Linking Outline Number Field with Excel

[burkey81]

Hello, I am not too familiar with Project, so I will try to be as descriptive as possible.

I have an Excel file linked to a Project document. I need the Project file to have summaries and sub categories. Using a function I wrote Visual Basic in Excel, I have a column that consists of 1s and 2s which designate it's position in the scheduling structure. I cannot, however, link this column from Excel to the Outline Number in Project. Project says that I can't do this because it is automatically calculated. I can manually go in and change it though, so this doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

If you have any recommendations, I would greatly apprecaite them. Thanks.

 

[PDQBach]

What is the column name in Project?

 

[burkey81]

The column name is "Outline Number"

 

[burkey81]

I mean "Outline Level"

 

[PDQBach]

Now that I understand what you're doing and the fields you're using ...

It seems to me that the links work fine -- as I change the outline level the linked fields in the spreadsheet update. If you're trying to set it so that changing the outline level number in Excel changes the outline level in Project ... well, that's just not a good idea.

If your plan has 5 levels and you only want to show levels 1 and 2 on your spreadsheet, then set an autofilter on the spreadsheet and select levels 1 and 2 only.

So the question is: what are you trying to do? What do you want the spreadsheet to display?

 

[burkey81]

I want my Project Document to update based upon the Excel File. I have done a lot of Scheduling work in Excel, and I want Project to make a nice looking Gant Chart for me. Using some logic, I made Outline levels. So essentially I need to use these levels to change the outline levels in Project. Can this be done? Thanks for your help.

 

[PDQBach]

I tried several things and none of them accomplish what you want. Project is adamant that it dynamically control this field.

Visio has the functionality to import Excel data to create Gantt charts.

You have two choices.

You can use Project to save the data in an XLS file. This has the advantage of being in a format that Visio "sort of" understands (Project exports a lot of columns that Visio needs to be told about or else Visio will skip them). It has the disadvantage that some of your Excel data probably doesn't have an exact analog in Project so this data will not be copied across.

Or ... you can use your Excel XLS file and import that into Visio. This has the advantage of letting you have better control over the data being imported but there is no guarantee that you can import everything in your Excel file.

Both of these approaches involve some pain and neither will give you exactly what you want. But they will give you a pretty picture which seems to be your objective.

 

[burkey81]

Thanks a lot for the help. I was interested in using Project because it has a lot of logic built in that will help me schedule things. I have runtimes for equipment, but project will help me schedule for weeks in advance. I am now writing a module in Project that will do what I want, now I just have to figure out a way to call that from Excel....if it can be done. Thanks again.

 

[FootballNut]

Have you found any way to programmatically assign outline numbers?

I am importing tasks from an Access DB and would like to put them in the correct outline position rather than appending them to the bottom of a project. So far I've not been able to control placement in the outline.

Any help is appreciated.