Master project with sub projects and critical path....Just checking that the Master will show me which projects are critical but not the critical tasks themselves

Question

Hello

I just want to check something here regarding Master Projects and sub projects regarding the Critical path.

I am using Project 2007 Professional and not Project server. These sub projects are inserted.

I run the critical path either with the wizard or Project filter and than critical and it returns the Critical Sub projects but not really the critical tasks that I would see if I would bring up the individual projects themselves.

I guess that's kind-of ok with me because I can recognize that only 5 sub projects out of 20 are the critical ones but it would be good if I could also get the critical tasks for ONLY those 5 sub projects.

If I run the 5 sub-projhects individually I get the true Critical tasks.

Is there a way to get the critical tasks for those 5 sub projects through the Critical path with the Master up?

 

Thanks

 

 

Answer 1

Hotmail1 --

Your assumptions are just plain wrong!  The Critical Path for the subprojects in a master project may be entirely different from the Critical Path shown if you open any one of the subprojects individually.  When you display the Critical Path in a master project, Microsoft Project 2007 uses the finish date of the latest finishing project to determine which tasks are Critical tasks.  To determine why any tasks are Critical tasks in a master project, simply insert the Total Slack column in any task view, and make sure you have all subprojects expanded and all summary tasks expanded as well.  Any task with a Total Slack of 0 days is a Critical task.  Hope this helps.

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Dale A. Howard [MVP]
VP of Educational Services
msProjectExperts
http://www.msprojectexperts.com
http://www.projectserverexperts.com
"We write the books on Project Server"

Answer 2

In addition to the other comments, experiment with the option "Calculate multiple critical paths" on the Calculation tab of the Tools > Options dialog.

Julie

Answer 3

In addition to above also look at Deadline settings, I find if my sub-projects finish milestones have deadlines set, they always show up in my master project as critical, which is a bit frustrating...