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Update a Milestones
schedule
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from multiple Microsoft Project schedules
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| It's easy to update a Milestones schedule
with the latest dates from a single Microsoft Project schedule.
This is accomplished "no sweat" with Milestones Professional and
Milestones Project Companion's "refresh" feature found on the File menu
under Update..Milestones/Project Refresh.
Milestones refresh works quite simply by matching up
unique IDs from MS project to unique ID tags attached to milestone
symbols on your presentation schedules. If a match is found, the
date is updated.
But, what if there is a need to update a single
presentation schedule from several Microsoft Project schedule files?
Can this be accomplished with Milestones refresh?
Yes, and quite simply. In a nutshell, you will
need to follow these simple steps: |
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First, in Microsoft Project: |
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Collect the individual
Microsoft Project schedules you plan to present. |
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Build a Microsoft Project
master schedule and save it as a new file. |
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Next, in Milestones: |
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Build the presentation schedule,
either using the wizard or by manually tagging the milestone
symbols. If manually tagging the milestone symbols, be
sure to use the Unique IDs which are found in the Microsoft
Project master schedule and not the Unique IDs in the individual
schedules. |
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When refreshing / updating the
schedule, instead of referencing the individual Microsoft
Project schedules, be sure to reference the master schedule. |
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| STEP 1 - Collect the individual schedules |
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| Identify which of your Microsoft Project schedules
you would like to include on your presentation report. |
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| Tasks on a Microsoft Project schedule are each
assigned an identifier called the "Unique ID". This identifier is
associated with a specific task. If that task is deleted, it is
not reassigned to another task. If tasks are rearranged within the
schedule, the unique ID will stay with the task. When new tasks
are added, new Unique IDs are assigned to the new tasks. |
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| STEP 2 - Build the Master Schedule |
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| Once the schedules which will be reported on have
been identified, a Microsoft Project master schedule should be built.
This is easily accomplished by using the Project menu choice on
the Insert menu. Repeat selecting Insert+Project until all
projects have been added to the master schedule. Note that the
Unique IDs on the master schedule are different than the Unique IDs on
the individual schedules. This renumbering is done by Microsoft
Project to prevent duplication when several projects are combined.
Also, note that the Unique ID numbers are much larger than the Unique ID
numbers in the individual schedules. |
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| STEP 3 - Create and save the presentation
chart |
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| The presentation chart can built either 1) using the
Milestones Project Wizard in Milestones Professional or Milestones
Project Companion or 2) by building the chart with Milestones
Professional or Milestones Project Companion and
"tagging" the symbols
manually. Either way, to be a "refreshable" chart, one which can
be updated with the Milestones refresh feature, the individual milestone
symbols must be tagged with the unique ID numbers and the proper names
of the Microsoft Project date field. For example, if a milestone
is to be updated from the finish date of a task whose unique id is 33,
the tag would be: 33,finish. |
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| Note that for Project 1.1C, the Unique ID is 8388614.
Therefore, the tag for the finish date milestone should be
8388614,finish. |
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| STEP 4 - Refresh the presentation chart from
the master as projects change |
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| Once your presentation schedule is built and your
milestones are all tagged with links to the right Microsoft Project
tasks, all you need to do is periodically "refresh" your schedule to get
the latest Microsoft Project dates. Just choose
Update->Milestones/Project Refresh on the Milestones Professional or
Milestones Project Companion File menu. |
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Watch a movie! |