Show parent tasks in reports... 2

[ces4848]

Hi,

MS Project newbie...

When selecting [Reports -> Assignments -> To-Do List] I would like to display all parent tasks under task name and separate them by slashes or something.

For example:
My root task / Task group / Sub task group / Task Name

Can someone help me out with this?

CES

 

[DaBlick]

I've not found a way to do it, but what I have done is use a TEXT field (TEXT1, TEXT2, etc.) to duplicate the name of the summary task and its easy enough to have most reports insert the TEXT1 field where you want it.

 

[ces4848]

Hi, thanks for the reply.

Though I've been programming for a number of years now, I have never used Project Server for.

I was hoping that I could do it on the SQL Server as I just created a recursive function to generate the full path to the task.

Could you point me in the right direction to try your solution? Maybe telling me the steps or something?


CES

 

[DaBlick]

In any table view, right-click a table header and select "insert column". In the "field name" box, select TEXT1.

This will add a column to your table that corresponds to the TEXT1 field every task has. You will have to MANUALLY type the name of the summary task into this field unfortunately (and maintain that relationship).

Then in your reports/graphs, just make sure you include the TEXT1 field. (How to do that varies a lot - you'll have to figure that out on your own.)

I have to think there IS a much better way to do this, but I've not figured it out yet. If I do, I'll try to remember to post it here.

 

[PDQBach]

You'll have two (perhaps 3) issues here because the To Do list restricts the data and format you can display.

1. Add Text1 to the list of fields displayed in the report.

The least intrusive way is to make a copy of the Entry table (since you may be using that layout for other Views) and add the field Text1.

View > Tables > More tables... select "Entry"; click on the Copy button; change the name to PDQBach_Entry; add the field Text1.

View > Reports > Assignments... > To Do List; click on the Edit button, click on the Definition tab and change the Table value to "PDQBach_Entry".

The To Do report will now display the Text1 column data.

2. Populate the Text1 field. A trivial recursion looking at task.OutlineParent.ID and task.OutlineParent.Name should do the trick here.

The difficulty is that you can't embed CrLF in a text field. (You could use the Notes field but that may already be in use for other reasons.) To get around that, use some character like the caret ^ or backslash \ to delineate the various levels of task hierarchy.

3. Here's the tough problem: getting the To Do list formatted so that it displays the multilevel task hierarchy that you've stored in Task1 or Notes. I have not found a way to do this.

You could, of course, write a small vba script to pull the data out and put it into your own format.

Note that this discussion refers to standalone Project -- I don't have access to Prj Server but I'm guessing that the general architecture of the solution is appropriate -- it's just that the data is in a SQL server database instead of in a project file and you'll need to write some fairly basic SQL to extract the information for a specific project from the repository.

 

[ces4848]

Thank you both for your suggestions, they helped me get on my way. I ended up creating the new table, creating & running a macro to get the parent tasks, and basing the report on the new table.

Works great!