Hi ALl
Can someone give me an idea how to create a filter that i can save to do a 4 week look ahead instead of the date range filter?
Thanks
Moi
Creating a look-ahead filter in MS Project 2010
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@Greg,
I think you removed a necessary bracket - presumably the one before the last "or" -- please re-add it back. Here is the full formula -- make sure you capture both of the first two characters -- both left parenthesesis characters.
John
I used your formula for a lookahead (changed to 21 days) but when I pasted it into a flag feild MSP reported a error in syntax. I deleted the offending bracket and MSP accepted the alteration so I ended up with;
([Start]>DateAdd("d",-21,now()) Or [Finish]>DateAdd("d",-21,now())) And ([Start]<DateAdd("d",21,now()) Or [Finish]<DateAdd("d",21,now())) Or ([Finish]<DateAdd("d",21,now()) And [% Complete]<100).
It works fine except it now includes any task 100% completed. I can of course exclude these using the filter but obviously there is something wrong with my version of the formula.
Can you help please.
Cheers
Greg
Enjoyed this thread.
...Though I'm a little late getting to it...
Evgeny's comment is spot-on. Using this approach, I came up with this formula to capture all "active" tasks -- i.e. tasks that don't end before the earliest date of the window AND tasks that don't start after the latest date of the window.
(
[Start] > DateAdd("d",-7,now())
or
[Finish] > DateAdd("d",-7,now())
)
and
(
[Start] < DateAdd("d",7,now())
or
[Finish] < DateAdd("d",7,now())
)
)
(
[Start] > DateAdd("d",-7,now())
or
[Finish] > DateAdd("d",-7,now())
)
and
(
[Start] < DateAdd("d",7,now())
or
[Finish] < DateAdd("d",7,now())
)
)
or
(
[Finish] < DateAdd("d",7,now())
and
[% Complete] < 100
)
Evgeny,
Some time ago I created a filter for Spider with an approach similar to yours and it worked with a reduction on the number of conditional statements. I agree there are other ways just not as obvious.
If instead of looking at what shall be included we look at what shall not the rules become; activities that finish before the range as well as activities that start after the range shall not be included. In this particular case looking for exclusions is easier.
Best Regards,
Rafael.
Rafael,
I agree with your definition of a look ahead filter.
But all your 8 rules (4 creterias, 2 rules each) can simply be replaced by 2 rules, if you create a filter for tasks, which shall NOT be included in the look ahead filter and then inverse the selection.
This is what I did.
Regards.
Evgeny.
Look ahead starting after DD can be issued but it is common to update the schedule when today () is over DD as it might already be obsolete and some activities not progressing as expected might be left out. If no update is to be performed yet in such case it would be better to issue a longer range look ahead always starting from DD.
look ahead start date = usually DD for a 2 week look ahead
look ahead finish date = usually DD+14
A 2 week look ahead shall look for:
Best Regards,
Rafael
Herman,
see below the formula. If you assign it to custom flag (e.g. flag1), and filter all tasks with "Yes" value, you will get all the tasks, which have some presence +-14 days from current time. By changing the value you subtract and add to Now() you can adjust the range you are selecting
IIf(([Finish]<(Now()-14)) Or ([Start]>(Now()+14)); No; Yes)
So, for 4 weeks look ahead it will look like this
IIf(([Finish]<(Now())) Or ([Start]>(Now()+28)); No; Yes)
Hope this helps.
Evgeny
Herman,
I would create a custom field type Flag, which value would be calculated by a formula, crafted in a way, that it would produce a "Yes" value for the tasks which meet your criteria.
When crafting this formula you need to use Now() function, to to make sure it is always based on the current date.
Then you will just have to filter tasks by this flag.
If such formula gets too complex, you can create a Macro in visual basic, which would walk through every task and set the custome flag based on your creterias. In this case you will have to run this Macro every time you want to use this filter after changes to project.
Regards.
Evgeny