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Logic Tracing in MSP

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Tom Boyle
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I’m looking for some advanced users to be beta testers for a logic visualization tool that my firm developed for internal use but has now converted into an Add-In for MSP.  It’s called BPC Logic Filter for Microsoft Project.  An unregistered (freeware) version will be able to trace all logical ancestors and/or descendants of a particular task (or collection of tasks), then apply a filter to show only those tasks that are logically related.  Registered users will get much more advanced functionality including project longest path filter, local network filter, multiple-float path (i.e. driving/driven and near driving/driven paths for any activity in the schedule), bounded network filter (i.e. show only two tasks and the paths connecting them), and calculation of driving/critical path DRAG.

Right now the tool is only targeted for MSP 2010, and there are plans to port it to later versions eventually.  We’ve had good success testing on standalone machines running MSP Pro in small computer networks.  We still need to test in Project Server environments, and we need more testing with cross-project links (i.e. master/subprojects).

Please send me a pm if you are an MSP 2010 user and want to test.  Of course I’d love to carry on an open discussion here about the tool, what it does, and why it’s needed to make MSP function properly for Planning Planet members.

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Rafael Davila
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Tom Boyle
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Not sure what you mean by "do this," but the built-in tools for logic tracing include:

  1. Task Inspector - displays hyperlinked driving predecessors of the selected task (not reliable when non-FS relationships are present.)
  2. Task Paths bar styles - colors the bars of tasks that are related to the selected task, including path predecessors, path driving predecessors, path successors, and path driven successors.  Uses same data as task inspector, so unreliable with non-FS relationships.  No built-in filters, for these.
  3. All the standard float-manipulation tricks to force related tasks "critical": e.g. constraints, leading and trailing dummy tasks.  
UK Planning Engineer
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What is the typical and best way to do this in Microsoft Project without the add-on?

Thanks,

Tom Boyle
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Alan,

Thanks for the interest.  Check here: https://boyleprojectconsulting.com/blf/

[Edit: revised the link.  Website has moved.]

Alan Clegg
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How do I obtain a version of BPC?