ProjectLoad Blog

Project managers may now define dependencies within their projects by setting relationships between phases and activities. This will allow you to make certain that tasks that must be completed before others can begin are monitored by ProjectLoad. The system already allows people assigned to activities within projects to revise their estimated target dates as needed and then flags potential problems such as missing a phase target date or forcing an overtime situation. ProjectLoad now also monitors whether changes in target dates may affect other downstream activities. For example, if one phase cannot be started until another phase is completed, the system will verify that all activities within the first phase have target dates that are earlier than the estimated start dates of all activities in the later phase. The system will not force this relationship to be followed, but will raise alerts with the personnel involved and with the project manager if a change in a target date in one of the activities affects something in the dependency chain.

The project manager adds new constraints using the Action lists in the project editor. He or she simply clicks on the action list of the activity or phase they want to place a constraint on and chooses “Constraints” from the list. A pop-up window permits them to select which activities or phases are dependent on this task and which activities or phases this task depends on. Clicking on “Done” in the pop-up window will close the window and refresh the project editor display to graphically show the constraint. Clicking on either end of an existing constraint line is a short cut to bring up the constraint pop-up window for that activity or phase.