How to switch between open projects ?

Jorge,



It is intesting to see how you think you can go around working with multiple projects and layouts and then conclude that layout is the problem. And I am afraid it is not anoother topic - it the same topic. If you have two projects open you must be able to see them in two different layouts. Primavera has completely ignored this in P5 and failed to incorporate it in P6. Very disappointing.



Programme based is fine and is a good concept. But you cannot force everybody to think and manage all the projects of a company to be managed centrally.

I think the perspective of Primavera from moving from a "project-based" system to a "program-based" or "enterprise-based" one should be considered.



During P3 days, people used to deal with "disconnected projects". However, even in P3, you’d have project groups and projects. If you adjust your perspective to this "project group/projects", you’d see that the enterprise version is the same -- albeit more powerful.



As for layouts, I think that it is assumed that you have to tidy up how you define your layouts. Defining layouts "on-the-fly" will create numerous layouts and will make life hard for the user with all the clutter. Try sitting back and define your standard layouts. This way, no matter which project you’re working on, it would be easy to pull-out a layout.



As for switching back and forth on projects, (as you know) you can open multiple projects at the same time. What I do is that I define multiple filters so that I can focus on one project at a time while working on a program (group of projects). This way, my screen is unclutterd with multiple projects.



I still think the P5 is much easier to use -- like you can have long activity descriptions, resource codes/descripions, etc.



My only single problem is the need to always adjust print layouts (which is a time waster). But this is another topic.



Hope this helps.

Hi

dear i completely agree with what bijaya has said,

anyway just can’t help it out.



regards



mangesh

This feature is more than just user friendliness for me. Many of us work in multiple projects. Eg - you may be updating progress in one project in a particular layout, then you get a call from someone to print off a list of his department activities for another project. In P3 you can do it very easily. But in P5 - the moment you open the second project the first project is closed. Even worse is that the second project gets open in the layout you were working in the first project. Then you search for the particular layout for the second project, do the necessary things. And then you open the first project again. You will find that now it opens in the layout of the second project. Then you need to look for the layout you were working earlier. It is such a waste of time.



Things get worse when you have project activity codes in some columns. You might have spent a good amount of time creating that layout for a project. But the moment another project gets open with that layout, it is spoiled - because it won’t find that field and as a result the column will be lost. If you have organized your data according to that data it is even worse.

You may be disappointed to know that this feauture is still not there in forth coming P6.

Hi David,



I also can’t find this option, but I get the impression that, unless you open the 2 projects in the same layout, P3E closes the previous project before opening another one.

Therefor you can use under file, the recently opened projects list (just like in MS Office products) to switch between projects.



Regards,



Valentin

I find that right mouse click collapse all, select the project I want project and right click expand all is easier than scrolling through a the activities. Depends of current view and layout settings but works for me.



HTH



Frank Borcherdt

I have no solution either in V5.



Another way of working that I know was used in V4, was that some users used two differents users name and it was easy to change of user ("File _ Login as different user" if I remember) ; it was easy to switch for one to another one. This is also no more possible.

Unfortunately there seems none. That’s what I have found from a similar question I posted several months ago in this column. You can open two or several projects at a time by pressing Ctrl key. But all these projects will open in same layout. Only option left then is to scroll up and down. This is not at all practical if you are working in two different types of projects.