Multiple Projects on One Calendar? 1

[mdbowen]

My company is evaluating MS Project 2007, and one of the questions they're asking is if multiple projects can automatically filter onto a single calendar.

We're a medium-sized firm specializing in radio advertising, and we'd like to be able to see at a glance:

a) When in the buying process for a given promotion, which markets are currently in negotiation and which ones are finally bought, and

b) Actual deadlines, on-air dates, etc. of all promotions on a single calendar.

Is this all possible in Project?

 

[PDQBach]

This applies to stand-alone versions of MS Project (I don't know about PrjServer).

The short -- but mostly accurate -- answer: No.

The long -- but with a variety of caveats -- answer: Yes.

There is no way to define a calendar so that all projects automatically access it *and* when that calendar is updated that all projects automatically reflect those updates.

There are several workarounds -- none are particularly thrilling.

1. Create a template project with the calendar and make it a rule that all new project files have to start with that template. Advantages: only one place to maintain the calendar; all new projects get the official calendar. Disadvantages: once the subsequent project files are created they will be saved with their own calendars.

2. Create a dummy project file that has the official calendar. Whenever the calendar is changed, the dummy project file calendar gets updated, email all the PMs. They open that project file and their own project file(s) and use Tools | Organizer to copy the updated calendar into their projects. Depending on how aggressively/passively they are using calendars they may have to make some changes to their projects. Advantages: easy to maintain the official calendar; easy to propagate it to other projects (assuming PMs read and follow the email advising of the update). Disadvantages: somewhat cumbersome.

FWIW, I'm not particularly aggressive about using calendars. I always have a project calendar (force of habit -- because I got "surprised" one time using "Standard" and not realizing that someone else had already put in all sorts of non-working dates into the Standard calendar) and I (because I've been on some multi-national projects) have a calendar for each country showing its holiday schedule and then each resource gets the appropriate country calendar as a base calendar for the resource. For individual resources I will mark out extended absences (a week or more) but don't track single days -- too much effort, too little reward.

At the end of the day it comes down to this: how accurate are your estimates? If you know they are going to be off by a couple of days on a regular basis then the impact of a single day in the calendar being a working day vs. a non-working day is, essentially, a wash.

As I re-read your question, I'm not sure I've actually answered it. If you want to, you could create a project that shows all the information you mention and then print it out using View | Calendar and then printing the resulting display. As you can see from my answer above, calendars in Project are not really used to simply display information but are used to determine when tasks are scheduled, when resources are available and to constrain things so that they follow a working calendar rather than provide additional background information ("which markets are in negotiation"). You *could* use Project for that but if that's all you're using Project for then I'd stick with either Excel or a nicely formatted Word document.

Hope this helps.

 

[jblack34]

mdbowen,
When you say filter onto a single calendar, saying that you would like to see all tasks from all project on one calendar?

If that is what you are asking, then the short answer is Yes.

The long answer is that you would need to set up a master project, insert all project schedules, Show all Tasks, and then click on >View, >Calendar

JBlack

http://www.pmconnection.com