Hi,
In my previous post I have described how to put subprojects in a Project, and how to make “Master-Slave” Relationship in MS PROJECT 2010. It looks like this:
I want to see Critical Path:
and I will get:
Notice, that you can see the Critical Path only for Master Project. If I want to see Critical Path for Master, and all other Project I should remove check box from: Projects Are Calculated Like Summary Tasks:
and then:
and I will get:
Notice that you can see critical path for Master, and Slave Projects on the Gantt Chart.
As you already know Projects are linked, and any change to the Sub Project in Master Project is recorded to the Slave Project, and vice versa. If you want to unlink the Sub Project you can do it like that:
and I will get:
Notice that Project2, and all its Subtasks are still in the Master Project, but there are no more linked to it, so if you open Project2.mpp and you change something there Master Project remains the same, and vice versa!
If I want to unlink and delete complete Sub Project from my Master Project I should select Summary Task for the Project I want to delete, and the hit the Delete key. I will get:
and after that:
The Project3 is gone!
A Master Slave relationship is one way of managing multiple Projects in MS PROJECT 2010. This is good way of managing RELATED PROJECTS!
But what if you want to manage UNRELATED PROJECTS in MS PROJECT 2010.
They are several ways to do it.
I will open a blank Project first, and then:
and I will get:
If you have already open all of your Projects, you can use a blank project and then:
and you will get:
For the end of this Post I will show you how to make a Project Workspace. Suppose that you always open set of Project files. You can put them in the workspace, and then when you open the workspace file all Projects will be opened, without creating Master Slave relationship or making Consolidated Project.
Firs I have to find the button for saving the workspace:
and then:
and I will get:
Now I will open all Projects I want to save in a Workspace, and I will click on Save Workspace button:
Whenever I will open the Workspace file all Project files will be opened:
and then:
and all my Project will be opened!
Regards,
Nenad Trajkovski 
Hi Nenad,
Thank you so much. Very Helpful. Internet is awesome because of people like YOU 🙂
Thanks again.
What if I want to make changes to the master project but don’t want it to change the sub projects? I want to be able to re-order the tasks in the master project but want them to stay in the same order for the sub projects. I thought you could save “one way”. I say yes to saving the master and no to the subs and I lose the master changes.
Am I asking for the impossible?
Reda my new Blog Post about that
Hi Nenad,
I have a problem with linking subprojects into Master project. When I published Master project with his subprojects on Project Server and try to edit/add links between subprojects, i have frozen cells and i haven’t options to edit or add anything.
Do you know what might be the problem?
Thanks in advance
I do not have idea. Usually I don’t use master slave model!
Hi, I would like a scenario where when the milestones in master project change, the project manager of the sub projects know of the specific change by some alert or good indications in the sub project and then they make relevant change in their sub projects. Also after this, the master project schedule should show the critical path changes as the case may be.
How to have such alerts for project managers of sub projects? Please advise.
Hi Nenad. I work with MS Project 2010 and I have a problem with the way that sub-projects behave. I want certain people to have a Master project that they can publish. Other people need a Master project as read-only. I have tried to create a Master project and add sub-projects as read only. However, even though the sub-projects are read only, they still affect the ability to publish from the read-write Master projects.
This is driving me crazy. Any ideas?
I am on Vacation till 09/03/2012. I will give you the answer after that. Regards
Hey Nenad, great write-up on the use of subprojects. One quick question. How would you keep the master and sub project linked if you had to send them via e-mail? I was thinking of zipping them, then allowing the recipient to extract the files into a folder. Any other ideas?
It will work!
Hi Henad,
I have a master project with ten sub projects (they are not related) each sub project uses the same resource pool. Within each sub project should I share the resource pool or should I only share the resource pool with the master project ?
Thanks
Tony
You should share The Resource pool with Each Project!
Nenad,
Thanks !
Tony
Hi Nenad, I have created a master project plan with three sub-projects and it appears that every time the master is saved I’m asked if I want to save changes to the sub-projects. In some cases there should not be any changes to the subs, so why is Project asking me to save those changes? I’m also sharing resources from a shared pool. Either Project asks the save subs question every time, or my resource assignements and dates are changing. What do you think?
Well, same here. I think that that is how MS PROJECT works! Just Click on YES TO ALL!