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I am currently running a project to develop about 50 parts. Each part has about 100 actions from engineering to production to shipping. I created one standard project file for a standard part. Then I reviewed each part against the standard to make changes only to the non standard actions.

Now I have 50 separate projects that pull from the same resource pool. When I insert them all into a master project, MS project crashes more than half the time. Most likely I do not have the processing power to have 50 projects linked together.

When I copy and paste each set of actions into one project, I have to manually change all the predecessors as the line numbers change but the predecessors don't. Is there a way to copy and paste tasks from one project file to the other without loosing the predecessors?

3 Answers 3

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In the old project schedule, go to the Task Sheet view.

  1. Select all rows and columns by clicking on the blank square above the IDs and to the left of the first column header.
  2. Press Ctrl + C to copy.
  3. Wait until the hour glasses goes away.

In the new project, go to the Task Sheet view and select all.

  1. Press ctrl + v to paste.

I just did this yesterday with my Project Online schedule loaded with enterprise resources. It worked correctly.

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I have had a lot of problems in the past copying and pasting a block of tasks from one project into another. It has randomly messed up lots of the dates in the new plan. The only way I have been successful at this is copying all of the fields from the tasks I want except the date fields. As long as your predecessors are exactly the same from one project to the other, you should not have any issues. But I would recommend copying and pasting sections at a time and avoid copying and pasting any date fields–let MS project calculate the dates for you.

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  • 90% of the time the date discrepancies will be caused by different calendar settings (either in File > Options > Schedule, or Project ribbon > change working time. For this reason i only now use the default calendar settings even if these differ from the organisations working time.
    – rapscalli
    Jan 7, 2019 at 9:07
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If you have the projects tied together through a resource pool, I would not recommend copying and pasting tasks. You run the risk of duplicating assignments and corrupting both the pool file as well as the new master.

Does Project crash when you open the resource pool with the third option and consolidate all projects into a master? How are you attempting to create the master?

To answer your direct question about predecessors changing - collapse the summary task and copy the entire summary task. When you paste - the relationships should stay as they were originally set.

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