importing dates from ms excel into ms project

[tazor]

we have an issue where we get an excel report ( our PMO dept uses MS EXCEL) from which we have like products

like so

product 1 start date end date

product 2

.

.

.

product x



each product has a product life cycle which we are trying to put into MS project. I wanted to know a couple of things:

-note: the products and dates change and as such need to be reflected in MS project (that is why i needed to do manual linking)



1. is there an automatic/easier way to "link" all the start/end dates into ms project which at the moment is very cumbersome given the crazy amount of products we have (horribly manual error prone process)? via programming or maybe i can put the ms excel file into another file format which ms project can easily get somehow?



2. I am trying to have multiple products within one project plan. So, i defined the first product and its tasks/milestones with proper linking (both kinds linking with ms excel dates and linking internally of tasks like FS/FF etc). Now is it possible to just simply copy and paste the rest without losing any linking? apparently this is also a problem i am having.



I need serious help on this. I would really appreciate it since i am very new to ms project and trying to convince our company to use this instead of just all sorts of ms excel sheets.



thanks

[EINSTEIN_007]

Follow the below method and see if it works for you or not:

1. Click Open.
2. In the Files of type box, click the file type you want to import data from.
   
   • To import data from a SQL Server or Oracle Server format, click ODBC to connect to your data source, and then continue with step 5.
3. In the Look in box, locate the folder that contains the file you want to import, and then select the file in the file list.
   
   • If needed, you can search for the file.
4. Click Open.
5. Follow the instructions in the Import Wizard to import the data you want into the proper Microsoft Office Project fields.

[JulieS]

we have an issue where we get an excel report ( our PMO dept uses MS EXCEL) from which we have like products

like so

product 1 start date end date

product 2

.

.

.

product x



each product has a product life cycle which we are trying to put into MS project. I wanted to know a couple of things:

-note: the products and dates change and as such need to be reflected in MS project (that is why i needed to do manual linking)



1. is there an automatic/easier way to "link" all the start/end dates into ms project which at the moment is very cumbersome given the crazy amount of products we have (horribly manual error prone process)? via programming or maybe i can put the ms excel file into another file format which ms project can easily get somehow?



2. I am trying to have multiple products within one project plan. So, i defined the first product and its tasks/milestones with proper linking (both kinds linking with ms excel dates and linking internally of tasks like FS/FF etc). Now is it possible to just simply copy and paste the rest without losing any linking? apparently this is also a problem i am having.



I need serious help on this. I would really appreciate it since i am very new to ms project and trying to convince our company to use this instead of just all sorts of ms excel sheets.



thanks

You can select multiple tasks and use the "Link tasks" button to link F to S sequentially. For example: Task A, Task B, Task C, Task D.
Select all four tasks and the resulting links will be
Task A is predecessor to Task B in a Finish to Start link
Task B is predecessor to Task C in a Finish to Start link
Task C is predecessor to Task D in a Finish to Start link

To your question about copy/paste - yes. Just ensure you select by the row number to capture all task information.

You can define predecessors in Excel and then import -- but be cautious about Task ID versus Excel row number.

I hope this helps.
Julie