One Master Schedule Vs. Master/Sub-Project Scenari

The only benefit I can see is if there would be more than one person in the schedule at any given time.

Presently, I am overseeing a "Master Schedule" with 4 additional schedulers working on their respective sub-projects. The schedule is located on a networked server, and each scheduler is in a different physical location.

Prior to this project, I was used to being the only person in the schedule, and never used sub-projects.

Scott,

I use Projects with Project Groups for two things:-

1. Security - when you have multiple users updating the schedule you can restrict their updates to only those projects within the group that you give them rights to. Very useful if the project is say a subcontractor who plans and updates their own schedule.

2. Speed - when operating at the Project level you can dramatically reduce the number of records that are accessed each time you filter, schedule, change layout, summarize, etc. The software responsiveness is improved.

You can add the interproject relationships at the Group Level and remember to restrict the other users to read-only at this level. Recovery from accidental corruption of data is improved as if everyone is operating at the Project Level and someone makes a mistake using Global Change, Fill Cell, etc you can restore only that Project and the person who caused the problem is the only person impacted.

From experience once you have multiple staff accessing a common Project Group, you can need to restrict the damage they can accidentally inflict on the data of other users.

You need to understand and set the scheduling options found in the Advanced Tab once the projects are created.

HTH

Scot,

Yes security & speed is important thing.
Apart from this the tracking of projects with hierarchy makes it easy for both planners & management.

And subsequently understanding the trend/actions/ implications etc. for the management.

Totally agree with your comments regarding improved speed. Security is not an issue since I will be the only user, however I agree that with multiple users the sub-project set-up is beneficial. I remain simply amazed that P3e/c cannot filter out specific projects from one master project file and needs a sub-project set-up to achieve this when downloading from P3Win. That is what is instigating this revision to my current master schedule set-up.

Hi Scott,

It is not clear to me why P3e/c cannot filter (or you are facing difficulty) out your activities (of a subproject) when you have properly assigned the activity codes to them.

P3e/c works the same way as P3WIN does for filtering out activities based on codes within a layout.

If you are planning to upload (IMPORT) the activities from P3Win to P3e/c, kindly ensure that in the import process, (you have a button for ’advanced’)the advanced button is clicked which will lead to 2 more extra screen for ’auto cost rules’ options. Checking and unchecking the Merge subprojects option will either allow you to combine all your P3 subprojects into one P3e file or vice versa and same for making your P3 activity codes as Project-specific or Global P3e activity codes.

Let me know if I can be of any assistance to you to convert your P3WIN file to P3e/c.

Regards,

Syed

Scott,

An easier way to achieve the Projects within Project Groups reorganise you are looking to achieve is to use cut and paste (remember to paste the external relationships) and use auto increment with a unique two character prefix.

Since you did not use intelligent id’s this will overcome the field size problem on the activity id and when finished you create the projects using the same unique two character id prefixes and the activities will automatically appear in the projects.

I sort of understand why the load to P3/e works this way. You load projects into the EPS and will also load project details and project codes. Also prevents you from doubling up on activities if the filters are not 100%.

After you have created your projects there is nothing to stop you from continuing to work in the Project Group, just got to get the prefixes right when creating new activities but I assume you currently need to correctly code an activity code to indicate which project anyway.

HTH

Frank,

Thanks for the input. All projects are currently coded correctly for project separation within the master project file. However, I’m going to look into your solution for revising the activity id’s. Your solution would certainly solve the problem with alpha, numerical, and id’s ranging from 5 to 10 charcaters all within this schedule.