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Help Please - how to date range in MS Project including items in progress

6 replies [Last post]
Thomas Nicholson
User offline. Last seen 3 days 19 hours ago. Offline
Joined: 4 Oct 2006
Posts: 88
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Morning all,

I'm trying to run a report for a project manager who wants a list of all tasks for the next 4 weeks. Not just those that start or finish during this time but those that are ongoing and will be ongoing during this time frame. I'm using project 2007 and the only date range I can find utilises start and finish of tasks which won't capture something that started 2 months ago but is ongoing for the next 3 months thus taking place during the next 4 weeks.

Any ideas how this can be done? It seems a fairly reasonable request but I cannot see how to do it.

Thanks

 

Thom

Replies

M. Kamel Bessekri
User offline. Last seen 8 years 41 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 2 Jul 2009
Posts: 27
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Hi Thomas

Click on” file” then on “ print” and choose the Time range you need “from” “ to”

If you don’t get the interval in one page, go to time scale and adjust it till you get your intervali n  one page.

Regards

Kamel

Rafael Davila
User offline. Last seen 18 hours 2 min ago. Offline
Joined: 1 Mar 2004
Posts: 5240

http://www.planningplanet.com/forums/microsoft-project/541037/creating-look-ahead-filter-ms-project-2010

From: http://office.microsoft.com/en-001/project-help/filter-tasks-or-resources-HA101929354.aspx

MSP 2010 includes a Date Range Filter. I believe MSP 2007 also provides such a filter, in such case you don't need to re-invent the date range filter.

http://officetechsupport.wordpress.com/2010/04/25/creating-complex-ms-project-filters/ can give you some clues about the status date field on filters. 

Be aware that MSP have some issues with displaying and observing the Status Date.

From: http://www.ronwinterconsulting.com/MS_Project_for_Construction.pdf

Conclusion

MSP is inexpensive, very user friendly (especially for beginners) and provides decent default reports and graphs. A casual user of MS Office with no scheduling experience can pick MSP up and quickly create schedules. However a seasoned scheduler working on a construction contract is likely to struggle with updating and maintaining the schedule.

Some of the “ease of use” features function at the expense of the CPM theory, which become sources of confusion for a seasoned scheduler. The main areas are:

1) MSP Baseline management is cumbersome and confusing for the average scheduler.

2) MSP updating method of using % Complete is not suitable for construction schedules.

3) MSP Data Date issues which in effect complicate the schedule update process are confusing for construction schedulers.

4) Due to the difficulty of using MSP to note uncompleted work before the Data Date, the difficulties in removing status for what-ifs, and the difficulty in identifying variances between a series of MSP schedules, it is hard to do most types of delay analysis (except perhaps RP 29R-03 [6] MIP 3.1 and 3.2)

5) Due to all of the built-in update help routines that automatically insert made-up actual dates and remaining durations; it is difficult to assume that most MSP schedules contain accurate enough status data that is necessary for a detailed analysis.

Of course this does not mean that MSP cannot be used for construction scheduling. MSP is here to stay as many contracts are now mandating its use.

I am not a MSP user but agree with Ron Winter,  MSP is here to stay, better you know a bit about it. 

Thomas Nicholson
User offline. Last seen 3 days 19 hours ago. Offline
Joined: 4 Oct 2006
Posts: 88
Groups: None

thanks Guys,

Gary - I can't find an option to select "status date" in the filter section or indeed how to select complete as a status

Mike - actually that was an exaggerated example to explain my point but thanks for joining in with that (although we have been known to have things like blockades that last that long)

Vladamir - that does look like it's done the job, thanks for that.

 

Cheers all,

 

Thom

Gary Whitehead
User offline. Last seen 5 years 18 weeks ago. Offline

Thomas,

 

How about Start earlier than (status date + 4 weeks) AND Status not equal to "complete"

 

Mike Testro
User offline. Last seen 29 weeks 1 day ago. Offline
Joined: 14 Dec 2005
Posts: 4418

Hi Thomas

What are you doing with a programme that has a task of 5 months duration?

You must be working on a level 2 summary - not good planning practice.

Best regards

Mike Testro

You may filter activities with

Start before the end of the period AND Finish after the start of the period.