can’t find a way to establish a Project Start Date that is independent of the receipt of the items. That is, if I want the project to “officially” start on Feb 7, but one of the items was received on January 10, the project plan uses the January 10 date.

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To get around this, however, it will invalidate your start logic based on when items are received, Put a Must Start On Constraint Date on the particular task. The task will then begin on the date you specify, irregardless of the dates of the predecessors.

HTH

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Thanks for your response, but, my inexperience with Project is showing! I should have noted that the task whose start date I want to fix is the first task in the project – the “Project Summary Task”. As soon as I enter the project start date, I no longer have the option to enter a Must Start On constraint date. If I enter an actual date in a subtask that is prior to the Project Start Date, I get an error dialog allowing me only to either cancel the item, or change the Project Start Date.

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As the project summary task is just that, a summary of all dependent children, you can’t or shouldn’t set it using a constraint. To resolve this, find the dependent task that is driving the start date and set the constraint there. This should solve your problem unless you have multiple tasks driving the summary task. One other way to fix this is to set a start milestone (set a task called start with a zero day duration) and drive all future tasks from there. The summary will then start with the start milestone. If you move the start milestone and have all dependent tasks linked to it, then your schedule, including the summary, will move accordingly.

Post back if you are still having problems.

Reply | Quote

As the project summary task is just that, a summary of all dependent children, you can’t or shouldn’t set it using a constraint. To resolve this, find the dependent task that is driving the start date and set the constraint there. This should solve your problem unless you have multiple tasks driving the summary task. One other way to fix this is to set a start milestone (set a task called start with a zero day duration) and drive all future tasks from there. The summary will then start with the start milestone. If you move the start milestone and have all dependent tasks linked to it, then your schedule, including the summary, will move accordingly.

Post back if you are still having problems.

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The Project Summary Task (Task 0) will always have a Start Date which is the start of the first task.

Unless I mis-read what you want to do, I would suggest you have a group of five tasks (for the five necessary items), linked down to a Milestone called ‘Start of Project’. The Start of Project task will move as you put in actuals for the previous five.

Tony.

Reply | Quote

The Project Summary Task (Task 0) will always have a Start Date which is the start of the first task.

Unless I mis-read what you want to do, I would suggest you have a group of five tasks (for the five necessary items), linked down to a Milestone called ‘Start of Project’. The Start of Project task will move as you put in actuals for the previous five.

Tony.

Reply | Quote

Thanks for your response, but, my inexperience with Project is showing! I should have noted that the task whose start date I want to fix is the first task in the project – the “Project Summary Task”. As soon as I enter the project start date, I no longer have the option to enter a Must Start On constraint date. If I enter an actual date in a subtask that is prior to the Project Start Date, I get an error dialog allowing me only to either cancel the item, or change the Project Start Date.

Reply | Quote

To get around this, however, it will invalidate your start logic based on when items are received, Put a Must Start On Constraint Date on the particular task. The task will then begin on the date you specify, irregardless of the dates of the predecessors.

HTH

Reply | Quote