Critical path vanishes when task durations are lengthened

A project with about 100 tasks on critical path. All scheduled "As Soon As Possible". All linkages Finish-to-Start. If one of the early tasks is extneded by one day, all but the last ten tasks come off the critical path.
Any suggestions on where to look?

hoernert,
You say there are 100 tasks on the critical path so I assume you have many more tasks in the plan. I'd start by displaying the Total Slack field. When you extend an early task by a day, what do you see in the Total slack field for all the tasks up to the
last ten? What is driving the last ten tasks? Even though you think you have everything set for "as soon as possible", check the constraint on the first of the last ten tasks. Also check to see if for some reason there is an actual start date in
the Actual Start field of the first of the last ten tasks.
Oh I forgot to ask, which version of Project are you using? Is it updated to the latest service pack?
Also, are there any external links into the plan from another project?
John

Similar Messages

Microsoft Project 2013 - Text under Task Names not formatting for Critical Path to different color (e.g. red)

I am working with MS Project 2013 Professional
I am trying to format the text for Critical Path items under the 'Task Name' column to stand out as red - but it does not seem to be working
This is what I do - I go to "Format" tab, "Text Styles" "Critical Tasks" and then set Color as red, click OK. The text does not change form the default black.
Earlier, I had formatted the whole of that column "Task Name" as "Automatic Color" - that seems to have triggered this off
See attached screenshot
How can I fix this?
Thanks
HardCore Scheduler
P.S. I couldn't find the answer to any similar question in this forum

HardCore Scheduler --
Your mistake was formatting the Task Name column with Automatic Color, as this overrides the setting in the Text Styles dialog. Here is how to fix it:
In the View section of the Task ribbon, click the Gantt Chart pick list button (drop-down arrow) and select the Reset to Default Item on the menu.
Click the Yes button when prompted in a confirmation dialog.
Widen columns as needed and scroll the Gantt Chart pane back to the beginning of the project.
Click the Format tab to display the Format ribbon.
Select the Critical Tasks checkbox in the Bar Styles section of the ribbon.
Click the Text Styles button in the Format section of the Format ribbon.
In the Text Styles dialog, click the Item to Change pick list and select Critical Tasks.
Set the Color pick list to Red and then click the OK button.
This should display what you want to see. Hope this helps.
Dale A. Howard [MVP]

When all Task's are completed also complete the Phase (PPM 5.0)

Dear gurus;
I need to know if the Project Phase can completed automaticaly, when all phase task's are completed.
Someone did this in PPM 5.0?
*Project Definition
Project Phase
Task 1
Task 2
Task 3
Best regards,
Mariano.

Hello Mariano Sabiche,
I have done this in previous versions but I don't think there is any difference in PPM 5.0 in this functionality. This can be achieved by implementing automated workflows by using the triggering events or status change actions.
So depending on the details of your scenario:
1. You may trigger this automated workflow upon the status change of the last task in the phase.
2. You may use "relationships" between various tasks and look for the last task to be executed and then trigger the workflow.
Hope this helps.
Please let me know if you need any further details.
regards
N K

Critical Path Breaks up!

Hello MVPs,
A challenging problem, for me atleast.
To put it in simple terms:-
--- 10 tasks all linked to FS, 5 day duration, 1 resource, Standard calendar & Base calendar (THG_Cal-7 in file) of M-F 5d x 8hrs
--- All activities in Red critical path, so far so good, please see attached file.
--- Once I change the calendar of Act-5 in the middle to Cal-2 (20hr x 7d), the critical path breaks up!
My querries are:-
1. How does MSP calculates critical path, based on Project Calender, Elapsed time, Task calender?
2. Is it possible in MSp to allocate calenders to logical links like Primavera P6 or other scheduling software
3. Why MSP calculates Total slack as 6days for Act-5, which means based on Task calender not Project calender?
4. Lastly Whats the wayout to indicate correct critical path incase your programme has >1000 activities?
Your comments would be much appreciated.
Cheers!

Dominic Moss,
The idea that Critical Path iquals zero float is something that was created when there was found the first solutions to the problem: How long will my project take to be finished;
Later analysis discovered that are many situations not covered by the way CPM calculates FLOATS, based in the step-backwards from last date and only through a series of tasks connected between each other.
Therefore, in several situations - in special when there are resource leveling - MS-Project looses the ability to perform the Critical Path identification as it does exclusively with the Critical Path definition from the CPM.
I have been debating this topic for over 10 years! There is never a consensus.
However, there is a proof that the concept of Critical Path is broader than before when you see the late changes from PMBOK from 3rd edition to 5th edition.
Third Edition says:
“Critical Path. Generally, but not always, the sequence of schedule activities that determines the duration of the Project. Generally, it is the longest path through the project. However, a critical path can
end, as an example, on a schedule milestone that is in the middle of the project schedule and that has a finish-no-later-than imposed date schedule constraint.” (pag. 357)
So, it is what MS-Project performs and then in several situations you have a "broken" or "interrupted" Critical Path.
However, in Fifth Edition, a lot based in findings from the Practice Standard of Scheduling, we have:
“Critical Path. The sequence of activities that represent the longest path through a project, which determines the shortest possible duration.” (pag. 536)
The RULE that it must have zero float is taken away from this definition.
If you run MS-Project Add-ins that perform Resource Critical Path, you will find a Critical Path calculated with zero float BASED in resource restrictions, not task dependencies. This will solve 90% of the problem.
But you will also find external dependencies and some strange interactions of calendars and types of dependencies that will break both CPM and RCP calculations.
So, you will actually find certain situations in which the PROJECT Critical Path may have floats.
To fix these situations, there is an attempted rule from Primavera and there are other manual considerations that can be made, that are expressend in a document from AACE
AACE International Recommended Practice No. 49R-06
IDENTIFYING THE CRITICAL PATH
There, you will find FOUR different methods, in all we have commont the principle that the Critical Path is always the longest path, not necessarily the one defined by floats.
“There are several accepted methods for determining the critical path. The four most frequently used methods include the following:
Lowest Total Float – The activities with the lowest total float (sometimes abbreviated as “TF”) values may be considered critical path activities. This calculated value may be a positive number, zero, or even a negative number.
Negative Total Float – Using this classification method, any activity that has negative float is considered critical, even if other activities have a lower negative float value. Under this classification, if an activity is contributing
to late project completion then it is worthy of inclusion on the critical path list regardless of its direct contribution to delayed project completion. Another way of framing this concept is to say that any work is understood to be critical if it scheduled
to be completed after the date required for a timely project completion.
Longest Path – The concept and term, “longest path” has existed since the beginning of formal CPM theory. Commercial implementation of this process into a defined algorithm has only recently been made and is recommended for projects that
use multiple calendars and activity constraints. The longest path calculation begins by identifying the activities that have an early finish equal to the latest calculated early finish for the project and then identifies all driving relationships for
these activities and traces them back to the project start date. This special calculation scheme is currently only instituted in Primavera scheduling software products. When discussing the theory of longest path, we will use the phrase using lower-case letters.
When describing the Primavera software feature called, “Longest Path,” we will use upper-case to distinguish the implementation from the theory.
Longest Path Value Method - The principle of longest path value differs from the approach used by Primavera in that, instead of just noting activity inclusion or exclusion from the longest path, a numerical value is calculated for each
activity that describes the degree of longest path much like float describes the degree of criticality. Other principles are also enforced that will be described below. “
In other words:
- Use MS-Project with an add-in (Complete Critical Path can be found in Google)
- Use other tools (Spider Project, Primavera, and some others)
- Always double check the paths, and consider the activities with LESS float (Gregg´s response) in some parts of your schedule.
Regards,
Peter Mello, PMP, PMI-SP,SpS

Custom fields in critical path report of project server 2013

Hi All
I want to create critical path report for the completed path projects.As client would like to know at which stage they are at the time of particular duration.
They want the milestones to be shown in that.
I need custom fields to be shown in that report.
Request you all to tell me the solution how to get custom fields and to work on this.
Please guide me on this ASAP.Very emergency.......
Thanks in Advance
Souji
Sowjanya G

Hi Souji,
First we would need to know more about the report. Which one are you talking about? Is it the critical task from the "in progress" link in the report tab?
If it is, after editing the report, you can in the right panel select any enterprise or local task custom fields:
Here is a link for customizing Project 2013 reports:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-ca/project-help/create-a-project-report-HA102829149.aspx
Hope this helps.
Guillaume Rouyre - MBA, MCP, MCTS

SharePoint 2010, Visual Studio 2010, Packaging a solution - The specified path, file name, or both are too long. The fully qualified file name must be less than 260 characters, and the directory name must be less than 248 characters.

Hi,
I have a solution that used to contain one SharePoint 2010 project. The project is named along the following lines:
<Company>.<Product>.SharePoint - let's call it Project1 for future reference. It contains a number of features which have been named according
to their purpose, some are reasonably long and the paths fairly deep. As far as I am concerned we are using sensible namespaces and these reflect our company policy of "doing things properly".
I first encountered the following error message when packaging the aforementioned SharePoint project into a wsp:
"The specified path, file name, or both are too long. The fully qualified file name must be less than 260 characters, and the directory name must be less than 248 characters."
I went through a great deal of pain in trying to rename the project, shorten feature names and namespaces etc... until I got it working. I then went about gradually
renaming everything until eventually I had what I started with, and it all worked. So I was none the wiser...not ideal, but I needed to get on and had tight delivery timelines.
Recently we wanted to add another SharePoint project so that we could move some of our core functinality out into a separate SharePoint solution - e.g. custom workflow
error logging. So we created another project in Visual Studio called:
<Company>.<Product>.SharePoint.<Subsystem> - let's call it Project2 for future reference
And this is when the error has come back and bitten me! The scenario is now as follows:
1. project1 packages and deploys successfully with long feature names and deep paths.
2. project2 does not package and has no features in it at all. The project2 name is 13 characters longer than project1
I am convinced this is a bug with Visual Studio and/or the Package MSBuild target. Why? Let me explain my findings so far:
1. By doing the following I can get project2 to package
In Visual Studio 2010 show all files of project2, delete the obj, bin, pkg, pkgobj folders.
Clean the solution
Shut down Visual Studio 2010
Open Visual Studio 2010
Rebuild the solution
Package the project2
et voila the package is generated!
This demonstrates that the package error message is in fact inaccurate and that it can create the package, it just needs a little help, since Visual Studio seems to
no longer be hanging onto something.
Clearly this is fine for a small time project, but try doing this in an environment where we use Continuous Integration, Unit Testing and automatic deployment of SharePoint
solutions on a Build Server using automated builds.
2. I have created another project3 which has a ludicrously long name, this packages fine and also has no features contained within it.
3. I have looked at the length of the path under the pkg folder for project1 and it is large in comparison to the one that is generated for project2, that is when it
does successfully package using the method outlined in 1. above. This is strange since project1 packages and project2 does not.
4. If I attempt to add project2 to my command line build using MSBuild then it fails to package and when I then open up Visual Studio and attempt to package project2
from the Visual Studio UI then it fails with the path too long error message, until I go through the steps outlined in 1. above to get it to package.
5. DebugView shows nothing useful during the build and packaging of the project.
6. The error seems to occur in
CreateSharePointProjectService target called at line 365 of
Microsoft.VisualStudio.SharePoint.targetsCurrently I am at a loss to work out why this is happening? My next task is to delete
project2 completely and recreate it and introduce it into my Visual Studio solution.
Microsoft, can you confirm whether this is a known issue and whether others have encountered this issue? Is it resolved in a hotfix?
Anybody else, can you confirm whether you have come up with a solution to this issue? When I mean a solution I mean one that does not mean that I have to rename my namespaces,
project etc... and is actually workable in a meaningful Visual Studio solution.

Hi
Yes, I thought I had fixed this my moving my solution from the usual documents to
c:\v2010\projectsOverflow\DetailedProjectTimeline
This builds ok, but when I come to package I get the lovely error:
Error 2 The specified path, file name, or both are too long. The fully qualified file name must be less than 260 characters, and the directory name must be less than 248 characters. C:\VS2010\ProjectsOverflow\DetailedProjectTimeline\VisualDetailedProjectTimelineWebPart\Features\Feature1\Feature1.feature VisualDetailedProjectTimeline
Now, the error seems to be related to
Can anyone suggest what might be causing this. Probably some path in an XML file somewhere. Here is my prime suspect!
<metaData>
<type name="VisualDetailedProjectTimelineWebPart.VisualProjectTimelineWebPart.VisualProjectTimeline, $SharePoint.Project.AssemblyFullName$" />
<importErrorMessage>$Resources:core,ImportErrorMessage;</importErrorMessage>
</metaData>
<data>
<properties>
<property name="Title" type="string">VisualProjectTimelineWebPart</property>
<property name="Description" type="string">My Visual WebPart</property>
</properties>
</data>
</webPart>
</webParts>
.... Unless I can solve this I will have to remove the project and recreate but with simple paths. Tho I will be none the wiser if I come across this again.
Daniel

Critical path of a specific milestone

Hi, does anyone how to identify a critical path of a specific milestone, i.e. not specificaly of the end of the project?

If you are only concerned with its critical predecessors, the easiest way is to hang a dummy task off the milestone which pushes about a year beyond PROJEND. All tasks with zero float are critical path to that milestone
Paul G

Timeline (2010): Critical Path items

Using the Timeline in Project Pro 2010; however tasks that are on the Critical path do not show in red on the timeline.
Can the Timeline be configured to show Critical Path items in the Timeline in a different color (red) or highlighted due to being on the Critical Path?

C. Abel,
The short answer is NO. The addition and formatting of Timeline Text is pretty manual. Some "text Styles" are available, but the they do not include.
I have not tried it, myself, but I presume you could record a macro to filter for all critical tasks (in the Gantt Chart View), Select All, and then Add them to timeline. And you could run that macro whenever the file is opened. May not be the complete solution,
but could be useful.
Cheers,
Prasanna Adavi, Project MVP
Blog:
Podcast:
Twitter:
LinkedIn:

Impact / Critical Path Analysis

One of those questions where it would be nice to hear from other professionals working in the industry rather than the masses...
tldr; Is anyone aware of any tools for impact analysis or critical path analysis for LV?
I develop automated test platforms for UUTs. There are often several members of a related product family that can be tested on a platform. If I make a change to some code that executes on all class members, I have to validate that that change does not unduly impact my ability to test all products through it. For some of our products, this is actually a regulatory requirement for a particular approval, but for most others it's just good practice.
What happens when you have code that executes conditionally depending on the child type? The calling VI is, in theory, different - do I need to test the other cases for other products that haven't been affected, or do I need to only test the critical path that's been affected? Furthermore, how do I even check whether the critical path for a process has changed? Compare tools might tell me that the top level VI has changed, but will they indicate that most of the conditional code has not?
As with anything, any validation like this requires a modicum of common sense in its application. And there are plenty of manual things I can do to track critical paths for different children, but it'd be nice to find something a bit more powerful. I would imagine a combination of bookmarks, a rigorous standard for contents and a bit of VI Scripting could generate what I'm after, but it seems like a common problem that others would have encountered.

Hi I don't' know how much help this is going to be, but I guess it's better then nothing...
This might not make any difference but usually when you want to draw or write things you use a panel or a component for it. Think off the frame as a regular fame and the panel/component as the picture/paper that you want to put inside the frame.
I can't see the paint method for your oval. There's a class called Graphics that has a method called drawOval that you can use.
Last but not least you need a MouseListener, so you can tell when the mouse has been clicked.

CPM-Critical Path Methord

Dear SAP Experts !
In SAP PS Scheduling do we have the critical path methord in place.
How can I define the floats for the same and find out the critical activities.
Please explain the above.
regards,
A S

Hi,
When define the relationship for the WBS element or network or activity then it will shows the critical path of your project when you see in the Gann chart.
The Float & Reduction strategy need to be defined in the IMG to get this critical path.
You can follow the scheduling type also.
The Gantt chart is displayed in this manner in which critical path in red indication, normal activities in Blue indication & activities confirmation in yellow indication.
a)The Gantt chart shows the Forward Scheduling (Earliest start (ES), Earliest finish
(EF)) & Backward scheduling Latest Start (LS), Latest Finish (LF).
b)Whenever the activities are confirmed the yellow indication appears in the Gantt chart.
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Critical Path setting

MS project uses 0 days to determine critical path. Is this the standard "best practice" setting?

Well, it is the default setting.
All tasks are important but tasks with different properties are important in their own ways. Tasks with 0 total float (MSP calls it "slack") are a good place to start. Of course, tasks with not much float are important too, because if things change by just
a bit then they will become critical. You can change the definition of critical to suit your needs so, for example you might want to light up the tasks which have < 5 days of float. The particular numbers that you choose will depend on your project and
the particular circumstances of your query and what you are trying to analyse. You can also group by total float (slack), which is just as good or better than changing the definition of critical.
Why do you ask?

A lot of memory is used when multiple tabs are open

Is there anything that can be done about the insane memory usage in Firefox when multiple tabs are open? I often have 20+ tabs open and the amount of RAM that Firefox uses when I have it open with this many tabs is just ridiculous. As an example of this, I just restarted Firefox after checking the Windows Task Manager. The Task manager said that Firefox was using 1.2 GB of RAM. I did have 32 tabs open, but this seems excessive even for this many tabs. Some of the tabs were image heavy, but none of them had any video in them. I'd think 10 MB per tab of RAM would be plenty to cover these kinds of pages, maybe 20 MB at most. The upper end of that range would be 640 MB of RAM. Instead, it appears to be using an average of 40 MB of RAM per page when this many tabs are open.
Is there anything that can be done to reduce amount of memory being used when multiple tabs are open? It really shouldn't need this much RAM to serve this many pages.

Start Firefox in <u>[[Safe Mode|Safe Mode]]</u> to check if one of the extensions (Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem.
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*Do NOT click the Reset button on the Safe Mode start window
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TFS Build Error - Exception Message: The specified path, file name, or both are too long. The fully qualified file name must be less than 260 characters

I am trying to set-up CI of Orchard CMS and deploy it on Azure using TF service. I am stuck at following error for path being
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Other Errors and Warnings
1 error(s), 1 warning(s)
Exception Message: TF400889: The following path contains more than the allowed 259 characters: drop/_PublishedWebsites/Orchard.Web_Package/Archive/Content/C_C/a/src/projects/Orchard/dev/DevAltaf/Orchard/src/Orchard.Web/obj/Debug/Package/PackageTmp/Modules/BrentApart.BannerManager/Scripts/controllers/bannerAssignmentController.js. Specify a shorter path. (type VssServiceException)
Exception Stack Trace: at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Workflow.Activities.FileContainerDropProvider.EndCopyDirectory(IAsyncResult result)
at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Workflow.Activities.CopyDirectory.EndExecute(AsyncCodeActivityContext context, IAsyncResult result)
at System.Activities.AsyncCodeActivity.CompleteAsyncCodeActivityData.CompleteAsyncCodeActivityWorkItem.Execute(ActivityExecutor executor, BookmarkManager bookmarkManager)
Inner Exception Details:
Exception Message: The specified path, file name, or both are too long. The fully qualified file name must be less than 260 characters, and the directory name must be less than 248 characters. (type PathTooLongException)
Did anyone came across such issue while deploying Orchard on Azure with TF service? If yes, how did you sort this freaking error?
Thanks,
Altaf B.

Hi AltafB,
For your situation, you can short the path for the source code. Or use a short path for build agent folder in your build definition. You can refer to the links below to solve your problem:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/aaronhallberg/archive/2007/06/20/team-build-and-260-character-paths.aspx
https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/1638a5f0-9321-4ff9-9ee7-6d347badb972/please-some-solution-to-the-specified-path-file-name-or-both-are-too-long?forum=tfsbuild
Besides, since you deploy Orchard to Azure, you can also publish it directly using publish profile in Visual Stduio or WebMatrix directly.
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We are trying to better understand customer views on social support experience, so your participation in this interview project would be greatly appreciated if you have time. Thanks for helping make community forums a great place.
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HERE to participate the survey.

Mail.app crashes when certain messages are selected

I recently migrated a user from OS X 10.4 to 10.5. When we run Mail.app, it will crash when certain messages are clicked.
I've tried everything I could to get the mail in in a different way -- importing it in different ways, deleting ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist, and re-importing, etc.
It certainly seems that the problem is tied to the individual message, as clicking on a certain message, even if it is in different folders (because of the way it was imported) causes the crash.
Most of the dozen-or-so crash logs start like this:
Process: Mail [17905] Path:
/Applications/Mail.app/Contents/MacOS/Mail
Identifier: com.apple.mail
Version: 3.3 (926.1) Build
Info: Mail-9260100~1 Code Type:
X86 (Native) Parent Process: launchd
[119]
Date/Time: 2009-09-29
10:47:52.713 -0600 OS Version:
Mac OS X 10.5.7 (9J61) Report Version:
6 Anonymous UUID:
285B8613-3118-4F91-A28C-BC405D91FAFD
Exception Type: EXCBADACCESS
(SIGSEGV) Exception Codes:
KERNINVALIDADDRESS at
0x0000000089082454 Crashed Thread: 0
Application Specific Information:
-[MessageContentController _fetchContentsForMessage:fromStore:withViewingState:]
One entry shows:
Application Specific Information:
-[MessageTransfer _synchronouslyPerformTransfer]
+[Library synchronouslyUpdateMessageFiles]
-[MessageContentController _fetchContentsForMessage:fromStore:withViewingState:]

My guess, the email(s) are from windos users?
I had this problem, until I switched to thunderbird. A few people, using a version (don't remember the version number) of outlook/outlook express, would send multimedia attachments.
As soon as I would select the email, Mail would crash.
I would copy the offending email to a folder with no other contents, and then open it up with TextEdit, to view the non-attachment portion.

Issue in Post Route Simulation related with critical path

I am using ISE14.4. I got critical path value 1.704 ns for my system. In post route simulation I gave clock period 1.705 ns, It should work as clock period is greater than critical path but in post route simulation I am getting this warning in ISIM
at 104057 ps, Instance /test/uut/count_0/ : Warning: /X_FF HOLD Low VIOLATION ON I WITH RESPECT TO CLK; Expected := 0.19 ns; Observed := 0.174 ns; At : 104.002 ns.
I checked my system is working without this warning at 2.37 ns clock period. Any time period less than this value gives "XX" output.
Is my understanding is right?

Is this an internal path ie from a register to register within the uut or is it from testbench to uut. If latter, make sure you are giving the data correctly. If former, this shows that xilinx timing results are not accurate which is unlikely.
Also your 1.705 is a setup timing result but the timing violation is a hold violation. Hold violations don't get resolved by increasing the clock period. So this path is probably a external path (which may include synchronization). Take a timing report of this specific path and post here.

Critical path vanishes when task durations are lengthened

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