Cross Project Predecessors

[MichaelMa9]

Hello, I am thinking this falls under the Cross Project Predecessors umbrella but not sure. I am looking to setup a task in a project that will actually span across lets say six different projects. We will call it Task A. When Task A is complete it will automatically complete the task in all six projects. Can that be done and how would I set that up? Thank you, -Mike Marando Mike Marando Excelsior College

[VicAl]

Hi Mike. The Cross Project Preds wouldn't automatically close tasks for you. They would only help you align your dates and dependencies to those tasks (and trigger an email to the individual assigned to the Successor task when the preds are done). To accomplish what you want, the only way I know of to automatically close those other tasks would be to use the Resolved By. However, that only works with by using Issues. So you would have to create an issue under each Project and then tie them all to Task A. Then when you mark Task A complete, it'll close all the Issues in the other projects. Unless someone has a better idea or way to do this. I believe the Resolved By only has a one to many relationship when you have a Task to many Issues. I don't believe it's possible to do the other way around and you can't do Task to Task as far as I know. Assuming that's the case you would create an Issue in each of the six projects. Then go into each Issue > Issue Details > Overview > Edit Overview, scroll to the bottom to Resolved By, enter Task in the Dropdown and type in your Task name (Task A). Do this for each issue. Then go look in the same place in Task A (Task Details > Overview and scroll to the bottom) and you'll see the links to each of the Issues in the Resolved By field. And any time you change the Status on the Task, it will mirror the Status on each of those Issues (at least the standard Statuses – New, In Progress, and Complete/Closed). It might not be the answer you're looking for, but I'm not sure if there's a better one. But I'd love to hear one if anyone else knows. Vic Alejandro, PMP, CSM | IT | Sr. Technical Project Manager Denver Water | t: (303-628-7262) | c: (303-319-6473) "http://www.denverwater.org/"> http://www.denverwater.org INTEGRITY | VISION | PASSION | EXCELLENCE | RESPECT

[dwyerge]

Hi all I am looking for something similar to this. Say Project B's task of "video completed" is reliant on Project A's task of "video completed" being marked as done. How would you go about tying those together when both are their own projects with different dates, assignees, steps, etc. In short, tying 2 different projects together through predecessors so the system automatically says once Project A has these tasks done, Project B can start. Appreciate the reply that was offered here but it did not work for me. Anyone?? :) dwyer gerrity zimmerman advertising

[BarryBu2]

Dear Dwyer, It sounds like what you're asking for is exactly the cross-project predecessor function. The other correspondence was on automatically closing tasks in other projects. You're asking about scheduling the tasks based on tasks in other projects. If I've misunderstood and you are after something other than scheduling based on tasks in other projects, please ignore the next bit. If you know the reference of the other project, you can type it directly into the 'predecessor' field follow by a colon and then the task number. However, most people don't have project ID's and task numbers memorised so there is also an interface to do it. Go to the task that can't start until a task in another project is finished. Click on predecessors, and then click on cross-project Predecessors. You'll be taken through a 'wizard' that first asks you to identify a project, then a task within it, then dependency type and lag. Once you save (add) it, you'll see it with the correct syntax in the predecessor column on your task list. It used to be that while you could edit these in the predecessor column, you couldn't edit it in the cross-project predecessor tab - this was only for adding them. I'm not sure if that's changed. Full details can be found at: