Highlight Tasks that Have Not Had their Status Updated

[davesaint]

I would like to send my MS Projects out to team members in order to obtain status updates. Before I send the projects out I would like to run a filter or use a formulat that highlights in "red" the fields that need their status updated.

Below are the date fields and Task Status Guidelines.

Baseline Start, Baseline Finish, Start, Finish, Start 3 (Estimated Start Date), Finish 3 (Estimated Finish Date), Acutal Start, Acutal Finish + the % Complete Field.

Task Status Guidelines

If a task has started but has not finished, the Actual Start Date needs to be updated and the % Complete also needs to be updated.

If a task has started and is now complete the Actual Finish Date needs to be updated and the % Complete also need to be updated to 100 %.

If a task has started and the but the finish date changes add the new finish date to the Estimated Finish date field (Finish 3)and update the % Complete.

If a task is past due according to the Baseline Start and Finish Dates please update the new Estimated Start (Start 3) and Estimated Finish (Finish 3)date fields with the new dates.

 

[PDQBach]

Why are you sending your project schedule out to other people to update?!?!?! It's *your* schedule, *you* update it. Multiple update sources means multiple error sources.

Each week, spend a couple of minutes to create spreadsheets showing the task name, start, finish, work, actual work, remaining work for each task for a given resource. For each task, have each resource tell you (a) how many hours they spent; (b) how many more they will spend; (c) when they will spend the last hour of effort on the task.

(And, with a modicum of effort, you can automate the process so that it works with a macro -- quite easy, actually -- so that it takes a couple of minutes to do the entire project for all resources and gives each a custom spreadsheet to update and return.)

The best part: conditional formatting is a specific piece of functionality in Excel and is not so easily done in Project.

 

[davesaint]

PDQBach - Thanks for responding. I just inherited 28 schedules (9500 tasks). Some of these schedules have not been updated since 2002. Why? I do not know. Someone dropped the ball. They brought me in to fix this mess. First of all company's scheduling required scheduling tool is Open Plan Professional, not MS Project. I have to move these schedules into OPP. Also none of the schedules are resource loaded. It's going to take some time to get this mess straigten out.

 

[PDQBach]

Dropped the ball!?!?!?!

You are being *EXCEPTIONALLY* kind to your predecessors.

Wish I could help more. I still think that copy&paste from your project software (I've never used OPP) to a spreadsheet and then distributing that is the best way to go. That way, if people foul up the spreadsheet, your project schedule is unharmed.

Maybe one spreadsheet per resource; one tab per project for that resource.

Wish I could help.