Constraint type change / removal

I have inherited a group of stand alone programs that I have consolidated
into a master program. Many of these programs have hard constraints assigned
to the tasks from the various schedule developers by assigning dates to the
start or finish columns. Can I safely go in and change / remove the
constraints if the tasks are completed or at least an actual start date has
been assigned without affecting other tasks in my schedule?

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

Hornet50

John
Thu May 31 13:54:44 CDT 2007

In article <185BB4EF-5700-40BC-BDEC-F6D492EA36BB@microsoft.com>,
hornet50 <hornet50@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

> I have inherited a group of stand alone programs that I have consolidated
> into a master program. Many of these programs have hard constraints assigned
> to the tasks from the various schedule developers by assigning dates to the
> start or finish columns. Can I safely go in and change / remove the
> constraints if the tasks are completed or at least an actual start date has
> been assigned without affecting other tasks in my schedule?
>
> Thanks in advance for your assistance.
>
> Hornet50

Hornet50,
Once a task has a value other than "NA" in the Actual Start field,
predecessors or start constraints no longer have any effect. Once a task
has a value other than "NA" in the Actual Finish field, no constraint
has any effect.

The bottom line, unless you simply want a cleaner looking Constraint
Type field, there is really no advantage in removing constraints on
completed tasks.

John
Project MVP

Mike
Thu May 31 14:27:09 CDT 2007

Hi Hornet50,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup :)

I don't know for certain! But I wonder why you're bothering about what's
been done - concentrate on the future! As past dates are actuals, I don't
think removal of old constraints will affect the future outcome unless they
are Finish constraints which haven't been reached yet, which you really
don't want, as they remove the flexibility of Project. I would save a
project as a different name and try it and see. If it works OK then you can
apply the same to the other projects. In this sort of circumstance, I
always recommend to try and see on a copy.

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on :)

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP
See http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc for Project Tutorials



"" <hornet50@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:185BB4EF-5700-40BC-BDEC-F6D492EA36BB@microsoft.com...
>I have inherited a group of stand alone programs that I have consolidated
> into a master program. Many of these programs have hard constraints
> assigned
> to the tasks from the various schedule developers by assigning dates to
> the
> start or finish columns. Can I safely go in and change / remove the
> constraints if the tasks are completed or at least an actual start date
> has
> been assigned without affecting other tasks in my schedule?
>
> Thanks in advance for your assistance.
>
> Hornet50
>