Relationships may be created between two projects when:
- Two or more projects are opened together, or
- When assigning a relationship another project is opened and a relationship is created to an activity in another project.
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Check the Ignore relationships to and from other projects in the Tools, Schedule…, Options form to:
- Ignore relationships with other projects that are currently not open, or
- To ignore External Dates that may be created when a P6 project is imported from another database and the imported project has interproject relationships.
Thus:
- This option will NOT ignore relationships with other projects that are open.
- It will ignore External Dates, which are the External Early Start and External Late Finish External Dates are constraints created when a project is exported from another P6 database and imported into P6. They act like Early Start and Late Finish Constraints and are used to represent the relationships that would have originally provided the Early Start and Late Finish dates to the Critical Path calculations of the imported schedule.
These dates can be very confusing if one is not aware that they have been created or how they operate. The negative float in the picture below is created by these dates after an activity’s duration was increased by 34 days:
When you import a project from another database ensure you ALWAYS check for External Dates and understand how they operate.
If you export and then import a project back into the same database, then External Dates are not normally created but the relationships are re-established with the original schedule they were linked with.
Primavera Version 20 introduced a new command titles Maintain Relationships with External Projects which also affects how External Dates are treated, ensure you understand how this option works when importing a project that was exported and had External Relationships before exporting.
On the other hand, if the original schedules have been deleted then these External Dates may be created.
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Paul E Harris
Director Eastwood Harris Pty Ltd
5 July 2024