Rolling Up Summary Tasks

Brian / Tony,



Yes, one problem when using "Rollup"-bars, as Brian writes, is that they will be drawn for any non-summary sub tasks, but with the method depicted below you can choose what you want to see rolled-up on any summary bar of your choice, e.g.



1) only see the Level-2-summary bars on the Level-1-summary bar (as I think Tony wanted to) and not ANY other summary bars/non-summary tasks.



2) only see the Level-6-summary bars on the Level-3-summary bars and nothing else.



3) only see a specific selected resource on any given Level-x-summary bar.



4) etc. - the choice is yours.



Only remember to use "paste special - paste as link" so the summary bars will change when changing durations in the sub-activities.



One could even add "Text1" through "Text4" columns and in Tony’s case one would have in ONE single line (the Level 1 summary bar) stating "Facility A" with the summary bar on the Gantt chart being e.g. first red with text inside saying "Concept", then blue w/ text inside saying "Outline", then yellow with text "Detail" and finally green with text inside "Construct" and all in the same line with only data being picked up from the Level 2 summary bars.



Anyway, the process is a bit time consuming and have no real practical relevance in my daily planning, so I’m only using it for presentations as it gives a better grapical impression/understanding for some people.



Well, enough about that - must get back to work.



rgds,



Bo

Yes this is possible but to do it you need to add a custom gantt bar style to your view.

Double click on the gantt chart area to bring up the Bar Styles dialog.



Now scroll down to the set of bars that have Rolled up in the name. At the bottom of this list insert a blank row. Name it what you like but something like Rolled up Summary would be good. Now for the Show...For Tasks ’field’ enter:

Summary, Rolled Up

Set the colors and styles the way you like.

Click OK

Now as long as ’Rollup’ is set to yes for all your tasks you will see a bar on your summary task gantt bars that represent the sub-summary tasks.



One problem is that they will be drawn on top of the rollup bars for any non-summary sub tasks so you might want to adjust the "*Rolled up Task" bar style and your new summary task rolled up style so that they use a shape that is thinner so that they do not cover each other up.

Tony,



Don’t know if you are still looking for this, since it is some time ago, however, some weeks ago I wanted to do the same for "Lead-in Time", i.e. show Procurement, Manufacture, Transport to Site, etc. on the same line dependent of the 2 lower levels (3 levels just as your problem).



I tried the following and it worked:

First add a "Flag1"-column for those summary levels you want to show it for. Then add columns "Start1" through "Start4" and same for "Finish". Copy values from "Start" of "Concept" into "Start1" under your flagged summary level and so on until you have copied "Finish" of "Construct" into "Finish4".



Then under Bar Styles add 4 rows under the existing row for Summary, each one showed in "Row 1" for "Summary;Flag1". First row from "Start1" to "Finish1", second row from "Start2" to "Finish2" and so on. Format (colours, shading, etc.) as you please.



It takes some time and will only look nice if the Level 2 summaries are directly after each other and not overlapped - but again, for "Lead-in" as for my problem, most of the time they are.



Anyway, it worked and since then I’ve used it in other programs, mostly for short presentations as it seems to be easier to understand for people not that customed to look at detailed Gantt charts.



Regards,



Bo

Hmmmm! I was right in my initial thinking (far too complex). I’ve never seen anything quite like that which you are asking. Moreover, you would get so many overlapping bars that it’d look extremely crowded and un-readable.



Back to the drawing-board, methinks!



James :-)

Gents,



Maybe I was being too complex in my thinking. Zhang is perfectly correct, but an even easier way is to insert the Project Summary Task. Got to Tools/Options/View tab. Click on Project Summary Task checkbox. This will automatically insert the highest level project summary task and everything else will be indented relative to it. You may change the name of the Project Summary Task to include all your sub-summary names.



Additionally, if you wanted to see the name of the summary task in the Gantt Chart section of the screen, you can double-click on the rolled-up bar, then click Text tab, click in the row "INSIDE" and reveal the drop-down list. Click "NAME". This will insert the title of the Project Summary Task. However, you might want to format the bar itself in order to properly see just the name, as opposed to both the bar and the name. Click FORMAT/BAR STYLES. Scroll to reveal PROJECT SUMMARY. Click on APPEARANCE and in the BARS window you can format the shapre and colour of that particular bar. If you give it a colour of white, then it will essentially "disappear" on the Gantt Chart section, leaving just the name of the Project Summary Task, which you can amend to whatever you wish.



As you so desire, you can insert or extract the Project Summary Task by going back to TOOLS/OPTION/VIEW tab and checking/un-checking the PROJECT SUMMARY TASK box.



This is how it is done in MSP 2000.

HTH.



James.

Hi Tony,

On the tool bar, try to find ’outdent’ and ’indent’ button (it look like a arrow one left and one right.

They are used to change the level of tasks.

As in your example:

-----------------------------------------

Facility AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Concept BBBBBBB

Outline CCCCC

Detail DDDDD

Construct EEEEEEEEEE

------------------------------------------

select the tasks from ’concept’ to ’Construct’ then click ’indent’

it will make tasks from ’concept’ to ’Construct’ sub-task of ’facility’



then you can roll-up ’facility’, you will see only a single line ’Facility AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA’

if you want ’Facility BBBBBBBCCCCCDDDDDEEEEEEEEEE’, you need to change the name manually.

Tony,



Sorry, I can’t help on that one. To be honest, I’ve never heard of anyone doing that. Have you tried posting this on the Microsoft Project Discussion Group forum?



James.

Tony,



Yes it is possible - and quite normal to do so. First: are you showing the Outline Symbol against each summary task name? It is a little square with a + inside it. If so, you can click on that and it will collapse (roll-up) all the sub-tasks (including all sub-summaries) that are indented relative to it.



If you are not showing the Outline Symbol immediately to the left of the summary task name, then click Tools/Options/View tab/"Check Outline Symbol" checkbox.



HTH.



James.