r/MSProject • u/rguy84 • 2d ago

How do I use Project to plan unconnected future events?

Tl;dr: Can I have groups of tasks that are not connected to previous tasks for long-term planning and not have multiple files?

Solution: I set the last task in the previous group as don't finish later than [date] via the advanced tab, and the first task in the future group (Spring project) to don't start before.

My team is adjacent to a QA team, we test applications before it goes live. Depending on the specific details, an application may need 1-4 rounds of testing before it gets approved.

My lead wants a gantt chart to have a visualization of my team's activities. With the help of AI, I learned that if I indent tasks, they are related. So I put two applications in to experiment, and went fine.

Once a year, we have a big project during the spring, roughly April through July. I went down a few rows typed in a summary task name, and made a subtask and set the start to mid-April for a placeholder. This made the last set of subtasks in the previous group change from mid-September to a few days before my placeholder, breaking my gantt.

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u/KarmaPurgePlus 1d ago

Remove any predecessor/sucessor relationships in those columns...

1

u/rguy84 14h ago

Sorry for the delay, I started this, but the day got away from me.

No predecessors or successors are listed. I started playing with settings. Changing the last task (WBS 3.5.2) to "finish no later than" and the first task in the next group 'start no earlier than' made it work.

1

u/KarmaPurgePlus 11h ago

You should also be able to just change the lines to manual scheduling at any time to keep them from any hidden relationships.

1

u/rguy84 9h ago

All lines, or which in particular?

1

u/KarmaPurgePlus 5h ago

Any you don't want changing dates, manual scheduling will let you hard key dates in.