Mike
In your response, were you referring to me Raphael or the other Rafael in Puerto Rico

By PP I meant Planning Planet

I have just looked back at few of my recent posts, I think I going to work down your path ....

Raf

Hi Raphael

It is not much of a consolation but there are programmes out there which are much worse than PP.

Project Commander - Fastrak - powerproject lite to name a few.

Best regards

Mike Testro.

Hi Mike,

"...I have learnt a lot from it..." - I was almost sure I couldn’t teach an old dog new tricks.

Cheers,

Bo

Alka,

A FNLT constraint should not move a task up to its latest finish date, it just tells when it latest can finish – not must. So if you are telling us that P6 is giving you “when to start your first activity latest when applying a FNLT to the last activity” I would state that P6 does it wrong. What you are looking for is probably the ALAP in combination with the FNLT: Apply FNLT to the last activity and ALAP to the first one in your series of 10 tasks and you get the result you want in MSP. Ok, admitted, the ALAP function doesn’t work correctly in MSP as it consumes total float – also for successors, so you can’t use the above solution in other software packages. Here you probably have to apply ALAP to all 10 tasks. And when having more than just 1 series of tasks in MSP, you have to be very careful (read: never) when using the ALAP in MSP. Another solution in MSP is just to pull up your “latest start” column – and maybe even add a bar style for this on the Gantt chart.

When that is said, this is about the only disadvantage that MSP has concerning constraints IMO – well, it maybe is also missing a feature for zero free float constraint and zero total float constraint (i.e. always critical). With respect to all the cons Alexandre is listing, for me it is simple logic that as soon you start to mess around in the start and finish columns + drawing any tasks on the Gantt chart you are dealing with some kind of constraints, so I never (or as close to) operate in these locations – except maybe for some special start / finish milestones now and then. As I rarely (deliberately) have constraints in my programmes I basically only operate in the “Task Name”, “Duration”, Predecessor” and “Successor” columns. I find it very cumbersome and slow to draw tasks and links directly on the Gantt chart, so when working in e.g. PowerProject or Pertmaster (I simply won’t call it by its new name), the predecessor and successor columns are always visible and presented so links can be written easily here. Use of constraints is a “try-to-avoid” for me.

IMHO, MSP is the most user friendly system of them all. Anybody with no prior knowledge of planning software systems can within a few hours produce a simple programme in MSP, which would take a day or days in other planning systems, so therefore MSP (in construction) is good for many site engineers, agents, foreman, supervisors, engineers based in office, etc. that is only doing programming “now and then”. i.e. not 100% planners. Furthermore, it is cheaper than many of the other systems on the market. MSP is not “specialist friendly” (or “delay / claims”-friendly) because its lack of features and at certain times lack of sound theory, but that doesn’t mean it is not user friendly. Moreover, the auto-filter function and customized fields function are 2 very user friendly features I miss very much when utilizing other systems – but then again, MSP lacks a lot of nice features which e.g. Powerproject and Pertmaster contains.

With respect to the situation Rafael mentioned with “expected finish constraint” I’m almost certain something similar can be simulated in MSP by use of customized fields with an iif-formula, expected finish date minus early start date, maybe a flag and maybe a user made bar style (again with a flag) to show the result required.

Sorry it became a bit too long, but I’m fed of people slagging of MSP so easily, if they haven’t spent enough time investigating its potential. Admitted, it is not the best system, but it is definitely not crap.

Regards,

Bo

Mike, it’s no trouble, really.
The Indicators Column, which should always be visible, shows a little icon, with an explanation when hovered over, when there is a date constraint on a task, without having to go to Task Information.
Also, if dragging the bars causes a date constraint, as we know it does, and if that is not what is wanted, here’s a tip, don’t do it.
Intuitive? what is, really? Do I complain because my guitar is not "intuitive" (ie I can’t play it without study and practice so that I understand it)?
Perhaps Alexandre’s advice should be "be careful to read what’s in front of your face, that’s why it’s there.".

Mike,
As you know, I agree with you about most things such as the abominations and the FS links.

How about just one example of MSPs alleged inferority, besides just generally slagging it off?
In my experience the "crap" is what gets produced by the user, and the software makes no difference.