Hi Bayou boy,

As I said, no offense, just that my experience, with MSP is that it cannot handle these things, and there is no question of superiority. Simply I have used MSP for the last twelve years, have gone too the length of getting MS consultants in to try and sort out the problems we are talking about here, at an exhorbitant price, wwith no results. The programs we use are the tools of our trade, and if they simply cannot do the whole job, you still use them up to the point of their capabilities, and when their capabilities run out, you look for tools that can do what you want to do. If they are not available, you look for a work-around, in the form of excel or whatever.

Unfortunately, my belief is that resource levelling is probably the best planning method, and gives the best result, therefore priorities is a very important subject. As it is the only route to success, in trying to level resources. I think if you thought long and hard about it, you could probably get MSP to do it, but the point is I am an engineer, and not a software guy, so why should I figure out their problems, if I can find tools that can do it. Every program has it’s strong points, and we use MSP on a daily basis where it is easier to perform certain tasks than in other software.

Regards

Philip

Hi Bayou boy,
This thread was about setting priorities in P3, and had nothing to do with MS Project, and your opinions about software, Rather start a new thread to discuss this. I do not think that MSP has the capabilities of settinggg priorities, and as such, despite your opinions, fall without this discusion.

No offence taken.

Regards

Philip

sorry, let me try again. the site where i’m currently assigned has gone through a bit of turmoil regarding scheduling software. several key players in the operating units have begun to use MS Project and corporate wants Primavera. i’ve had and will continue to have debates regarding the ’better’ software. i mention the beginner project enginners and their apathy regarding CPM because i’m thinking and speaking in planner/scheduler terminology and these folks aren’t.

i was hoping that someone out there would have already fought this battle and they would have done a better job communicating with difficult clients than i’ve done so far.

ok gang, i DO NOT want to start/continue the primavera versus microsoft project debate, i simply want to read factual(unemotional) advantages and disadvantages to the 2 packages.

i’ve read as many threads as i could find on this site and i’m currently looking at gantthead.com for some more comparisions...but i’m still looking for the "homerun" that I can stick in my backpocket and keep for the ongoing debate.

seems to me that beginning project mgrs and proj engineers don’t understand what CPM is and further more, they don’t care until their turnaround goes from 40 days to 60 days and runs millions over budget. at that point they are forced to hire someone like me to run their schedules for them...and they are resentful. i’m challenged each day to warrant the software choice that the home office has made and i’d like to have good and bad of both softwares to display.

let me clarify, i’ve been using p3 for 11 years. i’d used open plan for 4 years previous to that so i have my own opinions of the software that i prefer.

can someone email me a write up of advantages and disadvantages or can someone post a link to to such a document.

thanks in advance,
bb

i’ve used the priority codes in the activity code fields just like you’re attempting and it works really well. sometimes if there’s a competetion for resources, i’ll add a second code field to alleviate the struggle.

let us know how it works for you

If I understand you correctly; just create a custom data idem called "Priority" (or whatever you want to name it) and add that name to the pritoity tag under resource leveling.

The default is

1) Total Float
2) Late Start

You can try other schemes, but this one generally works best. Good luck!