Project 2013 Advanced

Lesson 5 - Working With Multiple Projects

Project 2013

W ORKING WITH M ASTER P ROJECTS

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Discussion

Very large or complex project files use a large amount of memory and can be difficult to manage. You can address the problem of working with large projects by creating subprojects and master projects.

A master project is a project that has other projects inserted and linked to it. You can create a master project by inserting existing project files into a single project file. The inserted projects are called subprojects. Each subproject appears as a summary task in the master project file.

You may find it helpful to create standard subprojects that can be reused in other projects. For example, if you are a building contractor, you can create subprojects containing tasks, such as Build Foundation and Build Infrastructure that you can insert into various projects as needed.

When working in a master project, subprojects do not need to be open. By default, if you make changes to the subproject information in a master project, the subproject file is updated to reflect the changes. Likewise, if you make changes to the subproject file, the master project file is updated to reflect the changes.

You can group related tasks together to form a subproject according to a variety of criteria. One logical grouping would be to create a subproject of all the tasks in one phase of a project. In addition, you may want to consider grouping tasks by similar time periods; related dependencies; related work sites, resources, or supervisors; or different budgets.

C REATING A S UBPROJECT

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Discussion

Subprojects can be existing projects that you insert into a master project file, or they can be created from the information in the current project file. You can create a subproject by copying the tasks from the current project file, pasting them into a new file, and then saving the subproject file. When you follow this process, the resource information for the selected tasks is copied to the new subproject file.

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