Project 2013 Advanced

Project 2013

Lesson 5 - Working With Multiple Projects

V IEWING M ULTIPLE C RITICAL P ATHS

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Discussion

By default, Microsoft Project considers an inserted project as a summary task in its position in the project. Critical tasks in the subproject file may not display as critical when inserted into the master project, since only one critical path displays by default.

The critical path is made up of critical tasks, which are tasks that affect the project finish date. Although the inserted project may contain its own critical path, if the project is not inserted within the critical path of the master project, these tasks will not be considered as critical. You can choose to view multiple critical paths, which is helpful in a consolidated file, as it allows you to see the critical path for each subproject. When you view multiple critical paths, any task that does not have a successor or a constraint will have a late finish date that is the same as its early finish date. This will result in zero slack, making the task critical. When only one critical path is displayed, any task without a successor or a constraint will have its late finish date set to the project finish date, resulting in slack, and thereby making the task noncritical. For this reason it is beneficial to view multiple critical paths in order to see all the tasks in all subprojects that will affect the finish date of the consolidated project.

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