Predecessor Exception Report

[jessica_shultz]

Hello Everyone, I am trying to make a report that shows me tasks that should have a predecessor assigned but during the project assigning process the predecessor has been removed by accident. I am hitting a road block on what to set my filters at in the report so that I can see a task that is missing a predecessor. I currently filter by "Successor Can Start" equals to False as well as the other filters for Tasks like "Task Can Start" equals True and "Task is Complete" equals False. This basically sorts by all the tasks ready to start. And it pulls the tasks that are missing predecessors which is what I want. But it is also pulling in tasks that have a predecessor that has been met. I am looking for examples of similar reports and what filters or groupings others have used to achieve similar reports. Jessie Dantin Mercy Health

[SkyeHa]

hi Jessie have you tried something like "predecessors ID is blank"? -skye

[jessica_shultz]

Hi Skye, I tried using the "Predecessor ID is Blank" and it did pull in some of the tasks I wanted, so thank you . But it didn't pull in all of them and it seemed to be pulling in the tasks that start the project. I tried filtering out by "Task Number Greater than 1" but because all of our templates use different task numbers it didn't filter out all of the information that it's necessary. But thanks for reaching out! Jessie Dantin Mercy Health

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Hi Jessie, Since you are looking to report on Tasks where PM's "removed" predecessors, I'm assuming that the Projects were created from Templates in which the Template Tasks had predecessors in the first place. If so, one approach (having already used Skye's suggestion to get close) could be to add two columns to the report: the Task's predecessors in the first, and the Template Task's predecessors in the second. You could then visually inspect, compare, discuss, and correct, manually. If, going even further, "enforcement" (to ensure the Template's Task predecessors are preserved) is your main concern, I invite you to consider our "http://store.atappstore.com/product/sync-template/">Sync Template solution, which can do that (and more) at your command. Regards, Doug Doug Den Hoed - AtAppStore Got Skills? Lend a hand! https://community.workfront.com/participate/unanswered-threads

[SkyeHa]

hi Jessie, are you still filtering on all the other items you mentioned in your original report? I don't know if tasks that don't have predecessors should use the successors "can start" flag as a filter, since technically they aren't successors. If you already have a task report looking for missing predecessors, I would just go with filtering: * projects should be active (filter out projects you don't care about) * tasks should not be complete or skipped (filter out tasks you don't care about) * predecessor ID should be blank (filter in anything with no predecessor) * task should be assigned to someone (filtering out your parent tasks) * and yeah, probably not task number 1 -skye

[AnthonyIm]

Going off what Skye has, I use the filter Number of Children equals 0 A LOT to get rid of parent tasks, especially if you have a few PMs who go a little crazy with the subtasks and you have 4 generations in a project. Anthony Imgrund FCB

[catherineh70969]

Hi @Jessie Dantin try adding the lines below into your Filters EXISTS:b:$$EXISTSMOD=NOTEXISTS EXISTS:b:$$OBJCODE=PRED EXISTS:b:successorID=FIELD:ID Catherine Hayes The Channel Company

[jessica_shultz]

Hi Catherine, Thank you for responding. I tried using this text mode code and it didn't populate any data. I don't really know a lot about text mode. I'm in the middle of taking the advance reporting training right now through Ascent. So hopefully I will be able to use this code when I'm finished with training. Thanks, Jessie Dantin Mercy Health

[jessica_shultz]

Hi Anthony, Thank you for responding and thanks for the hint on Number of Children. This did sort through many of my parent tasks but I am still getting tasks where the predecessor isn't missing so this is a regular task that is ready to start. Thanks for your help! Jessie Dantin Mercy Health