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Feature Request: Import External Task 'Symbolic Link' to a Project

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Level 7

2/9/18

Bug / Change Request Description:
Provide a way to import a task to a project plan from another project, which should reflects all attributes of that task (name, assignment, etc.), to be used to more clearly represent predecessors.

Business Justification:
Decrease PM time in creating external predecessor links and troubleshooting projects.

Use Case:
Linking external tasks via Predecessors functionally works to control the project timeline but it does not provide a quick and obvious way to identify 1) that an external predecessor is linked and 2) what its status is -- particularly when there are a lot of predecessors included with it in the affected task.

Today we have PMs that manually create a task to mimic/represent that external task and link the external task as the new task's predecessor. This works to explicitly show that the external task exists and what it's planned/projected completion date is, but it doesn't show the planned/projected start date.

A simpler and more elegant way would be to import that external task directly into the project and then link that directly to any other task predecessors as needed.

Yes, we can hover over the predecessor ID to see the details of the external task today, but only if the Predecessor field is shown and if it is not overloaded with other predecessors. It's not a good solution.