Have you ever opened one or more Microsoft project files and had a blank screen due to a null-filter or a view that was unfamiliar or out of sorts? What happened to your project?! Why are tasks out of order or missing? Do your consolidated schedules have different views as you toggle from one to another?
Well, there are several possible reasons why this is happening — and one probable solution for addressing this dilemma. If you’re performing various analyses, filtering, sorting or grouping either in your individual schedule file or Master consolidated schedule and forget to undo one or more of those actions and save, you’ll end up with a mess. What you or other users will see is a a jumble of unrecognizable information or a blank screen due to a null-filter! So what to do?
If you’re working in a dozen or more schedules simultaneously in a consolidated schedule, as I do, you can easily create a Home View Macro. A Home View is your selected view that you want all schedules to show when opened by stakeholders. My Home view is a simple Gantt chart with no bar styles.
As an aside, using Microsoft’s default bar definitions with many schedules in a consolidated view causes a long wait-time to refresh after every move, especially if your files are located on a file server or working off Microsoft Project Server. Deleting all bar definitions and leaving the bar style window empty will speed up your computer. I’ve created a separate view titled, “Gantt chart – Table Only,” to keep it separate from Microsoft’s default Gantt chart.
Here’s the macro that you can copy and paste into a new macro window, and you can revise with credits. It works well with the 14 subprojects I use it with. Enjoy!
Sub Home()
‘ This Macro resets the active view in all
‘ consolidated files to 00 – Gantt Table Only Shows All tasks,
‘ calculates and saves files.
‘ This assumes all schedules are maintained by
‘ one scheduler. If not, make sure other
‘ schedule owners are OK with saving their schedule.
‘ Macro Originally Recorded 5/4/10 by Angelo Arcoleo
‘ (angeloarcoleo@gmail.com) and enhanced by
‘ Jim Aksel (jeaksel@yahoo.com)
‘Caution: Potential errors if file type (2003/2007)
‘ not equal to version of Project running.
Dim j As Integer
For j = 1 To Application.Projects.Count ‘The number of open projects
Dim mProj As Project
Set mProj = Application.Projects.Item(j) ‘Grab a project
mProj.Activate ‘Make this the “Active Project”
‘ In order to apply this view, the view already has to be in the
‘ project file or in the global.mpt. You can replace
‘ with a view of your choice.
ViewApply Name:=”00 – Gantt Table Only” ‘Apply a view
OutlineShowAllTasks
CalculateAll
FilterApply Name:=”Incomplete Tasks”
FileSave
Next j ‘Go to the next project in line
mProj = Nothing ‘returns memory
End Sub
