Placeholder field in MS PROJECT 2016

Hi,

in MS PROJECT 2016, there is on, not so often used, field – Placeholder. Let me create new Project with three Tasks:

As you can see, Task 1 and Task 2 are Manually scheduled, and Task 3 is Auto scheduled. Now I will include Placeholder field in Gant Chart View, and I will get:

First of all, if Task is Auto Scheduled, Placeholder field is always = Yes. Furthermore, Placeholder field is read only, so you can’t change it. OK. For Task 2, and Task 3 Placeholder is Yes. Why? Well, Task is placeholder if it cannot be scheduled. So if I put, for example, 3 days to Duration field for Task 1, I will get:

Placeholder field is still = Yes, because for Task 1 we know that it will has 3 days Duration, but we do not know when will it start and when will it finish. So, I will put 21.2.2017 into Start Date for this Task, and I will get:

Because MS Project knows Duration and Start date for this Manually scheduled Task, it can calculate Finish Date, so now this Task is scheduled, and Placeholder is set to No. I will put Start and End date for Task 2, and I will get:

Again, since MS Project knows Start and Finish date, it can calculate Duration, and Task is Scheduled, so Placeholder is set to No.

So, it is easy to understand how Placeholder is set. you may wonder when to use it? Suppose that you have a Project with, for example, 750 Tasks. Some of them are Auto scheduled, and have TBD in Start date field, or duration field, etc. Those are placeholders. And, by simple filtering Tasks where Placeholder = YES, you can find out which Tasks are not scheduled yet, and they are bottleneck for finishing your schedule.Very useful Field, from my point of View.

Regards.

About Nenad Trajkovski

Location: Zagreb, Croatia Occupation: Project Manager Interests: Project Management and MS PROJECT He was born in Zagreb, Croatia at 1963. After completing his college he started working on projects in different business areas (banking, manufacturing, automotive industry, distribution, oil companies, etc.) developing and implementing ERP systems into different companies. He has got a lot of experience working with people in different business processes and also possesses great knowledge in information technologies and financial services. Today he works as a business consultant, adn Project Manager in PERPETUUM MOBILE d.o.o. Zagreb. He is a regular lecturer for Project Management in MS Innovation Center in Varaždin, Logosoft Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina and SEAVUS GROUP in Skopje Macedonia. He was named the best lecturer of WINDAYS 2008 while his lecture was also voted as the best. In addition, he was in TOP 10 lecturers at the MS SINERGY 2009 and MS VISIA 2009, 2010. Shares first place as the best lecturer of KulenDays 2009 and 2010 and PMI Conference 2009 in Zagreb. He is also a regular lecturer in the MS Community. He is a Certified Accountant and a PMP (Project Manager Professional) and a PMI-RMP (Risk Manager Professional), MCP, MCT, and Microsoft Certified Technical Specialist - Microsoft Project 2010. From 01.01.2012 awarded with MVP (Microsoft Most Valuable Proffesional - Microsoft Project)!

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