Using schedule templates / rolling wave planning

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    • #373163
      Jerry Insall
      Participant

      I am struggling and have been unsuccessful finding any posts or articles on this topic.

      We need to have visibility that a potential project exists. During this planning phase information becomes known and the fog slowly lifts as project estimates, scope, required completion dates, business environment constraints, etc. Once many of these items are defined I can select the most appropriate schedule template. Each template has quite a bit of granular detail including generic resources on task assignments and nominal task durations.

      It is easy to generate a schedule using a template. How do you use a template AFTER the schedule is built? (Maybe 10 lines exist for planning, then you need the next 400 tasks at the conclusion of the planning)

      Suggestions?

      note: using Project & Project Server 2013.

    • #373174
      Larry Christofaro
      Participant

      The easy button doesn’t exist for that but I’ll start with a question. Do you use timesheets and lock changes to actual work from happening directly on the project? If so you don’t have many options other than copy/paste. If not I might suggest this. Instead of trying to insert/copy the project template, try to copy the planning tasks into the project template. If your resources are the same it might be a lot easier to copy ten tasks then 100’s.

      Other options is to do planning in a separate project and combine reporting with a custom field or link the planning project as a sub-project of the main project. No easy button but hope that helps…

    • #373759
      Jerry Insall
      Participant

      Do not use timesheets.

      Looking for something that can scale to ~150-200 new projects / year. Not crazy about doing a second schedule because of the reporting that occurs from day 1.

      I’m surprised this is a unique issue.

    • #373770
      Larry Christofaro
      Participant

      Jerry, this is certainly not a unique issue. Not using timesheets help as you can copy tasks from one project to another without too much trouble. You might try to insert a project but unlink the sub-project. This would take the template (as a project stored someplace) and copy under your planning tasks. Under the Project ribbon, choose Sub-Project. In the insert dialog box, unselect the Link to Project checkbox. Try that and let me know if that works. It might take a couple of tries to get it working right so start with a test project. If you have specific issues then respond again and let us know.

      Should have thought of that the first time. I must have been too busy asking questions. Hope that helps…

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