Is there any detailed examples to use wildcards in the Filter command in MS Project?

Adnan Hamza,

I took a look at your file and I have a few comments, mainly everything John says.

First, it's not too bad, considering some of the abominations I have seen and what I was expecting.

I selected everything (top left corner above the ID), then task information, advanced, and set the task calendar to none. It is not needed because that calendar is the project calendar and all tasks get that calendar by default.

John is right (of course) about the extra redundant predecessors. They are not wrong if they are true, but they are unnecessary.

But now having spent a lot of time putting them in, and how long it will take to remove them, leave them there.

You only have one level of summaries, but it looks like a natural for more levels, like A1, A2 etc which will make it a lot easier.

There are some date constraints scattered around in there. They seem unnecessary. I would re-set all of those to asap.

I am having a bit of difficulty understanding exactly what your stated problem is, but I think you want to filter with the auto filter for particular start (or finish) times. Forget wild card characters. Just set the date/time format option to long day/date/time. Then insert Text1 field/column with a formula =[start]. Then insert Text2 field/column with a formula =right([Text1],5) to extract the 5 rightmost characters. The filter or group on that.

Any help?

Adnan Hamza,

You may have two part forms but the way it is set up, the links are still redundant. Your logic shows that task 5 cannot start until task 4 is complete. And task 7 cannot start until task 5 is complete. Therefore the link from task 4 to task 5 is redundant. Try it, remove the redundant links and nothing changes. It doesn't really hurt anything the way you have it set up but it does add extra bulk to the plan.

With regard to your main issue. As I understand you want to insure that all tasks start and finish the same day (i.e. no tasks slip over to the following day). If so, the best way to do that is with VBA but you mentioned that is not an option for you at this time. So, try this, create a custom field with the following formula:

Number1=IIf(day([Start])<day([Finish]),1,0)

That will identify all tasks where the start and finish are on different days. Then filter for a "1" in the Number1 field and make adjustments as needed. Note, you may need to apply the filter multiple times as shifting the first set of tasks may create other instances of tasks crossing days.

Hope this helps.

John