Changing activity id in proper sequence for entier project (or certain WBS

Question

Hi,
Presently I am working on a schedule with more then 3000 activities. I need to delete a WBS with 200 activities and then paste another WBS with 200+ activities. The problem for me is that I need to change the activity ID so that the WBS should be align with the entier project. Is there any better way other then manually editing the Activity Id for entier project? I need to change the Activity Id so that it should reflect the proper sequence with the start date. Any help will be apreciated.
Thank you

Answer 1

2. you can also use a global change to change all activity id's. (no if line needed), by concatenating any 2 or more existing text columns or udf's you create for this purpose.
e.g. create 2 text udf's named "Sort" and "Sort_txt".
under edit/ user prefs / dates, uncheck month name and use MM-DD-YY format so that 30-Oct-09 displays as "10-30-09"
in the "then" field of the global change add the following lines:
sort_txt = Start Date (you need this to convert a date field to text)
sort = leftstring(sort_txt,5) (to extract the first 5 characters of sort_txt as defined in the previous step, that is "10-30"
sort = sort & '-' (to get "10-30-")
sort = sort & WBS Code (to concatenate "10-30-" with WBS Code or any other field for that matter)
you can always use "Start Date" or the newly created "Sort" to sort your activities. I wouldn't mess with Activity ID too much if I were you, but if you must..
keep Activity ID as simple as possible as a project default option (0001, 0002, 000x...) and add a final line in the global change:
Activity ID = Sort & Activity ID (that is because you need a unique Activity ID). you should get something like 10-30-AAA-0001.
it is safer not to play with Activity ID too much in global changes. that's why i use as many udf's i need for intermediary steps and change Activity ID in just one final line.
OR if you feel more comfortable to work with the udf in excel,
export "Sort" as a column in xls
populate it in excel with 0001 to xxxx with the activities sorted by Start Date (as explained earlier)
reimport the project
run a simple global change such as:
Activity ID = Sort
or
Activity ID = Sort & <any field you want>
caution: there is no undo for this. practise on a backup copy of the project. don't forget you need a unique Activity ID.
good luck
Edited by: Tibi on Oct 9, 2009 5:17 AM