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Alternative links between tasks in MS Project 2003

2 replies [Last post]
Thu, 2010-06-03 07:08
Jim White
User offline. Last seen 13 years 38 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 3 Jun 2010
Posts: 4
Groups: None
Hi - new here!

Using MS Project 2003, I would like to "link" two tasks on a project. I am fully familiar with traditional task linking (predecessors, successors, FS, SF, FF, SS relationships, etc.), but I want to do something slightly different!

Basically, I use a VB script in my project to trawl between tasks using the predecessor relationship. Ideally however, I only want the script to traverse certain predecessors. The logic of which predecessors to follow and which to not follow is not always straight forward or consistent.

At the moment, I get around this by duplicating tasks - the script logic is then fairly simple as I can effectively "split" the predecessors. The downside is the project itself is over-complicated, and therefore hard to understand and modify. I don’t like it!

I tried using the hyperlink field - that initially seemed to be another way of "linking" tasks together, but I found quickly that if I insert a new task somewhere, all the hyperlink references did not update! e.g. if the hyperlink pointed to task #10, and I inserted a new task at #5, the hyperlink still points to #10 instead of to #11.

Any suggestions?
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Replies

Fri, 2010-06-04 03:50
#1
Jim White
User offline. Last seen 13 years 38 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 3 Jun 2010
Posts: 4
Groups: None

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried it, and it nearly does what I need, but not quite.

Another forum has just suggested to me I use the Unique ID field. I didn’t realise that this field is fixed forever, so does not change when I add/delete/move tasks, hence I can rely on it, and use it in my scripts fairly safely.

Thanks for your time and effort though ...
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Thu, 2010-06-03 18:41
#2
Rodel Marasigan
User offline. Last seen 6 weeks 5 days ago. Offline
Joined: 25 Oct 2006
Posts: 1699
Groups: Petro-Chem / Oil & Gas
Hi Jim,
You can use hammock link (dynamic link) in MS Project. It will not change the link reference even if you inserted new activity somewhere in between or anywhere above or bottom of existing task. To create a hammock link (dynamic link) you need to “copy cell” of start date or finish date of one activity and paste special as “paste link” -> text data to another activity. The reaction of link is depends on how you created a dynamic link.
Ex:
Copy cell from start date and paste link to start date = SS
Copy cell from start date and paste link to finish date = SF
Copy cell from finish date and paste link to start date = FS
Copy cell from finish date and paste link to finish date = FF
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