MSPROJECT 2000 : Strange behaviour after merge

[KayouMT]

With MS PROJECT 2000 ; A strange behaviour when a couple of projects are linked in a master project.

What exactly I did.

- I planned separately 3 projects : P1, P2, P3.
- I insserted the 3 projects in a central one : PMASTER.
- I defined a resource pool in PMASTER and allowed P1, P2 and P3 to share resources.
- The efforts (Work) et Duration values unit is «day».

First result (seems to be correct).

- In a first check ; the merge worked but one task of P1 is marked «critical» in PMASTER and not in P1 plan.

Second result (Strange!).

- 24 hours after, I reopen the 4 files. Surprise ! Durations have been automatically recalculated and replaced by other numbers with decimal digits ???

- Also, anytime I open the PMASTER project, a second file (Project1) is created. The content of Project1 is very similar to the content of PMASTER ???

- A look to the «resource usage» table does also show me (for a week, 5 days planning) the values 1.14d 1.14d 1.14d 1.14d 1.14d instead of 1d 1d 1d 1d 1d ???

- The critical task is still «critical» in PMASTER and not in P1. I do not understand why ???

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Voyagersail]

The subprojects may have been changed to decimal units because PMASTER uses decimal units - I remember seeing "how to convert fractional to decimal units" in my manual the other day, but now I can't find it. Anyway, the master can cause these sorts of changes in the subs.

Project1 is created when you select the wrong option when opening the master resource pool (in your case PMASTER). Choose one of the other opening options.

Check your resource calendar for allowable working time. Also be sure you understand task types: fixed duration -vs- work -vs- units -vs- effort driven. The wrong selection can give unxpected results.

P! cannot know the critical path of the overall project plan since it has no visibility of the overall plan. only PMASTER can know the overall crit path.